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Left: In the early
1940s, the automatic interlocking at Etter that had been commissioned as
Tower 175 was replaced by a gate normally positioned against tracks of
the Panhandle & Santa Fe (P&SF, "Santa Fe") Railway. Looking northeast,
the P&SF depot is visible (in the distance at left) along with the P&SF
water tower. Tracks of the Chicago, Rock Island & Gulf (CRI&G, "Rock
Island") Railway cross horizontally in the foreground. The black wiring
that snakes up the gate pole connects to the indicator at the top to
illuminate the gate position for night operation. Controls and power
were in a
locked metal box near the ground. (Kenneth Moore photo, undated) Below: In February, 1941, Railway Signaling and Communications reported that the P&SF had filed for permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to discontinue permanently the automatic interlocking at Etter, which was "temporarily out of service". P&SF proposed that it be replaced by a crossing gate normally positioned against the Santa Fe tracks, allowing Rock Island trains to cross "at restricted speed without stopping..."  |
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Right:
In this east-southeast view, the Tower 175 diamond is sitting in the weeds a few yards from its historic
location at the P&SF / Rock Island crossing. The former gatepost remains adjacent to what are now Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) tracks. The US
287 overpass is in the distance at left, crossing over FM 281 and the
former Rock Island tracks. The tracks split a few hundred feet this side
of the overpass into northeast and southeast quadrant tracks for
interchange with BNSF. The railcars are on the southeast quadrant
tracks.
(Jim King photo, 2001) BNSF's line is part of a route between Amarillo (south, to the right) and Las Animas, Colorado (north, to the left.) The tracks that crossed here were of Rock Island heritage but came under Texas Northwestern (TXNW) ownership in 1982. The last seventeen miles of track west of the crossing was abandoned except for a short segment across the diamond, retained in hopes of acquiring nearby land for a rail-served industry that never developed. The diamond and the retained track were removed c.2000. |
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By 1910, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific (CRI&P)
Railroad was operating two routes through the Texas Panhandle: the Golden
State Route and the Choctaw Route. Both had been
built primarily for the purpose of making a west coast connection at
Tucumcari, New Mexico. At Tucumcari, Southern Pacific (SP) had a line south to
El
Paso that continued onto SP's Sunset Route to California. To reach
Tucumcari, the
Golden State Route went southwest from Liberal, Kansas, crossed the Oklahoma
Panhandle and entered the northwest corner of the Texas Panhandle, passing through
Stratford and Dalhart
to reach the New Mexico border 41 miles farther southwest. The Choctaw Route crossed the Texas Panhandle on a due
west heading through Amarillo, providing Oklahoma
City and points east with access to the SP connection at Tucumcari. To comply
with Texas' railroad ownership laws, these lines were officially owned by the
Chicago, Rock Island & Gulf (CRI&G) Railway, Rock
Island's Texas-based subsidiary chartered in 1903 to build new tracks and to
consolidate other Rock Island subsidiaries in Texas.
Rock Island shared the Texas Panhandle
with two other railroads. The Fort Worth and Denver City (FW&DC) Railway had been the
first to lay tracks into this region, building mostly through the western
Panhandle in 1888 to reach the New Mexico border at the
new town of Texline. There, it connected to Colorado & Southern tracks to form a
continuous route between Fort Worth and Denver. The other Panhandle railroad was the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF) Railway. By 1902, it was operating a route
from Wichita, Kansas southwest to Clovis, New Mexico via Shattuck, Oklahoma, and
the Texas towns of Canadian,
Pampa, Amarillo, Canyon
and Farwell. Like Rock Island, Santa Fe complied with state law by accomplishing this work
under a Texas-based subsidiary that eventually became known as the
Panhandle
& Santa Fe (P&SF) Railway.
By 1910, Santa Fe had begun a
significant network expansion with new branch lines south of Amarillo, but the
Texas Panhandle region northeast of Amarillo had no other Santa
Fe tracks besides the main line. This changed in 1917 when a branch
from Shattuck, Oklahoma was built into the far northeastern corner of the Panhandle.
