Texas Railroad History - Towers 92 (New Braunfels), 205 (Austin) and 206 (San Marcos)

Three Junctions of the International & Great Northern and the Missouri - Kansas - Texas Railroads Between Austin and New Braunfels

Above Left: Railroad executive John W. Barriger III took this photo in the 1930s from the rear platform of his business car when he passed Tower 92 (to his immediate left) as his train was traveling northbound at New Braunfels. Although Barriger is looking at the southbound tracks of the International - Great Northern (I-GN) Railroad to San Antonio, his view at the moment is to the northwest because of two sweeping curves the I-GN makes in New Braunfels resulting in a generally east / west transition through downtown. The crossing diamond in the foreground carries the tracks of the Missouri - Kansas - Texas (MKT, "Katy") Railroad to San Antonio (to the left) and San Marcos (to the right). The white sign to the right presumably warns pedestrians to stay off the bridge over Dry Comal Creek. The large building in the distance is the Comal Power Plant, a lignite-burning facility built in 1925 that has since been decommissioned and converted to apartments.

Above Right: Barriger took this photo facing the "M.K.T. Junction" cabin at San Marcos from his business car on I-GN tracks. A connector to Katy rails can be seen branching off to the left, just beyond the south side of the building. Again, the timeframe is the 1930s and again, Barriger's view is south toward San Antonio, this time facing geographically southwest. The first cabin at MKT Junction began operation on August 1, 1912, but whether this structure is the original cabin is undetermined. Perhaps fifteen to twenty years after this photo was taken, MKT Junction was interlocked and became Tower 206 in the Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) interlocker assignment list. The two railroads touched at both New Braunfels and San Marcos, and employee timetables show Towers 92 and 206 being about 18.65 miles apart. It is undetermined whether Barriger's photos were taken on the same trip. They certainly could have been, and they undoubtedly date from the 1933 - 1941 timeframe when Barriger served in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as the chief administrator for railroad investments.

Below Left: On a different trip, Barriger took this photo of the railroad control tower at the north end of the Colorado River bridge in Austin as his train was heading south toward San Marcos. This was at least 25 years prior to 1956 when an RCT-authorized interlocking was installed and the building became designated as Tower 205. Below Right: Although this image of Tower 92 certainly resembles Barriger's work, the photographer is undetermined. The camera is facing southeast along the northbound I-GN tracks toward San Marcos, a few dozen yards west of Tower 92. The tower sits in the southeast quadrant and the Katy tracks cross the I-GN leading to San Antonio (to the right) and San Marcos (to the left.) The photographer is on the bridge over Dry Comal Creek. The back of the sign warning pedestrians to stay off the bridge is visible at left. (New Braunfels Historic Railroad and Modeler's Society collection, courtesy Jim Burns)

The Barriger photos are used courtesy of the John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library.

San Antonio and Austin were two important towns in early Texas history (they still are!) but their inland locations meant that they would not be among the first to be served by Texas railroads. Rails and ties are heavy, hence railroad construction was typically limited by cost-effective transportation options, e.g. existing railroads or river steamboats. Using the Colorado River to ship materials to Austin was not an option; it was not navigable by ordinary steamboats due to a huge "timber raft" that blocked the river six miles above its mouth at Matagorda. Austin's first railroad finally arrived in 1871, a westward branch from Hempstead off the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) Railroad main line out of Houston. Similarly, San Antonio's first railroad arrived from the east in 1877, an extension of the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio (GH&SA) Railway out of Harrisburg, a river port on Buffalo Bayou. The need for a north / south rail line to connect Austin and San Antonio seventy-five miles apart was recognized, but this need would not be satisfied for several years. The H&TC and GH&SA both became controlled by Southern Pacific (SP) in the early 1880s.

Austin's second railroad arrived in 1876 in the form of the International & Great Northern (I&GN) Railroad building south with plans to continue to San Antonio and Laredo. The I&GN was the combination of two unrelated railroads, the International Railroad and the Houston & Great Northern (H&GN) Railroad. The earliest of these, the H&GN, was chartered in 1866 by Houston interests with a plan to build north to the Red River. Construction was delayed for several years; major New York banks were reluctant to lend money to a new Texas railroad during the initial Reconstruction period after the Civil War. Work finally began in Houston in December, 1870, and by May, 1873, the tracks had reached Palestine, 151 miles north of Houston.

The H&GN's arrival into Palestine marked the third construction team to do so in less than a year! Both of the other two were crews of the International Railroad arriving into Palestine from opposite directions. The International had been chartered by investors interested in building a line from Texarkana to Laredo, many of whom were also investors in the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (SLIM&S) Railway. The SLIM&S was building from St. Louis to Texarkana, and the International was chartered in August, 1870 to be essentially a Texas extension of the SLIM&S that would run through Austin and San Antonio to the Rio Grande river. Work commenced at two locations, Hearne and Longview, in 1871.

Before the H&GN had even reached Palestine, the management of the International saw the value in a combined railroad that would eventually serve Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Laredo, with favorable connections to Galveston and Texarkana. An agreement was reached in December, 1872, and the railroads began operating under a combined management structure led by Herbert Melville "Hub" Hoxie as General Superintendent (GS) of both railroads. The International's offices were moved from Hearne to Houston so that Hoxie could run both railroads while awaiting legal permission to merge. Two years later in March, 1875, the Legislature authorized the merger.

