Texas Railroad History - Tower 131 - Terrell

A Crossing of the Texas Midland Railroad and the Texas & Pacific Railway

Left: DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University provides this image of the Terrell Union Depot taken February, 1961. The photographer, Everett L. DeGolyer, Jr., is on or near the former Texas Midland (TM) right-of-way immediately south of where it crossed the Texas & Pacific (T&P) tracks visible in the foreground. The interlocker installed as Tower 131 was controlled from inside the depot, presumably in the near corner facing the crossing. Three years before this photo was taken, Tower 131 was decommissioned when the Texas Midland tracks through Terrell were abandoned. Below: This photo of Terrell Union Depot comes from a 1908 vintage postcard. Offset printing presses became commercially available c.1905, leading to an explosion of mass-produced, photo postcards retouched or colorized by hand before being sent to the presses. In those days, the station was adorned with a "witches hat" roof above the corner of the station. Whether it was due to a tornado or wind storm, replacement of a leaky roof or perhaps simply a change in the architectural preferences of the day, the date and reason for the revised roofline has not been determined.

In the postcard photo at right, note the gate lined against one of the two east / west T&P tracks in front of the station. There is a gate post visible left of center, presumably to line the gate against the Texas Midland. Though it could not be lined simultaneously against both T&P tracks, its position would be observable by T&P engineers on either track. Trains were allowed to approach a gated crossing at restricted speed, i.e. slow enough that the engineer could come to a full stop short of the diamond if he observed the gate lined against his train. Trains here would be slowing anyway nearing the depot. The crossing was gated until January, 1927 when the Tower 131 electric interlocker was installed. Below: undated (post-1905) colorized picture postcard of the west side of Union Depot showing a westbound Texas & Pacific train at the station

The Texas & Pacific (T&P) Railway was chartered by Congress in 1871 with instructions to build a transcontinental railroad from Marshall, Texas to San Diego, California. Turning that command into reality required financing, compliance with Texas' railroad laws, and solving an assortment of complicated issues related to two predecessor railroads that had mostly been destroyed by the Civil War. The interplay of state and Federal charters, land grants given and revoked, and a host of other financial and practical issues produces a complex history of the founding of the T&P. Noted railroad historian S. G. Reed in A History of the Texas Railroads (St. Clair Publishing, 1941) spends seven pages just getting to the beginning of the construction of two parallel lines and one connector that comprised the early T&P. The parallel lines were the Northern Division from Texarkana to Sherman and the Southern Division from Marshall to Dallas; the connector ran from Texarkana through Jefferson to Marshall. In August, 1873, Dallas celebrated the arrival of the first T&P train from Marshall. The T&P would continue west, but would only build as far as the new settlement of Sierra Blanca in west Texas from which it used Southern Pacific (SP) tracks to reach El Paso, its final western terminus.

Far Left: The westward construction of the southern division in 1873 had begun at Longview; the T&P had acquired and rehabilitated existing tracks from Marshall. Soon thereafter, the T&P had also begun building east from Dallas, and by the latter part of June, the new town of Terrell had been founded. On Tuesday, June 24, 1873, a private excursion was held to show off the current state of construction to local media and politicians. That same day, this ad first appeared announcing train schedules between Dallas and Terrell. The "Texas Central" reference is for the "Houston & Texas Central" at Dallas, not the Texas Central that would build through Terrell in 1882. Left: Setting a train schedule to Terrell was in preparation for a major town lot auction planned there for Monday, June 30. (both items, Dallas Weekly Herald, June 28, 1873)

Terrell was named by the T&P for Robert A. Terrell, a farmer who donated acreage to the railroad in exchange for a depot. The railroad would need a water stop in this vicinity, and as the Clarksville Standard of March 22, 1873 mentions, an artesian well was located near the depot at Terrell's farm where "...the water rises within a few inches of the surface.", always a good sign for steam railroads. A town lot sale was held on June 30, 1873 to jumpstart the settlement. The completion of the T&P rail line through Terrell gave citizens access to St. Louis and the Midwest via Texarkana, and to Houston and Galveston via connection in downtown Dallas with the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) Railroad. Terrell was not the county seat, but it grew at a steady pace with much of its commerce driven by cotton farming. Some area farmers began growing wheat instead of cotton because it was easier to cultivate and harvest. The railroad provided access to larger markets at Dallas and Shreveport, adding to the economy. By 1882, Terrell residents could catch a T&P train at the local depot and travel to El Paso with connections to Los Angeles.

