The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953 Page: 491
641 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Origins of the Texas and Pacific Railway
tions based upon the survey made under the act of 1853. Of five
routes examined, he favored the one along the thirty-second
parallel.4 National plans were abandoned because of the Civil
War, but the projected route was destined after 1871 to become
that of the Texas and Pacific Railroad.
In the meantime, the initial phases in the existence of the
Texas and Pacific were being shaped by sectional events. As
early as 1850, the Texas Legislature adopted a resolution pro-
viding that aid should be extended to a national railroad.5 Dur-
ing the year 1852 several companies were chartered by the legis-
lature to construct railroads from the eastern boundary of the
state to the Rio Grande. Among these was the Texas Western,
known also as the Vicksburg and El Paso, chartered on February
16 of that year.6 The Texas and Pacific traces its origin to this
company which by charter amendment in 1856, achieved over
the veto of Governor E. M. Pease, was renamed Southern Pacific
Railroad Company (the short-lived organization had no relation
to the present-day Southern Pacific).' After the Texas and Pacific
was incorporated by an act of Congress in 1871, the Texas Legis-
lature, in 1872, authorized the company to purchase the South-
ern Pacific Railroad Company and the Southern Transcontinental
Railroad Company, which in turn had acquired the Memphis,
El Paso, and Pacific Railroad Company, chartered on February
7, 1853-
The incorporators of the Texas Western were Rufus Doane,
Lucius C. Calpton, James C. Hill, William T. Scott, Willis
Stewart, Sam Bogart, E. E. Lott, L. B. Camp, James W. Throck-
morton, and J. D. Todd.8 The acts of incorporation for the early
railroads in Texas provided for a passenger rate of five cents
per mile, while the freight rate was fifty cents per hundred pounds
4House Executive Documents, 33rd Congress, 2nd Session (Serial No. 791),
Document No. 91, pp. 8-30.
5H. P. N. Gammel (comp.), Laws of Texas (lo vols.; Austin, 1898), III, 589.
6C. S. Potts, Railroad Transportation in Texas (Austin, 1909), 32.
7It might be noted that Pease's veto was influenced by the fact that in 1853,
during the pendency of the act to provide for the construction of the Mississippi
and Pacific Railroad, the Texas Western had filed in the General Land Office a
route designation in conflict with that of the projected company.-Oflicial Journal
of the Senate of the State of Texas, 6th Legislature, Adjourned Session (Austin,
1856), 17.
8Gammel, Laws of Texas, III, 1245.491
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 56, July 1952 - April, 1953, periodical, 1953; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101145/m1/589/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.