That the I&GN would eventually reach Austin and San Antonio was understood, but the timing thereof was subject to the vagaries of financing, weather, politics and the national economy, and that made the citizens of San Antonio no less anxious. Austin had railroad service, the H&TC from Houston; San Antonio did not -- it was dependent on stage routes to meet trains in Austin and in Columbus where the GH&SA had terminated during the Civil War. The GH&SA led by Thomas Peirce (with the unusual ei spelling) had successfully petitioned the Legislature to modify the GH&SA charter to permit construction west to San Antonio instead of northwest along the Colorado River to Austin, the original plan. By the time the I&GN had been formalized in March, 1875, the GH&SA had already extended its tracks from Columbus to Luling, only 58 miles northeast of San Antonio. As Peirce was building west, he received an offer of $100,000 from Comal County if he would route the GH&SA into New Braunfels, the county seat. The San Antonio Express of November 12, 1875 discussed this offer, concerned that its acceptance would delay or preempt the arrival of rails into San Antonio while boosting New Braunfels into a regional trade destination to the detriment of San Antonio. The real concern was that Comal County's proposal was attractive -- New Braunfels was only 30 miles due west of Luling, roughly half as far as San Antonio. With the I&GN known to be headed to Austin and farther south, New Braunfels would become a thriving railroad junction with the addition of the GH&SA. The extent to which Peirce considered this offer is undetermined, but his railroad stayed on its planned route, reaching San Antonio in 1877.

Left: In the early years, San Marcos, New Braunfels and San Antonio were dependent on stagecoach service to meet trains in Austin (there were also stages from San Antonio to Columbus for the GH&SA connection.) The Houston Daily Mercury of January 1, 1874 carried a schedule advertisement for the H&TC which also listed its connections at various stops. Some connections were with railroads (at Dallas, Sherman and Hearne), some were with stagecoaches (at Waco, Ledbetter, McDade and Austin), and then there was Mexia which offered a connection to a "line of hacks" (horses for rent) two days per week!

Left: The Austin Weekly Democrat Statesman carried this news item in its July 27, 1876 edition noting the arrival at Galveston of 1,800 tons of iron for the I&GN. Speculating that this would be sufficient to complete the remaining distance for the I&GN to reach Austin (from Round Rock), the article assures the reader that the I&GN is a "live company" that "means business." Perhaps rumors of financial difficulty for the I&GN had already begun to surface. Right: The Galveston Daily News of December 17, 1876 describes the arrival of the first I&GN passenger train into Austin the previous day as "A Notable Event". The telegram was sent by the aforementioned "Hub" Hoxie of the I&GN. Hoxie had a lengthy career in railroad management with several railroads. In later years, he was a close associate of rail baron Jay Gould. Hoxie died in New York in 1886 at age 55 due to complications from kidney stone surgery.

The I&GN reached Austin on December 16, 1876 and ... stayed there. The construction from Hearne to Austin had stretched the company's finances to the breaking point; it badly needed operating revenue with which to pay expenses and bond interest. On April 1, 1878, the company was forced into receivership. After a year and a half in bankruptcy, it was sold at foreclosure on November 1, 1879 to buyers who formed a new I&GN company under the original charter and management team. Construction was restarted south from Austin to San Antonio via San Marcos and New Braunfels with a contract issued to the New Jersey Contracting Company on May 31, 1880. The contract was successfully completed at San Antonio on February 16, 1881, and an extension to Laredo was completed later that year.

Left: In September, 1880, the Dallas Daily Herald carried these items (on the 22nd and 29th, respectively) discussing the arrival of I&GN tracks into San Marcos. Right: The Galveston Daily News of October 1, 1880 printed this telegram from San Marcos announcing passage of the first construction train over the San Marcos River the previous day, followed shortly by a train with numerous dignitaries. The telegram congratulated "the rest of mankind" for having the "good fortune" to have finally begun to reap the benefits that would instantly flow from the new connection with the "booming town" of San Marcos. Obviously, San Marcos didn't need the rail connection; the world did. Apparently, the presence of U. S. President Rutherford B. Hayes and Texas Governor James W. Throckmorton in San Marcos was of lesser significance.

Above Left: The Galveston Daily News of October 31, 1880 carried a telegram announcing that I&GN track-laying had reached the Guadalupe River and that it would arrive in New Braunfels within the next two weeks. From the north, the I&GN's construction went to the southeast side of New Braunfels where it made a sweeping curve to cross the river and turn back to the northwest to enter downtown, about a mile past the bridge. West of downtown, the right-of-way then curved back to the southwest to resume the basic heading toward San Antonio. Above Right: The Galveston Daily News of November 21, 1880 described the celebration in New Braunfels (with "plenty of lager") for the high noon arrival of the first train into the city.

Above: This 1916 military map of New Braunfels has been annotated to highlight the Katy and I&GN tracks, respectively. Geographically, the two curves on the I&GN bracketing downtown result in trains proceeding southeast or northwest for just under a mile, opposite their general direction of travel.

