Titus County, Texas History - The Cotton Belt Railway

Around 1921 the railroad began upgrading its main line rail and improving its roadbed by strengthening or replacing bridges, straightening sharp turns, and leveling the track's grade. These improvements allowed Cotton Belt trains to operate faster with more safety and passenger comfort. The Cotton Belt prided themselves for being on time. During June, 1925, the Cotton Belt Route broke its own world's record for on-time arrival of freight cars when it achieved one hundred per cent performance of all the freight cars loaded at Memphis for points in the Southwest. Cotton Belt's freight cars out of St. Louis destined for points in Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas arrived on-time 98.74 percent of the time, their passenger trains arrived at destinations on time 98.84 percent on time, for a combined record of 99.19 percent on-time service for all freight cars and passenger trains operated by the St. Louis Southwestern Railway lines during the month of June.

During 1925, the Cotton Belt again underwent ownership changes in a series of railroad mergers and acquisitions. Early in 1925, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway unexpectedly acquired the St. Louis Southwestern Railway. In October of the same year, Charles Hayden, chairman of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific announced that his railway had sold its St. Louis Southwestern stock to the Kansas City Southern Railway.

L. P. Loree, chairman of the Kansas City Southern Railway's executive committee, announced plans to create a new Southwestern railroad system by combining the Kansas City Southern, Missouri-Kansas-Texas and St. Louis Southwestern Railways with other possible additions. This alignment of Southwestern railroads restored to a large extent the Interstate Commerce Commission's tentative consolidation plan for the Southwest. However, the merger would not last.

Following the mergers, the Mt. Pleasant Division Superintendent's office was consolidated with the Tyler Division Office in 1925, and most Mt. Pleasant office employees transferred to Tyler. Cotton Belt continued to use parts of the building for several years and rented other parts out for public offices. The Cotton Belt building was demolished in the latter 1960s to make room for the new First National Bank building (now Bank of America).

The Cotton Belt also began replacing all of its old wooden passenger coaches with more attractive and much safer steel ones. The new steel coaches were built in the Cotton Belt's Pine Bluff shops, which turned out four cars a month. By latter 1926 a number of the new steel passenger coaches began passing through Mt. Pleasant.

Towns and cities historically develop and thrive in close proximity to major transportation routes. The addition of a new port, highway, or railroad can create a town where none existed, cause a town to grow to a city from increased commerce, or at the least stabilize an existing town's continued existence. The loss or moving of a major transportation route can just as quickly kill a once-thriving town.

Jefferson, Texas became a major transportation terminal starting in 1844 because of its location on the Big Cypress Bayou. Stern-wheel riverboats could navigate the Mississippi River into the Red River, then travel through Caddo Lake into the Big Cypress Bayou. The Big Cypress served as a destination where they could load and unload cargo and passengers and turn the boats around for the return trip. Jefferson was the only dependable port in North Texas and was described as the "Riverport to the Southwest," second only to Galveston in tonnage shipped from Texas at the height of the riverboat era. Stern-wheelers from the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi Rivers regularly navigated to Jefferson to deliver and pick up freight and passengers. Jefferson all but monopolized shipping from an area that extended over 200 miles west, including the cotton-rich "Black Land" north and south of Dallas.

Mount Pleasant and Titus County developed in part because we are located on the original road from the Red River to Jefferson opened by Andrew Jackson Titus. The only personal transportation available when Titus County was founded in 1846 was by horseback, with families traveling by wagon. There were no railroads in the area, so freight was moved long distances by boat, and the offloaded "local" freight had to be moved to its destination in ox and mule drawn wagons. Roads of the day were no more than unpaved dirt trails, and travel was slow -- sometimes requiring weeks or months by horseback and wagon depending on the distance traveled. Babies were born en route and people died and were buried near the roadways.

The dirt roads became boggy in wet weather and ox wagons were used to haul freight between Mt. Pleasant and Jefferson because oxen could make it through places where horse- or mule-drawn wagons would bog down. The round trip took a week. Rain-swollen creeks and rivers stopped travel until the water went down enough to allow passage.

In 1873 the U.S. Corps of Engineers removed the Great Raft from the Red River above Shreveport, which lowered the Big Cypress Bayou water level until riverboat shipping became uncertain and was no longer profitable.

By then, railroads had begun crossing the country and merchandise shippers were beginning to use the railroad rather than waterways to transport their goods because they could be delivered much faster to many more places than by boat. Port cities were defined by geography, where as the railroads could be built anywhere that commerce dictated. As late as the early 1900's the national road and highway system was still in its infancy, and having a new railroad could create a town or being bypassed by it could kill a town.

