DISCLAIMER. I take no credit for the story written below. This was written by Eleanor R. (Wells) Briggs. The photos are also not mine but are in my collection. The map included was partially based of the one that Everett Lueck sent to me. I know this railroad is certainly not that interesting, but it is history that deserves to be remembered. It also had a little narrow gauge in it, so I hope that it’ll fit right in here. Enjoy the memories of the past.
Introduction:
My father, John Monroe Wells, wrote his memoirs so that his children and grandchildren would know something of the past as he had known it. A portion of this report comes from these memoirs.
In 1973, at the age of eighty-four, he wrote, “Interest in the history of Marshall, Harrison County and East Texas is running high. Citizens and historical societies are working to get all evidence possible of incidents and circumstances that went into the opening up of wild and near primitive parts of the area to a more progressive and sophisticated way of life.”
One of the most interesting histories is the era of the Marshall and East Texas Railway Company, its predecessors and successor. This is not just a history of a railroad, but of the people who made a dream a reality, the colorful cast of characters who made this era exciting.
From 1882, when the Marshall and Northwestern started out from Marshall, Texas, up until about 1939, when the Marshall, Elysian Fields and Southeastern threw in the towel and quit fighting, it had a hectic existence. It had alternating periods of success and failure and operated under a receiver much of the time.
My father tells us in his memoirs that many records were lost when the M.&.E.T. depot/office burned. Also many documents were destroyed when the Harrison County Courthouse burned in 1899. Even so, much information can be gathered from many existing sources:
#1. “Reminiscence of a Pineywoods Hillbilly”, The Memoirs of John Monroe Wells.
#2. “A History of Texas Railroads,” S. G. Reed.
#3. Microfilm Records of the Marshall News Messenger.
#4. District Court Records from the Harrison County, Texas Courthouse.
#5. “Texas Railroads, A History of Construction and Abandonment”, Charles P. Zlatkovich.
#6. Railroad Commision of Texas, courtesy Ed Kasparik
#7. Notes from the files of R. B. Bennett, Harrison County Museum Library.
#8. Personal interviews with those people who remember parts of the railroad’s
history and those who allowed me to use information to use from their personal
files
Lineage of the Marshall and East Texas Railway Company:
#1. Marshall and Northwestern Railway Company
Marshall and Northwestern- March 29, 1882
Marshall, Jefferson and Northwestern- January 8, 1883
Marshall and Northwestern- June 28, 1883
Marshall, Paris and Northwestern- November 18, 1885
#2. Texas Southern- March 12, 1897 - August 12, 1908
#3. Marshall and East Texas Railway Company- August 17, 1908 - August 28, 1922
#4. Marshall, Elysian Fields and Southeastern Railway Co.- August 28, 1922 - September, 1939.
Copyright February 4, 1994.