In late 1872, the creation of a combined management structure and the plan to merge the International and the H&GN into a single railroad had immediately caught the attention of rail baron Jay Gould. Gould was expanding his east coast rail empire into the Midwest and he needed an outlet to Mexico and ports on the Gulf to maximize his potential. The I&GN would be a formidable competitor in Texas, so he set out to capture it. Gould began by eyeing the Missouri, Kansas & Texas (MK&T, "Katy") Railway as a potentially valuable property for his efforts in Texas. The Katy's Red River bridge into Texas was one of only two outlets Texas railroads could use for efficient access to the Midwest; the other was the rail connection at Texarkana. By controlling both of them, Gould could severely impact I&GN business if its management refused to capitulate in a buyout. At the time, he controlled neither gateway; he had no railroads in Texas at all. Author Wayne Cline in his 2015 book The Texas Railroad explains that Gould's plan to take over the Katy quietly began on October 22, 1873 when...

"...he stage-managed the election of a loyal ally, William Bond, as the road's second vice president. Bond proceeded to fire key Katy managers and replace them with Gould's henchmen. On December 21, 1874 Bond was appointed receiver of the MKT, and on March 1, 1876 he became the Katy's general manager. By December, 1879, Bond had brought so many Gould supporters aboard the MKT that Jay was elected president."

Gould adopted this strategy because buying a controlling interest in Katy stock was infeasible. The stock had become so diluted and widely dispersed among so many small stockholders that there were few large blocks available for private purchase, and there simply weren't enough shares circulating on the open market. As a result, Gould had little ownership interest in the Katy, he was merely its President. Gould leased the Katy in December, 1880 to the Missouri Pacific (MP) Railroad, a large Missouri-based railroad that he controlled with a large ownership position. Lease accounting and operating policies tilted heavily toward MP meant that its stockholders (and Gould in particular) would reap the benefits of Katy profits; Katy stockholders would get nothing. The Katy's Red River bridge was a gateway to the Midwest and Plains States; Gould would use it to his strategic advantage.

To capture the I&GN, Gould needed two other railroads. The I&GN was dependent on Texas & Pacific (T&P) Railway tracks between Longview and Texarkana for access to the SLIM&S connection to St. Louis. Gould focused initially on the T&P which was building west from Texarkana to El Paso on a Federal charter that authorized construction to San Diego. The T&P had become stalled at Fort Worth, unable to build farther west for lack of funds. Gould pounced on the opportunity; he created a construction company and offered to build the T&P line west of Fort Worth at his own expense in exchange for $20,000 in T&P stock and $20,000 in T&P bonds for each mile completed. A deal was struck, and as construction proceeded west from Fort Worth, Gould's ownership and influence over the T&P increased with each mile. In the summer of 1880 he was effectively the CEO, and in April, 1881, Gould became President of the T&P.

To capture the SLIM&S, Gould began to use the Katy's line through Oklahoma to carry T&P and I&GN traffic bound for St. Louis. Normally, this interchange would be with the SLIM&S at Texarkana, thus depriving that railroad of critical northbound traffic. Near St. Louis, Gould bought the terminal railroad that provided the final connection for the SLIM&S into St. Louis, positioning him to create mischief. In December, 1880, the SLIM&S ownership gave in and sold a large block of stock to Gould, giving him about 30% of the company. They did not further resist Gould's control and he leased the SLIM&S to MP.

By February, 1881, as I&GN construction reached San Antonio and connected with the GH&SA, Gould had already begun negotiations with the I&GN to buy a controlling interest. On June 1, 1881, it was announced that Gould had acquired all of the I&GN common stock in a two-for-one swap for Katy stock. Gould finessed the actual ownership of the I&GN -- he did not want it known publicly that the Katy was the legal owner because the Katy was not headquartered in Texas and was thus ineligible to own a Texas railroad. The Katy had been authorized to build through Texas toward the Rio Grande using its Kansas charter under a Texas law passed in 1870 as an incentive for the Katy to build south and bridge the Red River. The Katy had not, however, complied with an amendment to the Texas Constitution passed in 1876 that required railroads owning tracks or other railroads in Texas to be headquartered in Texas. Once Gould had possession of all of the I&GN stock certificates, he secretly moved them to Fort Worth to be kept there by Gen. Grenville M. Dodge. Dodge was a friend of Gould's, a famous Army General who had been the chief engineer for numerous railroads including the eastern portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. He was presently the Chief Engineer for the T&P. If Gould was ever forced to name who owned the I&GN, his answer would have been "Fort Worth resident Gen. Grenville M. Dodge" who possessed all of the stock certificates. Gould also announced that the Katy had leased the I&GN for 99 years. This supported the facade that the I&GN was controlled by the Katy but not owned by it, and provided an overt mechanism for their financials to become joined.

MP was a "foreign" railroad; it did not own any tracks in Texas -- they were all Katy tracks under lease. Under Katy ownership, tracks were extended south by MP from the Katy's Red River crossing near Denison to Fort Worth (1880), and from there south to Hillsboro (1881) and farther south to Waco, Temple and Taylor (1882). To the press and public, all of this work was associated with MP, not the Katy; those were MP depots being erected in towns along the route. Gould was aggressively following the 1870 Texas law that authorized Katy construction (not that he considered himself bound by it.) Texas officials wanted more railroads, even if it meant not questioning the legality of MP's southward expansion of Katy's route network. Neither railroad was headquartered in Texas and neither had a Texas railroad charter. At least the Katy could make the argument that its construction was authorized by the 1870 law even though the Katy wasn't building to the Rio Grande.