Being bypassed by the railroad led to Jefferson's decline. The completion of the Texas and Pacific Railway from Texarkana to Marshall, which bypassed Jefferson, was one of the turning points that led to Jefferson's decline from its former river port days. Another Texas and Pacific rail line reached Jefferson the next year, but expanding rail commerce which made Marshall, Dallas, and other Texas towns into important rail cities ended Jefferson's golden age as a commercial and shipping center.

According to R. L. Jurney, the East Line & Red River branch of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway built across the Southeast corner of Titus County and was the county's first railroad. However, it was very little benefit to the County as a whole.

THE TYLER TAP

The story of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, more commonly known as the Cotton Belt, is a story of continuous bankruptcies, consolidations, and mergers. While railroads were the primary method of moving people and freight over long distances for many years, they were also very capital-intensive and expensive to operate. Small short-line railroads regularly had to take bankruptcy, and either the entire line as a working entity or its assets were often acquired by larger lines. At times, even the larger lines found themselves in financial trouble and either had to take bankruptcy or were themselves absorbed by even larger lines.

Tyler, Texas businessmen started construction of the Tyler Tap Railroad in 1875, which connected with the Texas and Pacific Railroad at Big Sandy. The Tyler Tap was a narrow-gauge railroad with a single locomotive, one passenger car, and sixteen freight cars. The Tyler Tap was reorganized in 1879 as the Texas and St. Louis Railway of Texas, but again went bankrupt and was reorganized again as the St. Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway on January 29, 1886. The new St. Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway's business office was located in Texarkana. The St. Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway grew rapidly, acquiring other short-line railroads and laying its own new track. In 1887 they completed a 109 mile line between Mt. Pleasant and Sherman.

The arrival of the railroad to Mt. Pleasant brought the first mass-transit and rapid heavy freight hauling system to Titus County, and allowed the county to flourish because it provided a modern and much-improved way for people to conveniently travel long distances to and from Mt. Pleasant and to efficiently ship and receive freight from other parts of the country.

After roads and highways, the railroad provided a second vital link to Mt. Pleasant's ability to remain a permanent settlement. The railroad ran northeast to Little Rock and west through Winfield and Sulphur Springs into the Dallas area.

THE COTTON BELT

The St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas went bankrupt again in 1889 and was placed in receivership. In 1891, they were merged with the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company of Texas (The Cotton Belt). The St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company of Texas operated the part of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway that was located in Texas. The Texas company was owned by the St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company, but operated separately to conform with Texas law.

Even so, on March 27, 1927, the Cotton Belt inaugurated the Lone Star Limited, a new fast passenger train service from Fort Worth to Memphis. The Lone Star Limited passed west bound through Mt. Pleasant at 8:55 a.m. and east bound at 9:07 p.m. The Lone Star Limited was successful from the beginning. By coincidence, Conductor Blaine, Engineer Hobson, and Fireman Winn, the same crew that operated the train on its maiden run, also operated it on its first anniversary date and had worked on this run almost continuously since it started.

On January 13, 1928, St. Louis Southwestern Railroad Company President Daniel Upthegrove attended Tyler's Rotary Club meeting. He gave a short speech outlining nine outstanding achievements in this country during the year just closed.

Then he shocked the seventy-odd Rotarians at the meeting when he announced that the Cotton Belt planned to spend $2,900,000 to improve its Texas tracks. He announced that out of that sum, $1,900,000 (approximately $22,500,000 in 2007 dollars) would be spent to rebuild the line from Tyler to Mt. Pleasant, while the other million will be spent on the road from Sulphur Springs to Dallas.

Originally built as a narrow gauge railroad in the 1880s, it was not necessary to carefully engineer tracks to accommodate the smaller engines and cars. With advances in rolling stock and larger equipment, the Cotton Belt now found it almost impossible to operate on the tracks. Heavy trains of fifty cars or more from the north had to be broken into trains of not more than twenty-five cars at Mount Pleasant, almost doubling transportation costs along the seventy-five miles from Mount Pleasant to Tyler.

Mr. Upthegrove said that the present roadbed would be abandoned in many places and a new one built to eliminate the present track's many heavy grades and sharp curves. The tracks would be leveled all along the line, requiring cutting down many hills and filling in low places. The company also planned to lay new rails on the new line all the way to Tyler. When the project was complete, much heavier trains could be run over the line, saving about one-half on operating expenses.

Extensive improvements were being planned from Sulphur Springs to Dallas, where the roadbed was to be put into as good condition as it was from Mt. Pleasant to Sulphur Springs.