In Texas, this branch helped to establish several new towns -- Follett, Darrouzett, Booker
and Perryton, the new county seat of Ochiltree
County. The branch terminated 26 miles southwest of Perryton at Spearman,
another town platted in 1917 anticipating the arrival of Santa Fe's tracks (which
finally reached Spearman, the end of the line, in 1919.) Elsewhere, short Santa
Fe branches off the main line were built to Borger (1926) and Skellytown (1927)
in the vicinity of Amarillo. As of 1927, a vast region of the
north central Panhandle remained void of railroads. Within the large
triangle formed by Amarillo, Stratford and Spearman, oil and gas development
helped to provide the final incentive for
railroad construction.
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By the late 1920s, oil and gas production north of Amarillo
coupled with significant wheat production farther north had begun
to interest Rock Island. To serve these areas, it started
construction in 1927 on a
line that went north-northeast from Amarillo toward Liberal. Construction was slowed by the rugged terrain, particularly
crossing the Canadian River. The tracks finally reached the Oklahoma border at Hitchland
in 1929 and entered Liberal soon thereafter. In addition to serving
mineral industries and
agriculture, the line provided a means of routing freight between Amarillo
and the Midwest. Since Rock Island's Choctaw Route went west from
Amarillo to Tucumcari, the new tracks potentially served as an alternate
path between
Liberal and Tucumcari should Golden State Route operations become
disrupted, e.g. by a derailment, bridge failure, etc. Left: The Rockdale Reporter of August 1, 1929 noted that the recent completion of Rock Island's line between Amarillo and Liberal resulted in the founding of several new towns in the Texas Panhandle, including Morse. Morse was significant because it soon became the target crossing point for an extension proposed by Santa Fe that would connect Amarillo with the existing branch line that terminated at Spearman, 18 miles northeast of Morse. |
By the fall of 1929, additional railroad development in
the northern Panhandle had become a high priority. Rock Island proposed building
a branch line between Dalhart, on the Golden State Route, and
Morse, on the newly completed Amarillo - Liberal line, sixty miles apart. This
branch would pass through the oil and gas fields in northern Moore County,
twelve miles north of Dumas, the county seat. ICC approved the line, but before
Rock Island could start building it, Santa Fe requested ICC approval of a
proposal that duplicated to
some extent Rock Island's plan. Santa Fe began with the uncontroversial idea of
connecting its southern main line at Amarillo with its original main line at Las
Animas, Colorado, a north / south route that would pass through Dumas, cross the Golden State Route
at Stratford,
and proceed north to Las Animas via Boise City, Oklahoma. Santa Fe also sought permission to build to Dumas from their
existing branch at Spearman, an extension that would cross Rock Island's
Amarillo - Liberal line at Morse and pass through the heart of the Moore County
oil and gas fields. Rock Island
vigorously opposed ICC approval of Santa Fe's plan since the Spearman - Dumas line would largely
parallel the eastern half of Rock Island's route between Dalhart and Morse that
had already been approved.
| Dalhart and Morse are at the same latitude,
but Rock Island had not proposed to build a due east / west line between them. Instead, the
route went southeast from Dalhart on the abandoned Enid, Ochiltree &
Western (EO&W) right-of-way (ROW), a railroad that had been graded from Dalhart to Dumas
but had never become operational. About 5.9 miles southeast of Dalhart, the tracks
turned due east and passed through
farming areas for 33 miles to reach an Apache Refining Co. facility at Altman.
