Scholten Railroad
Lometa, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Owned by the "Scholten Brothers Cedar Company") A 25-mile narrow-gauge railroad that operated about 1912-1920 from Lometa to San Saba County. Constructed by Edward and Alfred Scholten (from Holland), line hauled cedar posts and piling to Santa Fe Line at Lometa to be distributed to fast-growing West Texas. Employees totaled 500. Headquarters were located 100 yards west.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
From about 1912 to 1920, the Scholten Brothers Cedar Company ran a 25-mile narrow-gauge railroad from Lometa into San Saba County, built by Dutch immigrants Edward and Alfred Scholten. The little line hauled cedar posts and piling to the Santa Fe main line at Lometa, feeding the fencing and construction needs of a fast-growing West Texas. At its height the operation employed some 500 workers, with headquarters just west of this spot.
Why it matters
Short-line logging railroads like this one were the unglamorous arteries that supplied the raw materials—fence posts and pilings—that made large-scale settlement of the arid West possible.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Edward Scholten
- · Alfred Scholten
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Lometa Reservoir
Lometa, TX
Lometa began as a railroad town in the mid-1880s, and when a second line arrived in 1909 the railroads needed water for their thirsty steam locomotives. A dam completed in 1911–12 backed up Emory and Salt Creeks into a lake—known as Santa Fe Lake—that watered the trains and doubled as a recreation spot. As diesel engines replaced steam, the need faded, and the reservoir was retired in the 1970s.
Hancock Springs Bathhouse
Lampasas, TX
In the mid-1800s word spread of the curative mineral springs at Lampasas, earning the town the nickname "Saratoga of the South." After the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1882, investors built the Grand Park Hotel and this bathhouse, with hot and cold baths and separate pools reached by a mule-drawn streetcar. Floods eventually carried off the roof, but the limestone walls endure beside the turquoise, spring-fed pool, now part of a city park.
Dam and Well
Goldthwaite, TX
When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad reached the area in 1885, its officials laid out the town of Goldthwaite and built a reservoir to water their steam locomotives. A 25-foot dam impounded several springs into a pond that doubled as a favorite swimming hole, and in 1906 the railroad drilled a deep spring-fed well for still more water. By 1915 the sources fell short and the dam was breached; today those same springs feed a stream through the county park and the old well still serves the city.
Mills County State Bank
Goldthwaite, TX
Goldthwaite boomed after the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway reached Mills County, and by 1888 the growing county seat needed a bank—so D.H. Trent opened a private one with a few thousand dollars in deposits. Through decades of reorganization it became the state-chartered Trent State Bank in 1908 and, in 1952, the Mills County State Bank. It marked 120 years in business in 2008, having weathered hard times and expanded into neighboring towns.