The second railroad through Terrell arrived in 1882 when the Texas Central (TC) Railroad built the initial 38 miles of its "northeast branch" from Garrett to Terrell. Garrett was a junction a few miles north of Ennis on the main line of the H&TC which ran between Houston and Denison. The TC had been chartered in 1879 by H&TC's owners/investors as they sought to isolate the financial impact of building two major H&TC branch lines. The other was the TC's "northwest branch", which actually began at Bremond on the H&TC main line but the first 55 miles through Waco to Ross were owned by an H&TC subsidiary, the Waco & Northwestern (W&NW). Ostensibly heading for the Texas Panhandle, the TC had extended the northwest branch 178 miles from Ross to Albany in 1879-1881, crossing the Brazos River, a major undertaking, near Morgan. No further construction was done on the northwest branch, but the northeast branch was extended fourteen miles north from Terrell to Roberts, remaining nineteen miles shy of Greenville. This was likely when the TM tracks first crossed over the T&P near downtown Terrell, but when did it happen? The generally accepted source says 1884, but newspapers indicate an earlier date.

Left: The Brenham Daily Banner of August 19, 1882 reported the tracks reaching Terrell, imprecisely using "Houston and Texas Central" instead of "Texas Central". The legal separation was for convenience, the ownership was virtually the same, and it arguably was a "northeastern extension of the Houston and Texas Central Railway". This date sets a floor for how early the tracks were laid to Roberts. Notably, Roberts was on land purchased by the TC on October 26, 1882 from Governor Oran M. Roberts (who would leave office three months later.) A 1981 book by Charles Zlatkovich asserts 1884 as the year the extension was built, and this timeframe has been echoed in other histories...

...but...Above: The Galveston Daily News of November 11, 1882 reported construction trains operating to Roberts, which suggests completion by early 1883. Quinlan, named for a Texas Midland Director, was later established as a new town 1.5 miles north of Roberts...which faded away.

The Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) did not exist until 1891. At the outset, it began requiring railroads to submit annual construction reports, and it attempted to go back to the beginning of railroad development in Texas to build a collection of such records. In so doing, it assigned 1884 as the year of construction from Terrell to Roberts, fourteen miles, as reported by Charles Zlatkovich in his book Texas Railroads: A Record of Construction and Abandonment (University of Texas, 1981.) The fact that construction trains could be observed departing northbound from Terrell in November, 1882 (which is certainly consistent with a late October land purchase) would lend credence to whatever source the Galveston Daily News used for its report. An article in the Greenville Banner of March 21, 1883 quoted by the Galveston Daily News of March 25 states explicitly that "Roberts is the present terminus of the northeast branch of the Houston & Texas Central railroad." The extension to Roberts appears to have been in place by early 1883 at the latest.

The Depression of 1882-1885 hit railroads particularly hard, resulting in the H&TC entering receivership in February, 1885. This was followed quickly by receivership for the TC on April 4th. In April, 1890, the H&TC was reorganized and sold back to SP (which had acquired it in 1883), but the W&NW branch (Bremond to Ross) was not part of the sale. A year later, the TC was sold to a committee of bondholders who chartered a new TC to operate the northwest branch. Wealthy Wall St. investor Hetty Green, a major bondholder of both TC and H&TC bonds, negotiated to relinquish her substantial interest in the northwest branch in exchange for title to the northeast branch. She sent her son, Edward H. R. "Ned" Green, to manage her interests. He arrived in Terrell in early 1892 and chartered the Texas Midland (TM) Railroad to operate and extend the northeast branch. Due to the complexity of the transaction and the approval required by the Bankruptcy Court, the title transfer did not occur until 1893. Meanwhile, Green plotted to win the auction for the W&NW which was to be put up for sale on the courthouse steps in Waco in late 1892. Green won it with a high bid of $1.365 million, planning to consolidate the TM and the W&NW into a new Texas railroad. Unfortunately for Green, the terms of the sale were challenged successfully in court and the auction was set aside. After a lengthy court battle, Green gave up and did not participate in the subsequent W&NW auction, which was won by SP. Left: The northeast branch of the Texas Central became officially owned by the Texas Midland on February 25, 1893, as announced by the Galveston Daily News of February 28, 1893.