When the Sunray Oil Co. took over the Apache refinery in 1931, the town
name was changed to Sunray. Out of Sunray, Rock Island's tracks continued on a due east heading
for about three miles and then turned east northeast for approximately three miles
before returning to a due east
heading. The reason for this slight jog to the north is undetermined, but it seems
likely to have been motivated by the desire to serve particular farming operations. One of these was at
Capps Switch, where a siding
was built and where Skyland Grain now operates
a grain storage facility. About nine miles farther east, the tracks intersected
Rock Island's Amarillo - Liberal line two miles south of Morse, a location that
became known as Morse Junction. Right: The Skyland Grain facility at Capps Switch, active as of October, 2025, sits beside the abandoned Rock Island grade (Google Street View, looking east from FM 1060.) |
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Left: The Lipscomb Lime Light of July 17, 1930 quoting the Amarillo Tribune carried this story about a tentative agreement between Rock Island and Santa Fe to share the eastern half of Rock Island's new Dalhart - Morse line. Under the plan, Santa Fe would build from Spearman to Morse and terminate into Rock Island's tracks between Morse and Morse Junction. From that point, it would have overhead rights on Rock Island's tracks through Morse Junction and westward to the crossing point of Santa Fe's new line to Las Animas, about twelve miles north of Dumas. Connecting tracks in the two eastern quadrants of this crossing would allow Santa Fe trains from Spearman to access both the original main line at Las Animas and the southern main line at Amarillo. The tentative agreement left many details to be determined, and Santa Fe was required to submit the final plan to ICC for approval before initiating construction from Spearman. |
On November 13, 1930, ICC issued "...a certificate of public convenience and necessity to the Santa Fe railway authorizing the construction of a line of railway from Spearman to a connection with the Rock Island tracks in Hutchinson County, and also giving permission to the Santa Fe to enter into a trackage rights agreement with the Rock Island from the connecting point into Amarillo." (Lipscomb Lime Light, November 20, 1930, quoting the Spearman Reporter.) Such a certificate would give Santa Fe the right to initiate condemnation proceedings if necessary to acquire ROW for the tracks. The referenced Rock Island connection in Hutchinson County was the location between Morse (Hansford County) and Morse Junction (Hutchinson County) where Santa Fe's line would terminate, about 3,000 feet south of the county line. West of Morse Junction, Santa Fe only needed trackage rights to the crossing of the Amarillo - Las Animas line, not "into Amarillo". The community that arose at the Santa Fe / Rock Island junction became known as Etter, named for a Santa Fe executive.
| Right:
map of railroads in the north central Texas Panhandle -- not all
rail lines shown This map represents no particular date but it generally illustrates the situation in the early 1930s. One major exception is the Santa Fe spur into the McKee Refinery from the south which was built c.1982. It was an extension of a spur built in 1936 to serve a zinc smelter three miles southwest of the refinery. Tower 4 at Dalhart was one of the first to be erected under rules promulgated by the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) in 1901 when it was granted authority by the Legislature to regulate railroad crossing safety, both "at grade" and grade-separated. Tower 4 was commissioned on November 28, 1902. Decades later, Tower 172 at Stratford was commissioned on April 30, 1931. |
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The contract for
sharing the eastern half of Rock Island's Dalhart - Morse tracks was finalized
by the railroads on December 18, 1930. The survey for Santa Fe's extension from
Spearman to Morse began the following week. By the time Santa Fe's construction
to Morse was finished, its line from Amarillo to Las Animas had been completed
as far north as Boise City, Oklahoma where it intersected with other Santa Fe
branch lines. The tracks finally reached Las Animas in 1937. Rock Island's Dalhart -
Morse line had also been completed, hence, new rail service was being celebrated throughout the
northern Panhandle in May, 1931. (Above Left to Right:
Shamrock Texan, December 31, 1930;
Shamrock Texan, May 13, 1931;
Yoakum Daily Herald, May 18, 1931;
Shamrock Texan, May 31, 1931)
As the Etter crossing was an important part of the railroads' track sharing agreement,
their planning also addressed installation of an interlocker.
Regardless of which railroad was the first to actually lay tracks at Etter,
Santa Fe was considered the "second railroad" at the crossing since Rock
Island's permission from the ICC for the Dalhart - Morse line predated Santa
Fe's authorization to build from Amarillo to Las Animas. Under RCT regulations, the capital outlay for interlockers at post-1901
crossings belonged
to the "second railroad", hence Santa Fe designed, funded and installed the
signals and interlocking plant at Etter. Santa Fe's construction plan enabled
the plant to be operational by the time both tracks opened. Recurring costs to
maintain and power the interlocker and its trackside signals were shared by the
two railroads. Tower
175 was commissioned at Etter on May 19, 1931 with a 4-function
automatic interlocker. The January, 1932 issue of
Railway Signaling reported that the Etter interlocker
was built by Union Switch & Signal Co. and had eight signals. These
were most
likely paired home and distant signals in each of the four directions.