Left: The Galveston Daily News of April 30, 1881 carried this article from six days earlier out of St. Louis speculating on a complete merger of MP, the Katy, the T&P and the I&GN, repeating the rumors that the I&GN had already been sold to Gould. Right: The same issue of the Galveston Daily News carried this article discussing H. M. Hoxie's assignment to be the new GS of the T&P. As noted earlier, Hoxie had been the GS of the I&GN since the beginning and he had been the author of the telegram sent to newspapers publicizing the arrival of the first I&GN train into Austin in December, 1876. So why was Hoxie suddenly the T&P's GS while remaining GS of the I&GN? Gould had formally taken over the T&P during its annual stockholders' meeting held in Philadelphia in April, 1881. By naming Hoxie as the T&P's new GS starting May 1, Gould ensured that the I&GN would begin coordinating with the T&P (and thus, with all of his railroads) even though the deal to add the I&GN to the Gould enterprise was not yet complete. The article reported the belief of "many" that the two railroads having the same GS would "immediately study to subserve a certain mutual interest thus indicated" ... whatever that means.

Reaching Taylor in 1882 gave MP a Gould connection to Austin, San Antonio and Laredo via the I&GN, satisfying one of Gould's objectives - reaching Mexico (more or less) directly from the Red River bridge. MP planned to complete a route from Taylor to Houston, but for several years, the southern terminus of the Katy tracks remained at Taylor. This was mostly due to the political climate in the Texas Legislature which in 1882 had repealed the land grant law and lowered authorized passenger fares while pondering additional railroad regulation. Gould was still planning for the Katy to reach Houston, so he bought the Galveston, Houston & Henderson (GH&H) Railroad. It owned only one line, but it was an important one: the only direct set of tracks between Houston and Galveston. Gould reorganized the GH&H under its original charter and sold it to the Katy. At this point, the Katy had only reached Taylor, a long way from Houston, so Gould had the Katy lease the GH&H to the I&GN. The I&GN and GH&H had interchanged in Houston for many years, but now those movements would be under a common Gould enterprise.

After four years, MP resumed construction of Katy tracks out of Taylor by chartering the Bastrop & Taylor Railway Co. on April 26, 1886. By the time work commenced in 1887, the name had been changed to the Taylor, Bastrop & Houston Railway. Regardless, it was a MP / Katy operation all the way. At Elgin, the tracks crossed the H&TC line to Austin and continued south to Bastrop where a bridge over the Colorado River was built south of town. Beyond the bridge, the route took a southeast heading into Smithville and continued to La Grange, planning to follow a route to Sealy that had been surveyed (but never used) by the narrow gauge Texas Western Railway. Reaching Sealy would put the Katy only 48 miles out of downtown Houston. However, eleven miles beyond La Grange, construction stopped at the end of 1887 at a location the railroad named Boggy Tank. There was no progress beyond Boggy Tank for several years as the Gould railroads entered a period of financial turmoil.

The Katy tracks through Smithville were within 50 miles of the I&GN tracks at San Marcos. A line from Smithville west to San Marcos would provide benefits to Gould's railroads by creating a triangle of track alternatives between Taylor, San Marcos and Smithville that would be valuable in the event of a bridge failure or other track problem. Most important, however, was that a Smithville - San Marcos connection would eventually (when the eastward extension to Houston was finished) create a Gould route between Houston and San Antonio via Smithville and San Marcos. Such a route could compete with the GH&SA for movements between two of Texas' largest cities. As an added bonus, the town of Lockhart, worthy of rail service as the seat of Caldwell County, was midway between Smithville and San Marcos. In 1887, MP initiated construction of Katy tracks between San Marcos and Smithville via Lockhart. Work began at San Marcos, and the tracks to Lockhart were completed in 1887. Like the situation at Boggy Tank, further construction from Lockhart to Smithville was paused when financial turmoil hit the Gould enterprise.

Left: The San Marcos Free Press of May 19, 1887 reported that the construction contract out of San Marcos had been let.

Work stopped before the end of 1887 as Gould faced dark financial clouds primarily related to the bankruptcy of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway which he had acquired in the early 1880s. The problems spilled over to MP because Gould had leased the Wabash to the SLIM&S, part of the MP family. The more immediate problem, however, was the election of James S. Hogg in November, 1886 as Texas Attorney General. Hogg had been elected on a campaign to go after Texas railroads for poor service, poor facilities, price-fixing and other violations of state law. Hogg began by suing the I&GN on December 3, 1887 for neglecting its infrastructure and delivering poor and unsafe service, in violation of its Texas railroad charter. He also claimed the I&GN had violated Texas railroad ownership laws by consenting to be leased (through the Katy) to MP, a "foreign" corporation. After a 3-day trial, the judge issued a split ruling on June 21, 1888; the I&GN would not forfeit its charter, but it would no longer benefit from a charter-based tax exemption. Eighteen months later, the Texas Supreme Court reversed the ruling on the tax exemption. In the end, Hogg won nothing from this lawsuit.

Hogg also sued the Katy for unlawful ownership of the East Line & Red River (EL&RR) Railroad between Jefferson and McKinney. Early in his tenure as Katy President, Gould had bought the EL&RR and transferred ownership to the Katy. Hogg had better success with this lawsuit by attacking the Katy for being a "foreign" railroad unlawfully owning a Texas railroad. In February, 1890, Hogg won the final appeal of his lawsuit at the Texas Supreme Court, causing the EL&RR's charter to be forfeited and forcing it into receivership. The appellate ruling in Hogg's favor had concluded that the Katy was, indeed, a "foreign" railroad that lacked both a Texas charter and a Texas headquarters. The Katy could not continue as a viable railroad in Texas until this situation was resolved, which could only be done by the Legislature.