Left: A profile of E. H. R. Green in the El Paso International Daily Times of May 30, 1891 (nearly a year before Green arrived in Texas) described him as a savvy businessman who had already amassed a personal net worth of $10 million despite being only 24 years old. Green lived in Terrell where his railroad was headquartered. He became notorious for bringing the first automobile to Texas, which he drove to Dallas periodically to visit his girlfriend (she could not live in Terrell due to her unsavory past.) Green carried his large frame (6'4", ~ 275 lbs.) on an artificial leg resulting from a serious accident in 1887. True or not, the story is that his wealthy but famously tight-fisted mother tried to get him treated for free at a charity hospital in New York. Discovering she would have to pay, she asked the price to have the leg treated. $450. What was the price to have it amputated? $50. Perhaps Green's most significant undertaking was his concern that Texas' cotton crop was doomed unless the boll weevil could be eradicated. Hauling cotton was the lifeblood of his railroad, so Green financially supported experimental cotton farms near Terrell to test cotton hybrids and new methods of cultivation. This ultimately led to success in the fight against the boll weevil and became the impetus for the establishment of the County Extension Service across Texas managed through Texas A&M University. When the experiments were concluded, Green demonstrated his business savvy by converting one farm into a flower nursery. He was soon selling $100,000 in flowers each year. Right: Although Green never served on the Governor's security detail, he was awarded the honorary title of Colonel by his friend, Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt, having actively supported Colquitt for the 1910 election. Apparently, however, Green had been known as Colonel, at least around Terrell, from as soon as he arrived nearly twenty years earlier, as evidenced by a story in the Forney Tribune of September 21, 1892 quoting the Terrell Times.

Forney Tribune, September 21, 1892

Left: The Railway Journal of April, 1901 reported that an experimental laboratory was being built by Green at Terrell for the development of railroad devices of his own design. Whether anything valuable was ever produced by the lab is undetermined.

Under Green's leadership, the TM immediately established a connection with the H&TC at Ennis, site of a major SP station, rather than Garrett which was simply a railroad junction. This involved building four miles south from TM's existing line, the connecting point being two miles east of Garrett (at 32 22 44, -96 37 42; the leftover two miles of track into Garrett was abandoned in 1907.) Green followed up by building nineteen miles of track from Roberts to Greenville; the first train arrived in Greenville on August 25, 1894. The town was already served by the St. Louis Southwestern ("Cotton Belt") and Missouri, Kansas & Texas ("Katy") railroads, which would be potential interchange partners for traffic destined to Houston / Galveston via Ennis, bypassing congestion in Dallas. Green was only 27 years old and he began relying on the advice of B. F. Yoakum, a 36-year old rising star among Texas railroad executives who was in the process of becoming the General Manager of the St. Louis - San Francisco ("Frisco") Railway, a major Midwest railroad. Yoakum advised Green to build to Paris, so Green procured rights to use the Cotton Belt tracks between Greenville and Commerce. From Commerce, Green built 37 miles north to Paris, arriving in 1896. Yoakum's advice proved both prescient and self-serving; the TM's tracks provided an efficient connection between the Frisco at Paris and the H&TC at Ennis for traffic to south Texas. Soon, the Frisco, the H&TC and the TM combined to run first class Lone Star Limited passenger service between St. Louis and Houston, with the Ennis - Paris segment operated by the TM. Right: In November, 1921, the TM dropped its rights on the Cotton Belt and began operating on its own 14-mile line between Greenville and Commerce. The impetus for this track segment is undetermined, but Green had been pondering it for many years. TM accounting records report a preliminary survey (valued at $444.25!) had been completed prior to 1914. The new line was no shorter since it paralleled the Cotton Belt for the entire distance, thus the cost of trackage rights and/or congestion delays was presumably the principal motivation. Parallel lines of this nature were generally frowned upon by RCT, but this segment was encompassed within the route approved in TM's charter, hence no additional authority was needed. This newspaper article goes on to list a new "time card" for the four daily trains through Cooper (between Commerce and Paris) but does not state whether the schedule change was a direct result of the new track. (Cooper Review, November 18, 1921) Starting around 1910, Ned Green began spending much of his time in New York helping his mother with her complex business affairs and assisting in managing her estate. She was 76 years old at the time, and she died in 1916 at age 81. Ned Green inherited half of his mother's estate (the other half went to his sister), and he was finally able to marry his longtime girlfriend who was still living in Dallas (his mother opposed the marriage, hence Green waited, lest he jeopardize his massive inheritance.) Green continued to own and operate the Texas Midland until 1928 when he sold it to SP.