A year earlier on May 1, 1930, RCT had ruled that the first automatic interlockers in
Texas, at Lubbock and Plainview, would not
be required to have derails, and it is highly unlikely that Tower 175
had any.
Ten miles east of Etter, the Sunray Oil Company's former
Apache refinery was defunct, located along the
Rock Island tracks on the north side of Sunray. Sunray operated it briefly, but
increasing its capacity was infeasible; it was soon dismantled. In 1933, Shamrock Oil and Gas
Co. built a refinery five miles southwest of Sunray known as the McKee
Refinery; the land had been purchased from the McKee family. The McKee facility became the dominant
petrochemical processing facility in the region, receiving oil via tanker trucks from Panhandle oil wells
and from local field gathering pipelines. Gasoline
produced at the refinery was moved
by tanker trucks to distribution facilities. At some undetermined date probably
in the early to mid 1930s, the
McKee Refinery gained rail service when Rock Island built a 4-mile spur off the
main track three miles west of Sunray. This provided
the refinery with direct access to the vast tank car fleet and bulk freight networks of both Rock
Island and Santa Fe (via the Etter connection) greatly improving the refinery's
production, capacity and transportation options.
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Left: This paragraph from a 1938 ICC Valuation Report discusses Rock Island property that is "Solely owned, but jointly used with..." the P&SF, providing an overview of the financial arrangement between the two railroads for Santa Fe track access between Morse and Etter. |
By 1940, traffic across the Etter diamond could no
longer justify the interlocker maintenance expense. Santa Fe took the lead in requesting
ICC permission to
remove Tower 175, and as noted at top of page, the proposed swing gate was to be normally lined against Santa Fe.
It is unlikely that
Rock Island objected; its trains could still cross "at restricted speed
without stopping" and there would no longer be any shared expense for
maintaining the interlocker and signals. The fact that the gate normally would be lined
in favor of Rock Island suggests that Santa Fe had relatively little traffic
north of Etter. Or, perhaps such traffic always stopped at Etter anyway, either
for passengers or for freight car switching, hence the added delay of rotating
the gate was negligible. Santa Fe may have been operating "through trains"
between Amarillo and Spearman via Etter and Morse. If so, such trains used the
southeast quadrant connector at Etter and would not have crossed the
diamond, rendering the gate a non-factor.
A small settlement
grew up around Etter; in 1940, the Census reported 150 residents. In 1942, the U.S. Government built the
Cactus Ordnance
Works immediately north of Etter to manufacture ammonium nitrate for use in explosives
for World War II munitions. The town of Cactus was established, and a few
thousand people worked at the plant during peak years. Cactus gradually absorbed
most of Etter which was never an incorporated town. The railroads benefited
from the freight and passenger traffic generated by the ordnance works and by the families
housed nearby. During the war, the plant was modified and partially shut down
as no longer needed, but then it was reactivated to produce components for
fertilizer being shipped to Europe to help restart agriculture in the aftermath
of the war. The Cactus plant eventually produced a diverse array
of commodities including ammonia, nitric acid and additives for aviation fuel,
but it closed in the 1980s. The site now hosts a large meatpacking
plant owned by JBS, the largest meat processing company in the world.
With a population over 3,000 residents, Cactus is more than
the "wide place in the road"
that country music star Waylon Jennings sang about in his 1996 song
Cactus, Texas.