The EL&RR wasn't critical to Gould's plans, and despite the loss, Gould may have temporarily felt safe from the wrath of Hogg. He was not, however, safe from the wrath of Katy stockholders. Gould owned very little Katy stock, hence he could be tossed out as President at an unfavorable stockholders meeting. That is precisely what happened in May, 1888. It had long been obvious to Katy stockholders that Gould was extracting every dollar possible out of the Katy and sending it north to MP where he would benefit from dividends. This led to a move among the stockholders to get rid of Gould, and they retained legal counsel for this purpose. Gould had anticipated that his time at the Katy might be dwindling so he had begun efforts to cancel the I&GN lease to the Katy. He wanted to ensure that if he was terminated from the Katy, he would still control the I&GN. Establishing his ownership of the I&GN would be difficult since he used Katy stock (that he didn't personally own) to buy it. But Gould's primary purpose in taking over the Katy had been to facilitate capturing the I&GN which he had accomplished seven years earlier. He would not give it up without a fight. Right: Fort Worth Daily Gazette, May 11, 1888. As Gould made moves to separate the I&GN from the Katy, an injunction was obtained by attorneys for Katy stockholders to prevent Gould from "monkeying" with the stock or securities of the Katy or the I&GN. At a Katy stockholders meeting held May 16, 1888 at Parsons, Kansas, the quorum replaced Gould and all of his cronies. Resolutions were passed rejecting the moves Gould had made to sever the I&GN from the Katy. Shortly thereafter, the new management team requested receivership protection from a bankruptcy court while it reorganized. They also requested the Katy's lease to MP be voided. The court assigned a Receiver and it eventually voided MP's lease of the Katy.

The Katy was finally free of Gould, but he would not go quietly; he proceeded to execute a daring plan to retain the I&GN. He was still the President of the I&GN, at least temporarily until the corporate officers of the Katy could call a formal I&GN stockholders meeting and fire him. (...But first, new Katy management would have to wade through the documents at Katy headquarters they were seeing for the first time to discover that the Katy actually owned the I&GN.) Gould needed to buy time; his ploy was to make a short-term personal loan of a half million dollars to the I&GN. As I&GN President, he then refused to pay it back within the time specified. Gould then personally sued the I&GN for default and forced it into involuntary receivership, giving him temporary protection from Katy management. The Katy intervened in the court proceedings and agreed that the I&GN should repay the $500,000 to end the matter, after which they would oust Gould and his henchmen from the I&GN. Gould countered by approaching his adversary, Attorney General Hogg, to admit privately that the Katy actually owned the I&GN. Since the Katy was a "foreign" railroad that owned a bona fide Texas railroad, Hogg was livid and he responded by filing for an injunction to prevent Katy management from taking any adverse action pertaining to the I&GN.

Gould's plan worked; Hogg's injunction was upheld by the district court and the I&GN remained in receivership. It was still owned by the Katy, and the bankruptcy judge became persuaded to terminate the receivership since the I&GN was capable of repaying the debt owed to Gould. Hogg tried to prevent termination of the I&GN receivership and the injunction against Katy management with a final appeal to the Texas Supreme Court -- he lost -- but the additional delay caused by the Supreme Court appeal made a difference. It was now the summer of 1891 and the Texas Legislature was working on the bill to create a Texas railroad charter for the Katy. At Governor Hogg's urging (he had been elected the prior November!) the Legislature had begun to sour on the idea of letting the Katy own the I&GN, even if it was through a Texas subsidiary.

The new charter was signed into law by Hogg in October, 1891 establishing the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Co. of Texas to be headquartered at Denison as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the parent Katy corporation. The Texas subsidiary would own all of the Katy's Texas rail lines built or acquired under Gould except the I&GN and the EL&RR (which was still in receivership.) Katy management sold the I&GN to Gould for $350,000 in exchange for a guarantee that the I&GN would resume its prior traffic arrangements with the Katy. The sale closed in July, 1892. Why the paltry sum? No other railroad would bid against Gould since he still controlled the T&P and the SLIM&S, the I&GN's best route to St. Louis. When the EL&RR came out of receivership, it was sold in early 1892 to the newly chartered Sherman, Shreveport & Southern (SS&S) Railway owned by investors based in Greenville and Sherman.

When Jay Gould died in New York City at the end of 1892, his son George took over the family railroad investments and succeeded Jay as President of MP, the I&GN and the T&P. For the next twenty years, those railroads would operate under Gould family control and work cooperatively on Midwest traffic. Left: Texarkana Daily Democrat, December 2, 1892 Right: Texarkana Daily Democrat, December 3, 1892

As for Hogg, he had been elected Governor in 1890 on a platform advocating creation of a Railroad Commission of Texas (RCT) which the Legislature did in 1891. Hogg had spent key periods of his public life working to force the I&GN to improve its service and safety record, but unfortunately, he learned the hard way that his efforts were insufficient. In January, 1905, long after he had left public office, Hogg suffered a head injury when the I&GN train he was riding to Houston collided with a string of freight cars. Though he believed his injury was minor, he ultimately needed multiple surgeries over the next year to relieve brain swelling, and he eventually succumbed to his injury in March, 1906.

