The Texas Southern Railway (1897-1908)
On March 12, 1897, a new company was organized and chartered as the Texas Southern Railway Company. The principal office was in Marshall, Texas. The charter granted to it by the laws of the state of Texas gave the railroad the power to build a line of railway from Paris in Lamar County to Marshall in Harrison County in a southeasterly direction to the Sabine Pass in Jefferson County, Texas.
D.H. Scott of Paris was president, E.J. Fry of Marshall was vice president, C.C. Cobb, Jr. was secretary, and stockholders were: E. Key, W.C. Pierce, W.M. Robertson of Marshall, and John Martin of Paris.
When the Texas Southern took over, the road was operating from Marshall to Montvale Springs, carrying passengers and freight for hire. They decided to connect Marshall to Winnsboro. Under the guiding hand of Superintendent George I. Walker, the road was put through by connecting a series of tram roads that had already served their purposes.
The Hope Lumber tram from Montvale Springs to Harleton and the Pine Ridge Lumber Company from Pine Ridge to Starrs, added an additional seven and one-half miles to the fifteen and one-half miles acquired when the Texas Southern bought the Paris, Marshall and Sabine Pass in 1897. This brought their total trackage to twenty-three miles.
In 1901, the Texas Southern bought the Ragley Lumber Company tram from Winnsboro to Rhonesboro, and the Commercial Lumber Company tram from Gilmer to Ashland. This was an additional thirty-one and a half miles.
Some of the line had to be constructed by the railroad. Land owners gave unselfishly. An aunt and her family gave a section of land for a right-of-way between Harleton and Ashland in 1901.
With the construction of sixteen and one-half miles of track between Gilmer and Rhonesboro, the created an unbroken line of rail from Marshall to Winnsboro.
An extra gang of twenty-five men and one hundred teams were sent in to grade and straighten curves and realign tracks were needed. This made the road more suitable for common carrier service.
My father, John M. Wells was sent out by Receiver S.P. Jones as timekeeper for one of these gangs. They were camped on Kelsey Creek, between Kelsey and Rhonesboro. He began his railroad career at the age of seventeen.
Kelsey is a small Morman Community located seven miles west of Gilmer on Highway 154. In the early 1900’s, there were ninety sawmills in Upshur County. The Texas Southern believed there was a genuine need for a railroad through this area to transport timber. They acquired a right-of-way through Kelsey. During the next seven years, Kelsey doubled in size, most of the residents arriving on the railroad.
The businesses of nearby Shady Grove moved to the booming lumber center of Rhonesboro causing the decline of Shady Grove. The Upsher communities of Double Springs and Essex were merged into Rosewood when the railroad first came through.
Rhonesboro is located about twelve miles west of Gilmer on Highway 154. The town was founded in 1902. When the railroad approached the mill of William Rhone, the officials named the resultant community, Rhonesboro.
The mill of William Rhone was the only sawmill in operation until 1901. Then the railroad came through, it created a town which grew to have fifteen sawmills, ten stores, two churches, a school, hotel, bank, and a cotton yard.
In 1901, the first train to run over the Texas Southern from Gilmer to Marshall was loaded with lumber. The first train to run over the road from Marshall to Gilmer was a carload of groceries shipped by a local wholesale grocer.
The next year, on June 15, 1902, the first passenger train made a roundtrip from Marshall to Winnsboro. L.E. Walker was president of the line. That same year, the Texas Southern decided to build a new depot and machine shop one-half mile south of the courthouse of the City of Marshall. The route crossed the Texas and Pacific tracks at High Bridge Avenue.
While the Texas Southern was making big strides in connecting Harleton and Gilmer to Winnsboro, the citizens of Marshall met and decided on a right-of-way one hundred feet wide from the twenty-seven acre tract of land upon which the depot and machine shop of the Texas Southern was located.
This railroad was to be called the Gulf, Texas and Northern Railway Company. It was to be built from Marshall to the Gulf via Carthage. They obtained deeds and titles to a right-of-way that went in a northeast direction through the city to a point one-half mile east of the Texas and Pacific passenger depot. The was for a connection with the T.& P. Railway.
These connections or interchanges were important. Such junctions provided the railroad with large amounts of tonnage. All railroads in this report had connected with the Texas and Pacific in Marshall: the Marshall and Northwestern, the Texas Southern, the Marshall and East Texas, and the Marshall, Elysian Fields and Southeastern,
The M.&E.T. connected with the Point Bolivar and Iron Ore Railway (P.B.& I.O.) in James, Texas. The St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt) was our junction in Gilmer, and the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad in Winnsboro (Later Louisiana and Arkansas Railway and now the Kansas City Southern Railway).
When grading was made to the T.&P., the surveying and grading continued southeast across the Shreveport Road, now Highways 80 and 59. It went parallel to East End Blvd. and then Five Notch Road.
It went southeast to the Davenport Crossing about six miles from Marshall, then south across the old Shreveport and Mineola wagon train road. It was stopped when at least two landowners obtained injunctions against the railroad to keep them from crossing their property. The project died.
The City Council of Marshall became a trustee of the deeds and titles of the right-of-way. In September 1902, a deed was made to the Texas Southern from the property of the Gulf, Texas and Northern Railway Co, running from the eastern portion of the City of Marshall in a southeasterly direction and partially constructed about fifteen miles.
In November and December of 1906, the sheriff of Harrison County, G.W. Munden, by order of the courts, conducted a sheriff’s sale before the courthouse. He sold for cash, the Gulf, Texas and Northern Railway, its tracks, roadbed, and all its chartered rights to satisfy several judgments against the railroad.
The Texas Southern had been given the deeds and titles to this property by citizens of Marshall. They tried to stop the sale, but could not.