Left: San Bernardino County Sun, November 14, 1937

Many newspapers carried stories about the drama over the resolution of Col. Green's estate. Upon his death at Lake Placid, New York in 1936, six governments and two individuals squared off in court. The two individuals were his wife, Mabel Green (right side of the image), and his sister, Mrs. Matthew Wilks, both wanting to inherit the bulk of the estate. The Federal government and the states of New York, Vermont, Massachusetts, Florida and Texas were fighting over taxes on the inheritance based on residency claims.

Green's estate was large from his own endeavors, but it became immense when he inherited half of the estate of his mother, Hetty (center of the image.) It had reached an estimated $70 million by the time of his death (worth $1.55 billion in 2023 dollars.) Mabel had signed a prenuptial agreement at the time of their marriage, hence her claim was limited unless Texas (which did not recognize such agreements) won the lawsuit. She eventually settled for $500,000.

The six governments fought over inheritance taxes in a Texas courtroom, but eventually ended up before the U. S. Supreme Court. The Court appointed a Special Master to hear the evidence in The State of Texas v. Florida, et. al. In 1939, Massachusetts was declared the winner.

Right: These disconnected excerpts are taken from a lengthy article about the Texas Midland in the June 1, 1895 issue of the Greenville Banner. Green had been on the job only a couple of years and had little practical knowhow in railroading, yet he brought numerous innovations to Texas, starting with two beds built north of Kaufman in which to produce burnt ballast. Its hardness and water absorption properties improved the roadbeds through the "black gumbo" soil in east Texas for faster and smoother passenger travel. Green was the first in Texas to employ dynamos on the smoke stacks of locomotives to produce electrical power for the train's headlights and to light its passenger cars. To improve freight handling and reliability, Green began using steel boxcars rather than wooden ones.

The Frisco connection at Paris and the H&TC connection at Ennis combined to provide the TM with reliable passenger traffic between the Midwest and south Texas. With the T&P operating substantial passenger business on their east/west line, it made sense to construct a union station in Terrell to serve both railroads (RCT had the power to order railroads to build union depots; it eventually would have done so for Terrell.) Terrell Union Depot opened in the northwest quadrant of the diamond in 1901. That same year, RCT was given state law authority to regulate safety where two or more railroads crossed at grade (RCT also had jurisdiction over grade-separated crossings but found little need for regulations.) RCT immediately mandated swing gates at all such grade crossings and it began to issue orders to install interlockers at specific crossings that it deemed high priority. The crossing at Terrell was not one of them because trains were not approaching the diamond at track speed. The Union Depot and the freight depots for both railroads were located near the diamond, hence all trains were slowing anyway as they approached the crossing and most were stopping at one of the depots.

