Texas & Pacific Railway
Colorado City, Mitchell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Railroad made this "Cattle Capital of West Texas" in 1880s. Cattlemen Frank Byler, Clay Mann, Winfield Scott, C.C. Slaughter and others brought herds here early as 1877, when last of the buffalo were being exterminated. A Texas Ranger unit was stationed in area to guard against straggling Indians. After Texas & Pacific locators staked course through this valley, rancher George Waddell persuaded A.W. Dunn of Coleman to build a store here. Lumber came by wagon from Round Rock (about 300 mi. SE), and was sparingly used. Store had tarpaulin roof, dirt floor, and was opened in late summer 1880. Soon two saloons were also in business. Railroaders--including bridge crew of A.J. Coe--arrived in the fall. By April 16, 1881, when the Texas & Pacific initiated train service to this site, some 350 people lived here in tents and dugouts, and had a newly organized county government, a school, post office and newspaper. This was terminus for months, while river bridge was being built. Then and until late 80s, this was shipping point for such remote places as ranches of Charles Goodnight and the XIT, near present Amarillo. The T. & P. freighted in tons of windmills and barbed wire, shipped out thousands of cattle--giving this city renown. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When the Texas & Pacific Railway pushed through this valley in 1880, it turned a scatter of tents and dugouts into the "Cattle Capital of West Texas." Ranchers like Charles Goodnight and the great XIT had already trailed herds into a country where the last buffalo were vanishing and Texas Rangers guarded against raids. By April 1881 the railhead served some 350 residents with a county government, school, and newspaper, and soon shipped out thousands of cattle and freighted in the barbed wire and windmills that fenced the open range.
Why it matters
The story shows how the railroad remade the West almost overnight, converting frontier grasslands into a networked cattle economy tied to national markets.
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Related people
- · Charles Goodnight
- · Clay Mann
- · Winfield Scott
- · C.C. Slaughter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sites of Texas & Pacific Railway Depots
Colorado City, TX
Rail service reached Colorado City on April 16, 1881, when a Texas & Pacific supply train arrived to build the town's first depot, and cattle pens soon rose on donated land nearby. The railroad and stockyards made the town the great shipping and supply hub for the vast ranching country of West Texas and eastern New Mexico — sending out cattle, hides, wool, salt, and buffalo bones — until passenger service finally ended in 1967.
City of Snyder
Snyder, TX
Snyder began in 1878 as "Hide Town," a rough camp of tents and dugouts where buffalo hunters traded on Deep Creek, taking its lasting name from trader W.H. "Pete" Snyder. The railroad's arrival in 1908 knit it into the wider economy, but it was the 1948 discovery of the vast Canyon Reef oil field that transformed the quiet county seat into an overnight boom town, tripling its population in a single year.
Concho, San Saba & Llano Valley Railroad Station
Sterling City, TX
When the Concho, San Saba and Llano Valley Railroad pushed a line into Sterling City in 1909, it was chasing the wealth of West Texas ranch country—livestock that needed a way to distant markets. A boxcar served as the first depot until this mission revival station rose to take its place, becoming the hub of a young ranching town. Highways and pipelines eventually siphoned away the freight, and the line went quiet in 1958, leaving the depot as the last witness to the rail era that built the area.
Buffalo Trails
Colorado City, TX
These preserved tracks come from an ancient buffalo trail, one of the deep grooves that thundering herds pounded single-file into the West Texas ground as they moved between grazing grounds and watering holes. Migratory routes ran from the Rio Grande to Canada, and buffalo hunters like the Mooar brothers killed thousands here in the 1870s for hides, tongues, and meat. Native peoples had long followed these paths to the herds, and later explorers and railroad engineers built roads and rail lines along the very same routes.