On sound legal and financial footing, the newly independent Katy resumed construction in 1892, completing the Smithville - San Marcos line by finishing the 36 miles between Lockhart and Smithville. This enabled it to establish service to San Antonio via the I&GN connection at San Marcos. The two railroads seemed content to continue that arrangement, but in 1899, a revision to the Katy's charter required it to extend its tracks to San Antonio. The Katy didn't ask for this requirement; it was added when the Katy requested charter authorization from the Legislature to re-acquire the former EL&RR, now the SS&S, between McKinney and Jefferson. The charter provision was written so that the SS&S purchase could not proceed until the Katy had extended its tracks from San Marcos to San Antonio. The nature of this serial requirement to operate into San Antonio before being allowed to buy the SS&S suggests that the provision was added by San Antonio legislators concerned about the lack of railroad competition for the I&GN on routes to the north. The law also had a unique provision found in no other railroad charter in Texas. By accepting permission to acquire the SS&S, the Katy agreed to be permanently prohibited from filing, or participating in, any lawsuit against RCT. The Katy fulfilled its obligations; newspapers report the beginning of construction out of San Marcos on September 12, 1900 and the completion of the 46 miles to San Antonio on April 25, 1901.

The Katy also resumed building east from Boggy Tank, going as far as the Brazos River, seven miles beyond Sealy. The remaining 42 miles of track from the Brazos River to Houston was laid the in 1893. With tracks into Houston, the Katy became interested in operating to Galveston, but the GH&H was still leased to the I&GN which the Katy no longer controlled. The Katy claimed in a Federal lawsuit that it had a continuing right to operate the GH&H. Negotiations resulted in the Katy and the I&GN each owning 50% of the GH&H with rights to operate independently over it.

The Katy had tracks from the Red River to San Antonio via Smithville, but it did not serve Austin, the state capital. To do so, it acquired two defunct railroads that had never laid tracks: the Georgetown & Granger (G&G) Railroad and its owner, the Trinity, Cameron & Western Railroad. The Katy did this to retire the G&G charter which had authorized a line between Granger (on the Katy main north of Taylor) and Georgetown, the county seat of Williamson County 25 miles north of Austin. Retiring the G&G charter enabled a new railroad to be chartered, the Granger, Georgetown, Austin & San Antonio Railway, which built 16 miles from Granger east to Georgetown in 1903. At Georgetown, the Katy connected with a 10-mile I&GN branch line, the former Georgetown Railroad (GRR) from Round Rock which the I&GN had acquired out of foreclosure and merged in 1882. The Katy laid the remaining tracks to Austin in 1904 going south through Round Rock, Pflugerville and eastern Travis County before curving west to approach downtown where it began sharing SP's tracks. In July, 1905, the Katy negotiated rights to share the I&GN bridge over the Colorado River along with 30 miles of I&GN track south to reach Katy rails at San Marcos. This enabled the Katy to provide direct passenger service between Austin and San Antonio. Three months later, the Austin Statesman of October 4th reported on the I&GN's new Colorado River bridge under construction, remarking that it was "...hardly possible that the new...railroad bridge will be finished by the 1st of January, as was first expected. Work on the bridge, however, is progressing very rapidly." Most likely this bridge replaced the original structure built 25 years earlier. Left: The three main railroads in the Austin area as of 1904 were the H&TC (owned by SP), the Katy, and the I&GN. At Round Rock, the Katy crossing of the I&GN main line was grade-separated, the Katy passing over the I&GN. The Katy crossings at Taylor and Elgin were both at grade, and they became interlocked as Tower 34 and Tower 100, respectively. The grade crossing of the I&GN and the H&TC at McNeil was eventually interlocked as Tower 132. The Katy intersected the H&TC east of downtown Austin at a switch known as Pershing. From there, the Katy used the H&TC tracks into downtown to connect with the I&GN. Right: MKT Junction was the branch point on the I&GN main line for the half-mile run to Katy rails at Ajax, where a triangle track arrangement permitted connecting movements in all three directions. South of San Marcos, the Katy crossed the I&GN twice. At Hunter, the I&GN has had a bridge over the Katy since at least 1915, but the pre-1915 track arrangement is undetermined. The second crossing is at grade in New Braunfels, where Tower 92 was later built as a manned, 2-story interlocking tower.

While George Gould maintained control over the I&GN and helped guide it into a much stronger railroad over the next 15 years, financial clouds began to appear. Part of the problem was that RCT had begun issuing regulatory orders requiring specific railroads to improve physical infrastructure, safety and service with new railcars, upgraded roadbeds and new depots. Arguably, some of these investments may not have been economically justifiable, but to the RCT, they were required for public safety. The I&GN had a terrible safety record, particularly on its line between Spring and Fort Worth that had opened in 1903. Wayne Cline explains...

"Commission records [in 1908] showed that 99 wrecks had occurred on the I&GN since the summer of 1907, and 41 of them happened...on the Fort Worth Division. ... The International & Great Northern had compiled a reasonably acceptable safety record, but it rapidly went downhill after the Fort Worth Division was constructed. In 1904, casualties suddenly soared when 139 workers and passengers were injured -- almost twice the average for the previous ten years. ... After increasing markedly in 1904, derailments steadily mounted until five times the normal average occurred in 1907."