State law required all trains to stop completely before crossing another railroad's track at grade. While this was the ultimate safety solution, it was wasteful of time and fuel. The purpose of the 1901 law was to regulate safety while also improving the economics of railroading by reducing delays and fuel consumption that resulted when a train was forced to stop unnecessarily. Mechanical interlocking plants had been developed to work with signal systems and derail devices to require trains to stop at crossings only when actually necessary to preclude collision. As the range of locomotives increased, the frequency of trains having no need to stop at Terrell also increased, hence the crossing was interlocked on January 19, 1927 when Tower 131 was commissioned by RCT. It was a 13-function electric interlocking plant with the switchboard located inside Union Depot. On September 7, 1942, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) granted T&P's request to decommission the derails at Tower 131. Left: Railway Age, August 7, 1926.

Left: This track board for Tower 131 was discovered by Myron Malone during a visit to the Cotton Belt Depot Museum in Tyler. It was among an assortment of items in a storage area awaiting opportunity for display at the museum. Magnification of the lower right corner appears to reveal a date of December 14, 1926, about one month prior to the interlocker becoming operational.

The diagram shows four signals on the T&P tracks numbered 3 through 6, and two switches on the TM tracks numbered 10 and 11. The numeral 8 is detectable under magnification across from the 10 switch, and 9 appears across from the 11 switch. These numbers presumably correspond to interlocker control buttons on the switchboard (it was an electric interlocker, hence there were no levers for manual operation.) 'T2' and 'T5' labels appear beside the holes in the T&P tracks immediately east of the diamonds. The holes, of which there are seven total, presumably held light bulbs used as status indicators for specific interlocker functions.

Above Left: This brick T&P freight depot was erected in 1911. The view is of the northeast corner; the T&P main line tracks were north of the depot to the right, and one track owned by Union Pacific remains operational. According to the 1928 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Terrell, the TM had spur tracks on the south side of the T&P depot that led to businesses and a "coal and wood yard" farther west. The depot closed in 1977 and has been preserved, although its current use is undetermined. There is a paved parking lot on the west side. (Wikimedia Commons photo).

Above Right: This view of the east side of the T&P freight depot is taken from S. Virginia St. Before the rerouting of Hwy 34, S. Virginia carried the highway with a grade crossing at the T&P track to the right. (Google Street View, October 2023)

Below: These two recent views of the abandoned TM freight depot in Terrell show that it now sits in the shadows of the Hwy 34 overpass which is immediately east of the building, occupying the former TM right-of-way. This depot was also used as a passenger facility for the Texas Interurban Railway which began serving Terrell on January 14, 1923. Entering Terrell from the west, the interurban line was south of the T&P tracks and remained so all the way to the TM depot. Using Union Depot as the Interurban station would have required crossing at grade to the north side of the T&P tracks. The 1921 Sanborn map of Terrell labels this building "T. M. R. R. Offices & Freight Ho." The 1928 map changes it to "Interurban Station" even though it was still in use as a railroad freight depot. By the time of the 1949 update to the Sanborn Map, it had been relabeled "Magnolia Petroleum Co.", predecessor to Mobil Oil, even though the TM tracks through Terrell were still operational until 1958. As recently as the early 2000s, signs from decommissioned Mobil gas stations were being stored outside of the building. (photos courtesy waymarking.com)

 
Above Left: The 1897 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Terrell shows that prior to the construction of Union Depot, TM's combination passenger and freight depot was located trackside at Grove St., the same location at which the brick TM freight depot resides today. The '2' and '1' marks within the building's outline indicate that the depot was split, with a longer 2-story section assigned to freight and offices, and a shorter 1-story section assigned to passenger service. The map depicts a large platform on the west side of the depot. Since the streets were not paved, this provided a means for passengers to arrive and depart without immediately traipsing through the mud often present from frequent east Texas rains. Above Right: This photo (hat tip Chino Chapa) from the library of Texas A&M University - Commerce faces the east side of the depot, showing the freight/passenger split. The larger Sanborn map suggests that the structure partly visible in the background along the right edge of the image is the 2-story Central Hotel a block north and west of the depot.