Jennings was born and raised in Littlefield, northwest of Lubbock, but there's
no evidence he ever visited Cactus.
| Right: Facing west along FM 281, the red truck is about to cross the northeast quadrant connecting tracks at Etter. Farther west, the highway crossing signals in the distance mark BNSF's main line. (Google Street View, January 2022) |  |
In 1960, Rock Island abandoned the first dozen miles of
the Morse branch out of Dalhart to Wilco, a farming operation about
seventeen
miles west of Etter. This was the first impact
in the Texas Panhandle of Rock Island's plan to save money by pruning its route
network. By 1964, it was
clear that Rock Island could only survive long term by seeking a merger partner.
The much larger Union Pacific (UP) Railroad agreed to be that merger partner, but the
potential deal was
complicated. Rock Island's financial picture worsened as ICC regulators held
hearings for ten years to take testimony from other railroads opposed to the
merger and to consider UP and Rock Island
counterarguments.
With the merger pending, Rock Island continued pruning routes
by abandoning the south end of the Amarillo - Liberal line in 1972, retaining
the tracks north of Stinnett. The merger was approved in 1974, but the
enormity of the plan indicated how radically it would have altered western
U.S. railroading. Various terms and conditions specified by the ICC's Administrative
Law Judge were considered onerous by UP, and it chose not to proceed with
the merger. Rock Island went into bankruptcy in 1975; attempts were made, but no
viable recovery plan was ultimately forthcoming. Rock Island's assets
were liquidated, sold mostly to other railroads. The Golden State Route
was sold to SP in 1979 and was assigned by SP to its St. Louis Southwestern
"Cotton Belt" subsidiary. No railroad stepped up to buy the
Choctaw Route through Amarillo. It was abandoned officially in 1982 though
it had been mostly out of service since August, 1979.
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On April 8, 1980, ICC amended a
Directed Service
Order (DSO) it had issued in the wake of Rock Island's complete suspension of operations
on March 31, 1980.
The DSO had granted specific railroads authorization to serve shippers on an interim basis on
particular
Rock Island routes. The amendment granted Santa Fe permission to begin serving shippers
on the Etter - Morse line, including the branch line that served the McKee refinery. Santa Fe was also authorized to serve
shippers on Rock Island's line between Morse and Liberal. The tracks from Morse
south to Stinnett were not mentioned; perhaps there were no active shippers. In 1982, a new railroad, the
Texas Northwestern (TXNW), was
founded to acquire Rock Island's branch between Wilco and Morse, plus its
industrial tracks southwest of Sunray and the remainder of the Stinnett - Liberal
line north to Hardesty, Oklahoma. The tracks west of Etter to Wilco were
formally abandoned. At this point, Santa Fe's interim service
authorization expired, but it retained the original trackage rights between
Morse and Etter. Left: This 1983 AT&SF System Map shows the Etter - Morse rights treated like any other line in Santa Fe's network. The map shows no stops between Etter and Morse confirming that with the TXNW's purchase of the former Rock Island line, Santa Fe returned to its original situation where it had no rights to serve locations between Etter and Morse (e.g. Sunray, Capps Switch.) |
In 1936, Santa Fe had built a spur to serve the American Zinc Smelter three miles east of US 287, five miles north of Dumas. Locally known as the Dumas Zinc Plant, it eventually produced up to 155 tons of zinc daily. The ore was shipped from Mexico and reached the smelter via the Santa Fe spur (known in Santa Fe timetables as Machovec.) The smelter was an important defense production facility during World War II and it housed Italian POWs who worked at the plant. In late 1971, the smelter closed because it could not be upgraded economically to meet newly enacted Federal Clean Air Act standards (and it ultimately devolved into an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site for which remediation activities finally concluded in 2012.) The McKee Refinery was only three miles northeast of the zinc plant, and this proximity became convenient when Rock Island ceased all operations. The ICC DSO amendment in 1980 had granted Santa Fe the right to serve the McKee refinery via the Rock Island spur west of Sunray, but it lost those rights when the TXNW acquired the Rock Island line. Anticipating this, Santa Fe extended the zinc spur to the refinery c.1982.