The poorly designed roadbed on the Fort Worth Division was not George Gould's only problem. An even larger issue was his financially precarious situation resulting from the costs of major rail expansions he had undertaken on the east and west coasts. When the nation went into a sudden and deep depression caused by the Panic of 1907, railroad revenues fell drastically. When the I&GN was unable to make payments on some of the bonds issued during its reorganization in 1892, the I&GN went into voluntary receivership in February, 1908. The receivership lasted three years during which the appointed Receiver, Judge Thomas Freeman, a former T&P attorney, rehabilitated much of the I&GN's roadbed and signaling systems using $11 million worth of short term Receiver Certificates authorized for sale by the Court. In June, 1911, the Gould family bought the I&GN out of bankruptcy and named Judge Freeman to be the new President. Unfortunately, revenues were insufficient to retire the short term notes he had issued as Receiver, hence the I&GN went back into receivership in 1914. And at that point, the Gould family connection to the I&GN ended forever.

It was not until July 28, 1922 that the reorganized railroad was bought out of bankruptcy by a newly organized company, the International - Great Northern Railroad (which explains why both I-GN and I&GN are commonly used as abbreviations.) The new I-GN had more than 1,100 miles of track, and it served many important cities across Texas including the Port of Galveston. Its massive route structure through Texas made the I-GN an attractive property. A major Midwest railroad, the St. Louis & San Francisco ("Frisco") Railway, tried to buy it later in 1922 but the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) refused to approve the sale. The Frisco's attempt alarmed MP which had long cooperated with the I-GN on access to St. Louis. MP had been reorganized in 1917 and the Gould family was no longer involved. MP did not have any railroads in Texas and it wanted to acquire the I-GN to re-enter the Texas market (having been evicted more than thirty years earlier when its lease of the Katy was voided by Texas courts.)  MP tried to buy the I-GN in 1924, but again, the ICC nixed the sale.

Not to be deterred, MP executed its fallback strategy by helping to arrange for the New Orleans, Texas & Mexico (NOT&M) Railway to buy the I-GN, simply to keep it out of the hands of other competitors. The sale of the I-GN to the NOT&M was approved by the ICC in June, 1924. MP was then allowed to buy the entire NOT&M on January 1, 1925, thereby acquiring the target I-GN plus several other railroads owned by the NOT&M. This instantly gave MP a major presence in Texas including half ownership of the primary switching railroad in Houston, the Houston Belt & Terminal Railway.

The I-GN continued to operate under its own name within the MP family of railroads. In 1933, MP and all of its subsidiaries went into a lengthy receivership largely attributable to the Great Depression. The receivership did not end until 1956 when a new Missouri Pacific Railroad Company was formed with all of its railroads merged into it, no longer carrying separate corporate identities. The T&P, however, was not merged even though MP owned 75% of its stock. The T&P continued to operate cooperatively with MP until it was merged in 1976.

Above Left: Coming into Austin on the Katy, Barriger took this photo facing east at Pedernales St. His business car has just cleared the switch at Pershing where the Katy merged onto SP's tracks for the trip west into downtown. A switchman, presumably an SP employee, has begun to move the switch back to its normal position to allow straight-ahead movements on SP's main track toward Houston. A barely visible horizontal sign atop the white pole beyond the switchman (near the utility pole to the left) reads "PERSHING". From Round Rock, the Katy came south through eastern Travis County and then paralleled the H&TC for the last three miles into Pershing. Above Right: This Google Street View image from 2021 shows that the Katy tracks are gone, but the adjacent building has survived for 80+ years; perhaps some of the utility poles have as well. The street to the right parallel to the tracks is East Fifth St. Below: A quarter mile farther west (closer to downtown) Barriger's next photo is facing east at Austin Jct. (as the horizontal sign reads.) This was the wye junction for SP trains to go north to Burnet, Llano and Marble Falls on the former Austin & Northwestern line, a right-of-way that is now used by Austin's CapMetro commuter rail system. There were two tracks on the west side of the wye going north, and Barriger's business car has just cleared the switch for the inner track. The passenger cars sit on the outer track, which was removed sometime in the 1940s; that real estate is now occupied by buildings. Barriger's business car is about to cross Canadian St., now Robert T. Martinez Jr. St. Continuing west into downtown, SP's track will migrate a block south to Fourth St., and then transition again to Third St. to reach the passenger depot at the corner of Third St. and Congress Ave. From there, the SP tracks proceed west to a wye at the I-GN's Colorado River bridge.

Above: In Barriger's next photo taken about 1.5 miles farther west, his camera continues to face east as his train is moving west on Third St. toward the river bridge. He has just crossed Congress Avenue where the ornate SP depot (also used by the Katy) sat on the northeast corner, and the MP depot (formerly the I-GN depot) sat on the southwest corner. The I-GN was the only MP railroad serving Austin, but by this time, the I-GN's separate identity had begun to be curtailed. It would disappear completely in 1956. The MP and SP depots are long gone, but on the southeast corner, the arch-windowed building (visible beyond the circular tower on the MP depot) was still standing when Google Street View caught this image (above right) in February, 2021. Barriger's train will proceed another half mile west and then take the east leg of the wye to turn south onto the Colorado River bridge. Below: This may have been Barriger's next photo, but its sequence number in the Barriger Library suggests that it was from an earlier trip southbound on the Katy. His view is from the south side of the Colorado River looking north along the I-GN bridge. The bridge control tower is barely visible sitting in the middle of the wye at the north end of the bridge. Barriger's trip south to San Marcos will be on tracks that had been upgraded with automatic block signaling. The May, 1929 issue of Railway Signaling reported that the I-GN had ordered automatic block signals from General Railway Signal Co. for the 36 miles between Austin and San Marcos yard.