Although the 1928 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Terrell labeled the TM freight depot as "Interurban Station", the map does not show interurban tracks anywhere in Terrell. This is unusual because the tracks had been in place for five years by then and interurban tracks regularly appear on Sanborn maps of other towns. While the precise route through Terrell remains subject to further research, it is well-established that the interurban remained south of the T&P tracks through town and that the Texas Midland freight depot served as the passenger station.

Left: This excerpt from a larger 1925 advertisement for the Texas Interurban Railway explains the service to and from Paris and intermediate points that the Texas Midland offered for Interurban passengers at Terrell. The ad generically uses "at Terrell", "in Terrell" and "direct connection", finessing the question of whether connecting passengers had to walk ~ 250 yards of city streets between the TM freight depot and Union Depot to transfer. (Portal to Texas History, University of North Texas)

In 1928, about a year after the Tower 131 interlocker was installed, Green sold his railroad to SP, which merged it into the Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) Railroad. T&NO had been selected to become SP's primary operating entity for all of its Texas and Louisiana railroads, a merger process that was completed in 1934. The merger did not include the Cotton Belt of which SP had gained control in 1933. SP promptly abandoned the TM line between Greenville and Commerce in favor of the Cotton Belt tracks (which the TM had used until 1921.) Much of Texas Highway 224 sits atop the abandoned TM right-of-way (the Cotton Belt tracks are still intact, owned by the Northeast Texas Rural Rail Transportation District.) The remainder of the TM line was abandoned in phases beginning with the tracks from Ennis to Kaufman in 1942, followed by the segment from Kaufman to Greenville in 1958. The former TM tracks between Commerce and Paris survived until abandonment by SP in 1975.

Since the early 1930s, Missouri Pacific (MP) had owned a controlling interest in T&P stock, but had never exercised operational control. For decades, the two railroads had worked closely and cooperatively, and in 1976, MP fully merged it, retiring the T&P's operational name. MP was acquired by Union Pacific (UP) in 1982 and the MP name was dropped operationally in 1997. UP's route through Terrell continues to see extensive traffic.

Above Left: The precise date when Texas Highway 34 was built between Terrell and Greenville is undetermined, but several sections of the highway were located east of and directly beside the TM tracks (which may have been owned by T&NO by the time the highway was built.) These sections were mostly north of its intersection with County Road 319 (2.5 miles north of Terrell.) Subsequently rebuilt and widened, the highway now sits atop the TM right-of-way in several places en route to Greenville. In 2012, Highway 34 was re-routed in Terrell to follow the TM right-of-way (blue) from the Airport Rd. intersection to where it rejoined the original highway (green) near the County Road 319 intersection. This map is taken from the minutes of a Texas Dept. of Transportation meeting held February 28, 2013 at which the re-designation of the new roadway officially as Texas Highway 34 was approved. The map does not mark UP's line through Terrell, generally a block south of U.S. Hwy 80. Above Right: This annotated Google Maps satellite image shows a portion of the 0.4 miles of new Highway 34 roadway that is elevated over UP's tracks, placing the TM depot and the site of Union Depot in the shadow of the bridge. UP operates an industrial spur to the south to serve a polyurethane foam manufacturer, traversing land that was formerly occupied by TM yards and maintenance shops. Sanborn Maps show that TM had a turntable and roundhouse in this area. It was approximately 300 yds. south of the depot on the east side of the main track, about where an extension of Newton St. would intersect the tracks. Historic aerial imagery from 1956 shows that it had been dismantled by then, leaving no trace.

Below: In 1975, this railcar was acquired by the Terrell Heritage Society from a private owner and relocated to a city park. It was reportedly built by Pullman in 1890 and appears to have been transferred to TM ownership when the TC northeast branch was acquired. Early on, there was speculation (but apparently no conclusive evidence) that it had at one time been Col. Green's private railcar. When the T&NO acquired it as part of the 1928 TM acquisition, it was converted to quarters for maintenance-of-way employees working between Ennis and Paris. (Google Street View, December 2022)
              

 
Last Revised: 11/28/2023 - Contact the Texas Interlocking Towers Page.