Description
Text reads:Texas & Pacific Railway was chartered in March, 1871, as the successor to the Texas Pacific Railroad. The road acquired the properties of several Texas short lines including the Southern Transcontinental Railway and the Southern Pacific Railroad. The Southern Transcontinental was a reorganization of the old Memphis, El Paso, & Pacific, a road financed by the noted explorer, John Charles Fremont. The Civil War brought hard times to this road and in 1870 a shipment of 10 locomoties, built in the Andre Koechila works, Mulhauser, Alsace, France, were diverted when word reached Eupore tha tthe road was in financial straits. The Southern Pacific Railroad acquired by the Texas & Pacific was no kin of the present SP; It was an outgrowth of the charter issued to the Texas Western in 1852 and constructed some trackage from Caddo Lake near Shreveport, Louisiana, west toward Marshall, Texas. The Texas & Pacific was led by President Thomas Scott in its early days with Major-General Grenville M. Dodge of Union Pacific fame as Chief Engineer. It later became a Gould property and extended across Texas using joint track with the Galveston, Harrisburg, & San Antonio from Sierra Blanca to El Paso 92 miles. Fred Jukes, venerable rail photographer, used a box camera to capture Texas & Pacific Engine 116 at Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1898, the year Supt. of Motive Power Addis completed her in the Marshall, Texas, shops. Note the lagged smokebox, sand dome eagle, and script lettering, plus the early Pyle electric light.