Steel, Steam, and Dirt: The Closing of the Range Emergence of the Railroad: Many people in rural Texas tried to prevent the rise of the railroads in order to maintain their ranching economy. However, Texas soon began to develop meatpacking plants to try to compete with Chicago and Kansas City. The railroad created vital connections to midwestern and eastern cities stimulating the West’s economy. The decade from 1875-1885 witnessed more than half of the Texas railroad construction. By 1900, Texas had 10,000 miles of track, an astounding five percent of the nations entire railways. Even with this amount of track, Texas did not have the most freight; her destinations were just further apart than the other States in the Union. The addition of railroads to the Frontier led to the future urbanization of Texas. Railroads and industrialization of the Texas frontier led to 370% increase in population during the last twenty-five years of the Twentieth Century. Texas Land Grants: Texas received land grants from the federal government as early as 1852, and the Texas and Pacific Railroad received the last federal grant in 1871. The federal government and the State of Texas gave the Texas and Pacific a $20 million grant. Texas railroads benefitted more from state land subsidies than it did from federal land grants. These policies helped to not only link the regional areas of North and West Texas, but it also connected Texas to the East. Communication with the East:
Photo Courtesy of: William R. Childs, William R. The Texas Railroad Commission: Understanding Regulation in America to the Mid-Twentieth Century, (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2005), 62.
Electrical communication via Telegraphs (“lightning intelligence”) helped railroads function. The railroad led to the decline of transcontinental telegraph lines; instead, telegraph companies built parallel to the railroads as they assisted westward advancement. In 1871, the telegraph and the Houston and Texas Railroad aided Dallas’ connection to the East. The coming of the Texas and Pacific in Abilene in 1881 spurred the city’s connection to other cultural centers in both Texas and the East.
Did you know: Texas gave away 217,000,000 acres of land between 1836 and 1900 through the State’s Land Grant Policy. Photo Couresy of: The Grace Museum