Cotton Belt Depot
Pittsburg, Camp County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The narrow gauge Texas & St. Louis (Cotton Belt) Railroad arrived in Pittsburg in 1880. William Harrison Pitts, founder of Pittsburg, had donated land for a railroad depot in 1875. This depot, the second built on this site, was completed in 1901 and served the railroad until 1968, although passenger service ended in 1946. The depot is a good local example of Victorian-era design with influences of the Queen Anne style. Features include dormers on the side facades, two internal end chimneys rising from the gable roof, and an attached frame freight depot. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1991
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The narrow-gauge Texas & St. Louis, better known as the Cotton Belt, reached Pittsburg in 1880 on land the town's founder had donated years earlier for a depot. The surviving station, built in 1901, is a fine local example of Victorian Queen Anne-influenced railroad design, with dormers, twin chimneys, and an attached freight house. It served the line until 1968, long after passenger trains stopped running in 1946.
Why it matters
The depot recalls how railroads made and remade small Texas towns, the arrival of the Cotton Belt turning Pittsburg into a shipping point in the cotton economy of the New South.
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Related people
- · William Harrison Pitts
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Pittsburg
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Anglo settlement of this corner of East Texas began in the 1850s, and the family of W. H. Pitts arrived from Georgia in 1854, soon joined by other newcomers from the southern states. Pitts donated land for a townsite that took his name, and when Camp County was organized from Upshur County in 1874, Pittsburg became its seat of government. Two railroad lines reached the area by 1880, the town incorporated in 1891, and it has remained the commercial and cultural hub of the county ever since.