Miami Railroad Depot
Miami, Roberts County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When the Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas built a line through Roberts County in 1887, Miami developed at the end of the track as a campsite for workers. The crew set up a kitchen and a tent hotel. Soon the railroad built a public water well and telegraph lines to nearby Fort Elliott. Passengers and supplies for the post and nearby town of Mobeetie began arriving by rail. This depot was erected in 1888 between North Main and Birge Street. The Santa Fe Railroad bought the line in 1899 and this structure remained in service until 1978. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas laid track through Roberts County in 1887, the town of Miami sprang up at the end of the line as a workers' camp with a tent hotel and a field kitchen. The railroad sank a public water well and strung telegraph lines to nearby Fort Elliott, and passengers and supplies for the fort and the town of Mobeetie began arriving by rail. This depot was built in 1888, passed to the Santa Fe Railroad in 1899, and stayed in service until 1978.
Why it matters
The Miami depot marks how railroads conjured whole towns out of the Panhandle plains, replacing frontier forts and wagon roads with rails as the lifeline of the West.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Miami Cemetery
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The town of Miami took shape when the Santa Fe's Southern Kansas branch pushed through in 1887, and its cemetery followed close behind, with pioneer William T. Lard's reinterred grave among the earliest. In 1900 the Scottish-owned Cresswell Ranche & Cattle Company sold Roberts County several acres for a burying ground, deeded to Judge S.G. Carter for a single dollar. Shaded by cedar and cypress in the open Panhandle style, it holds Civil War veterans, soldiers of two world wars and Korea, and two Texas Rangers.
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