Area residents were elated because of the large number of men to be employed. Extension and enlargement of Cotton Belt's Tyler yards would probably be required.

Surveyors had already begun work making a construction profile for the project on January 11, 1928. St. Louis Southwestern Railway awarded Gifford-Hill Company of Dallas the construction contract on Tuesday, May 15, 1928. Machinery and equipment for the construction were unloaded at Big Sandy and other points between Tyler and Mount Pleasant, and work was to begin on Monday, May 21, 1928.

Gifford-Hill established its main office for the job in Mt. Pleasant, and the payroll was handled through this office so that they would be closer to Cotton Belt's engineers which were stationed here.

On February 25, 1928, the United States Interstate Commerce Commission issued a complaint charging the Kansas City Southern Railway with violating the Clayton anti-trust law in acquiring the stock of the Katy and Cotton Belt railroads. The complaint was practically a rejection of Kansas City Southern's merger plan by L. F. Loree which had been before the Commission for the past two years.

The commission claimed that the merger would substantially lessen competition between the railroads and would restrain commerce in certain area and communities. The Kansas City Southern was given until April 2 to show cause as to why an order should not be issued requiring it to divest itself of Katy and Cotton Belt stock, and the action appeared to almost entirely stop plans for the merger. Loree withdrew his application.

The withdrawal of Loree's application to merge the Cotton Belt and K.C.S. and the Katy was favorably seen by local Cotton Belt employees, and there was a rumor that Southern Pacific would soon apply to take over the Cotton Belt.

By October, 1928, the Mt. Pleasant Cotton Belt yard was handling more traffic than it had for many years. Extra crews had been added, and more trains were passing through Mt. Pleasant than ever before. It was not uncommon to see as many as seven or eight trains in the yards at once. The company had put into service as a "dodger" train between Mt. Pleasant and Pittsburg that also did switching in the Mt. Pleasant yards during the day. The night switching crew was often delayed in its work by the large number of trains in the yards. The telegraph force was ordered to work overtime an extra hour each day to handle their work load, and there was a possibility of adding an extra man. Every other department was also rushed.

Improved roads and highways had spawned bus and trucking services that were eating into the Cotton Belt's passenger and freight business. In response, the Cotton Belt introduced Southwestern Transportation Company in the latter 1920s. Southwestern Transportation Company was a wholly-owned passenger bus and trucking subsidiary that provided passenger motor coach and truck "Coordinated Road and Rail Service" in the Cotton Belt's service area. This bold and progressive move by the Cotton Belt no doubt hastened the railroad's decision to apply to the ICC for authority in 1937 to abandon what were plainly becoming unprofitable branch lines.

In latter 1928 Southwestern Transportation Company purchased the Nunnellee bus lines and later bought the Mt. Pleasant to Texarkana bus line from Mellie Rogers of Mt. Pleasant. On December 18, 1928, the Southwestern Transportation Company took over operation of the Mt. Pleasant-Texarkana bus line, giving it a continuous line from Tyler, Texas to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, as well as several branch lines between the places. Southwestern Transportation rearranged schedules and provided twice the service as before, with one bus leaving Mt. Pleasant and Texarkana in the morning and afternoon.

On June 24, 1929, Texas Cotton Belt Railway Superintendent K. M. Post met with the Mt. Pleasant Chamber of Commerce to ask them to endorse a Cotton Belt proposal to discontinue passenger trains Nos. 3 and 4 between Mt. Pleasant and Texarkana, and a consequent schedule change allowing the trains to connect with the Lone Star Limited at 8:25 a.m. and 9:07 p.m.

He said that it would mean that instead of running these local trains through to Texarkana, they would stop and start in Mt. Pleasant, causing a six-man train crew to stay here each night. He said it would also mean that Mt. Pleasant's employees and shop facilities would be enlarged to take care of the engines.

The Chamber of Commerce endorsed the change, which was expected to become effective within two weeks.

Superintendent Post returned to Mt. Pleasant on October 31 to announce that the Cotton Belt planned to discontinue the day passenger trains running from Mt. Pleasant to Tyler soon, and the Texas Railroad Commission had granted permission to remove them from the schedule.

Mr. Post said that the trains had been losing about $2,000 per month lately because of declining passengers. He said that mail service would be handled by company buses that operated parallel with the Cotton Belt almost all the way between Mt. Pleasant and Tyler. He said that almost all commercial travel between the towns was already being done by bus.

He went on to say that the company was also considering discontinuing local passenger trains between Greenville and Dallas, and that the train that now made that run would start at Greenville, come to Mt. Pleasant, and then return to Greenville the same day.