The citizens of Marshall have always been conscious of the benefits that can be derived from railroads. If all their efforts in that direction had been successful, they would have had so many railroads, they would not have known what to do with them. At least fourteen railroads have had the City of Marshall and their headquarters.
S.P. Jones had been appointed Receiver of all the property of the Texas Southern on July 11, 1904. He acted as Receiver until October 1906 when C.L. Taylor succeeded him.
Through all the troubles of receivership, court trials and disastrous wrecks, the railroad carried on business as usual. Rolling stock was purchased, tracks maintained, and freight and passengers carried for hire.
In 1893, the Lancaster Brothers Lumber Company was destroyed by fire. In 1894, it was rebuilt under new management and emerged as the Pine Ridge Lumber Company. As they were having to go a longer distance for logs, they bought a new 2-6-0 rod engine weighing about 20 tons. As the haul got longer they bought a 45 ton 2-8-0 Mountain Jack.
My grandfather, James Richard, “Jim” Wells had been fireman on the little shay in 1890 and in 1903 and 1904 he was engineer on the 45 ton “Big Jack”. He went out one rainy morning. The man at the shop had failed to provide dry sand to sand the rails and as the train had no air brakes, the only way it could be controlled downgrade was to reverse the engine.
He had no trouble going out with the empty cars but when he came back with the loads, the track was slick and the wheels couldn’t hold. When he came over the hill more than a mile from the crossing with the Texas Southern, the harder he tried to hold it back, the faster it would go.
When he decided it was completely out of control, he started blowing the whistle.
A freight train on the Texas Southern had stopped at the depot. When the conductor heard the whistle, he told the engineer that he had better move the train. He said, “Wells is in trouble.” There were several cars back over the crossing and just as they began to move, “Big Jack” hit right in the middle of a boxcar loaded with cotton seed, cutting it in half, and went across and and down between the tracks where it bogged down in the soft dirt. A piece of the cab was ripped off and struck my grandfather on the shoulder making it sore for a few days. That was the only injury,
When George W. Gray, the general manager came down to see what had happened, my grandfather told him to get another man to take his place. Mr. Gray asked him to stay on until he could get a replacement. After a few weeks, a man named Spaulding, took the job as engineer on the “Big Jack” tram locomotive.
Montvale Springs had been the railhead of the railroad from 1884, until 1892. It had nothing to boast of but a mineral spring and combination saloon, night club, and grocery store. Questionable characters drank, gambled, and carried on in such a way it caused consternation in the neighborhood. In 1904, it was voted out and closed down.
From about 1902 to 1904, the railroad was doing well. It was doing just as good a job as the larger railroads. Five good locomotives had been purchased. This made a total of eleven locomotives in service. One hundred and twenty-five freight cars had been purchased and that brought the total to two hundred twenty-five cars.
When the first of the five engines had been received, #27 was taken out of regular service and used only occasionally in the yards. One day when another engine had been disabled out on the line, Engineer “Lou Loyd” was sent out with Old #27 to tow it to the shops.
Loyd was upset because it was known that the wheels of the old engine were a bit out of line which gave it the tendency to climb the rails. He was backing out of Marshall and about three miles out, while going down what was known as Mason Hill, it derailed and went end over killing Loyd instantly.
Malcom Brownrigg was fatally injured in the wreck. That was the end of #27 which had at one time carried the number one.
In 1905, when the Pine Ridge Lumber Company ceased operations, Mr. Spaulding (who was an engineer on their tram road) went to work for the Texas Southern. The railroad was doing a good business and would sometimes have as many as three freight trains out on the road at one time. The passenger train was making daily round trips.
One day when Spaulding was making a return trip from Gilmer, he was pulling a freight train over a bridge that had been damaged by excessive rains. It collapsed and the engine and tender folded up at the bottom, killing Spaulding and his fireman, Lomaneck, immediately.
The Texas Southern was owner of the right-of-way 100 feet wide along the line of the railroad from Marshall to Winnsboro, together with all their improvements, buildings, superstructures, ties, bridges, rails, and viaducts.
They also owned franchises through the counties of Lamar, Delta, Hopkins, Franklin, Camp, Wood, Upsher, Gregg, Harrison, Panola, Shelby, San Augustine, Sabine, Jasper, Newton, Orange, and Jefferson.
They owned terminal properties and facilities in the towns of Winnsboro, Gilmer, Harleton, and Marshall, including car houses, engine houses, shops, warehouses, station houses, water stations, depots, and grounds.
A route to the Gulf had long been talked about by our railroad. The intention was evident from the time it was named the Paris, Marshall and Sabine Pass in 1888. These franchises reflect the railroad had been working toward that goal. A rail route to Beaumont and to the Sabine Pass in Jefferson County, Texas would mean a large tonnage of timber for the road. It was estimated that this lumber traffic alone would make the railroad a paying proposition from the very start.
It would not be. Many incidents happened during this time on the Texas Southern, as wreck, strikes, and a great many in law suits, because of these wrecks. When the road could not be able to pay, it went into receivership in 1904 and lasted until August 1908 when the Marshall and East Texas was chartered to take over.
On August 10, 1908, the Texas Southern Railway Company was sold to the St. Louis Trust Co. for $286,000. Commissioner Phil M. Young made the sale a public auction. Mr. Young had a very difficult job. He was acting as Receiver for the Texas Southern. He was instructed by the court to pay in full from any funds he had left from the sale of the railroad to those plaintiffs who had won their suits against the road. Thirty-four firms and business men, including twenty-three railroads were only a few of the claims filed against the Texas Southern.
The District Court of Harrison County, Texas ordered the disposing of the receivership of the Texas Southern on March 2, 1911. It had been mired in lawsuits for three years after being sold.
