The Railroad in Bee County
Beeville, Bee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On June 14, 1886, the first San Antonio and Aransas Pass (SA&AP) train arrived in Beeville to a cheering crowd. The arrival marked the combined efforts of SA&AP president Uriah Lott; Beeville merchant, banker and cattleman Captain A. C. Jones; and rancher Frank Skidmore to route the railroad through Bee County. When Lott's proposed line from San Antonio to the Gulf at Corpus Christi was opposed by the nearby town of Goliad, Jones granted land and substantial funds, while Skidmore donated land and the Skidmore townsite. Many others followed their example. Transformed from a village to a boom town, and surrounded by new farming towns, Beeville became a shipping point for cattle and cotton. In 1889, after the Southern Pacific completed a second line through here to Victoria and the port of Galveston, Bee County became a rail center with connections far and wide for passenger and freight service. Passenger service peaked in 1918, and by 1930 the Beeville-Skidmore line averaged 18 trains daily. During World War II passenger service increased, but improved highway travel led to its end in 1952. The Southern Pacific depot was razed in 1958, and the last train left Bee County in 1994, but the booster spirit of the railroad era lives on. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On June 14, 1886, the first San Antonio and Aransas Pass train steamed into Beeville to a cheering crowd — the payoff of a campaign by rail promoter Uriah Lott, cattleman Captain A.C. Jones, and rancher Frank Skidmore, who donated land and money to bend the line through Bee County. When a second line arrived in 1889, Beeville became a rail center shipping cattle and cotton far and wide, with passenger service peaking around 1918 at eighteen trains a day on one line. Highways eventually undid it all: passenger service ended in 1952, the depot fell in 1958, and the last train left the county in 1994.
Why it matters
The story captures the whole arc of the railroad age in rural Texas — the boom it conjured out of open range, and the highways that finally replaced it.
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Related people
- · Uriah Lott
- · A.C. Jones
- · Frank Skidmore
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Carved largely from San Patricio County in 1857 and organized in 1858, Bee County took its name from Barnard E. Bee, who served the Republic of Texas as secretary of war, secretary of state, and minister to the United States. A cattle region since Spanish colonial times, it became an important beef producer after 1865 and gained its first railroad, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, in 1886. Oil was discovered here in 1929, and the county seat has been at Beeville since 1860.
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Atascosa County was carved from Bexar County in 1856, and this community took its name from John Campbell, an Irish immigrant who came to Texas as a boy and began ranching here around 1857. After Confederate service in the Civil War, Campbell returned to open a store, run a mail relay, and in 1874 establish the first post office; by 1880 he donated land for a school that doubled as a church. Rail service arrived in 1913 and oil in the 1950s, but ranching endured even after Interstate 37 rerouted travelers away.