Above Left: Looking east from
US 287 about five miles north of Dumas, this 2013 Google Street View shows the
former Santa Fe spur for the zinc smelter and McKee Refinery beginning to cross
the highway to reach the BNSF tracks on the opposite side of the road behind the
camera. Above Right: The
smelter closed in 1971. On this 2026 Google
Earth view, the spur tracks cross east / west along the south side of the image
and then begin to curve northeast toward the refinery.
Images captured by Google Street View
in 2018 show the former Santa Fe spur tracks no longer crossing US 287. They
remain intact from the refinery to the east boundary of the highway as confirmed by Google Earth imagery
from August, 2026.
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Left:
This 1982 Santa Fe track chart is oriented with north to
the left, showing tracks adjacent to the Tower 175 crossing. The spurs
off the northeast quadrant connector have been removed. Sidings have
been added to the southeast quadrant connector. Right: In 1991, Charles Napp took this photo facing west toward the Tower 175 crossing. The switch for the single-track northeast connector is in the foreground. In the distance, the swing gate existed but is not readily visible. Beyond the diamond, the tracks to Wilco had been abandoned nearly ten years earlier although the diamond and gate remained intact. |
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In 1987, TXNW abandoned the tracks from Morse north to
Hardesty, and from Pringle south to Stinnett, leaving the tracks between Morse
and Pringle as the only Texas remnant of Rock Island's Amarillo - Liberal line. In
1990, Santa Fe relinquished its trackage rights between Morse and Etter, and
sold its branch between Shattuck and Morse to the Southwestern Railroad Co. (SWRR)
[not to be confused with the long defunct Southwestern Railway Co. at Henrietta.]
SWRR immediately abandoned the tracks between Spearman and Morse.
In 2004, TXNW abandoned the tracks from Capps Switch to Morse Junction, and from
Pringle to Morse, eliminating the last remaining tracks into Morse. In 2007, SWRR
abandoned its tracks between Spearman and Shattuck, Oklahoma, a distance of 85
miles.
Although pipelines now carry most of the oil, gas and refined products in the
vicinity of Etter and Sunray, petrochemical production continues to be a major
contributor to rail-related commerce in northern Moore County. Shamrock Oil,
which owned the McKee Refinery, merged with Diamond Alkali Co. in 1967 to become
Diamond Shamrock Corp. In 1996, Diamond Shamrock merged with international oil
conglomerate Ultramar, and the combined company was acquired by Valero Energy
c.2001. BNSF and TXNW cooperate to serve the Valero McKee Refinery and numerous
other industrial and meatpacking facilities in the area.
Above Left: Looking south
along the BNSF main line from the JBS facility at Cactus (Google Street View,
October, 2025) a string of railcars sits on the JBS spur. TXNW does the plant
switching for JBS and then exchanges cars with BNSF farther south. The JBS spur
is about 1.8 miles north of the former Tower 175 crossing.
Above Right: TXNW operates a
huge facility between Etter and Sunray, reportedly the largest private railcar
storage yard in the US, plus cleaning and repair services. The facility is along
the refinery spur about a mile south of the main line. (Google
Earth, 2019)
Below Left: This August, 2022 view from the US 287
overpass looks west toward the former Tower 175 crossing. The TXNW double main
line begins curving north and crosses FM 281. As its alignment shifts fully
northward, the south track becomes the west track and makes the northeast
quadrant connection to BNSF. Two switches off the south main track provide
parallel southeast quadrant tracks, but only the far switch leads to a BNSF
connection (Google Street View.) Below Right:
This August, 2022 image looking east from the US 287 overpass toward Sunray provides another
view of the significant local rail
infrastructure. (Google Street View)
| Right:
TXNW's former Rock Island rails are still intact to Sunray, and as
recently as 2023, service extended east to the Sunray Co-op, a grain
storage facility. A major dust explosion in March, 2025 severely damaged
the facility and it has been demolished to be replaced by a new grain
storage structure served by TXNW. Demolition of the Sunray Co-op was
underway in October, 2025 when Google Street View captured this image.
By the summer of 2026, the land had been cleared, but no official start
date for construction of a new facility has been announced. TXNW's tracks terminate a little over five miles east of the co-op. Presently there are no customers along that track segment. |
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