Below: At Austin on a northbound I-GN trip, Barriger's train has just exited the Colorado River bridge on the west leg of the wye and cleared its northwest switch to prepare for a backup move to the MP depot on Third St. The depot is not visible to Barriger because it is beyond the curve to the left in the distance.

Barely visible to Barriger's camera is a portion of the control tower's roofline (blue arrows) and short stretches of the east leg (pink arrows) and west leg (yellow arrows) of the wye at the bridge.

Right: The next photo in Barriger's sequence shows that he is approaching the MP passenger station (white building with circular MP herald) as his I-GN train backs east along Third St. Judging by the position of the switch rails and Barriger's photo not being centered on the rails, his train is taking the crossover to move to the south track used for access to the depot.

Above Left: Perhaps on the same southbound Katy trip cited above, Barriger's train has taken the connector off the I-GN at MKT Junction toward the Katy main line as he looks back at the control cabin. In a half mile, Barriger's train will reach Ajax, most likely to go south toward New Braunfels, but with the option to go east to Lockhart and Smithville. Above Right: The next photo in Barriger's sequence is looking back at the south lead of the wye at Ajax. His train turned south at Ajax and is heading toward New Braunfels. The position of the switch rails shows that his train came off the northeast lead (left) from MKT Junction.

Below Left: On a different trip, Barriger snapped this photo of MKT Junction from his business car as his northbound Katy train has just come off the connector from Ajax to head toward Austin on I-GN rails. Below Right: Taken in 1980, this photo shows a different cabin sitting at "MK&T JCT" sporting a "Missouri Pacific Lines" circular herald on the front. By this date, the junction was fully automated; the cabin housed the interlocking plant but was normally unoccupied. The cabinet at the near corner of the building may have held override controls. (H. D. Connor Collection)

    
Above and Right: The National Railroad Adjustment Board (NRAB) was a body created by Congress to arbitrate labor disputes in the railroad industry. These two excerpts are from an NRAB ruling issued October 30, 1969 for a claim initially raised by MP telegraphers when some of their jobs were eliminated at MKT Junction in June, 1962. The basic claim was that between 6:30 am and 3:00 pm, Katy telegraphers at the depot in San Marcos had begun copying and delivering train orders to northbound Katy trains to be executed after the trains arrived at MKT Junction, whereas previously, such orders were handled by MP telegraphers at MKT Junction. The MP employees asserted that this violated their union's agreement with MP. Having failed to appeal MP's internal decision (on the 1962 claim) to NRAB, their attempt to re-file the same claim in 1965 violated NRAB procedures and was disallowed. The tower at MKT Junction had opened August 1, 1912 and had been staffed by MP personnel continuously since then, 24 hours daily. At the time of the dispute "...there was a mechanical interlocking located in the tower..." approved as Tower 206 by RCT at an unknown date. (Based on timeframes for Tower 204 and Tower 207, it is likely to have been in 1956.) The switch and interlocker controls had been operated manually by the MP "telegrapher-levermen". Effective June 22, 1962, the cabin was not staffed during morning and early afternoon hours, so Katy train crews would receive their train orders at the MKT depot in San Marcos. Upon arrival at MKT Junction, they would stop and manually operate the trackside switch. The switch was connected to the interlocker so that "...when the switch is opened by the MKT crew, the approach signals on the MP both north and south of MKT Junction indicate stop."

It is apparent from Barriger's photos that there were home (and presumably distant) signals at MKT Junction long before RCT approved the interlocker in 1956. The best guess is that since the two railroads didn't actually cross at this junction, they had decided that RCT approval of their switch and signaling system was not necessary. A nearly identical situation existed with the control tower at the Colorado River bridge. SP tracks (on which the Katy had rights) and MP tracks formed a wye at the north end of the bridge but did not cross, hence the tower (which presumably existed long before Barriger's visits) had never been incorporated into RCT's numbering scheme. It officially became Tower 205 in the same 1956 timeframe as Tower 206, suggesting that MP (which managed both towers) had decided to comply with RCT interlocker policies at these two junctions. Perhaps this was in response to pressure (or a direct threat) from RCT, but it also seems reasonable to assume that MP's exit from a lengthy receivership in 1956 (which dated back to the 1930s) played a role. The I-GN became fully integrated into MP when the receivership ended, so that may also have been a factor.

It is interesting to note that the focus of the labor dispute pertained solely to train order communications for northbound Katy trains at San Marcos. Elsewhere, the ruling mentions that southbound Katy trains (that would eventually take the switch at MKT Junction) received their train orders from MP telegraphers at Taylor, and that "...MKT's trackage rights were recently extended to include...tracks between Austin and Taylor..." (approved by the ICC on August 26, 1964.) Afterward, MKT trains between Austin and Temple began operating through Taylor instead of taking the Katy's route through Georgetown (which meant that the Katy no longer served Georgetown and Pflugerville.) The Katy tracks between Austin and Georgetown were formally abandoned in 1976.

Above: About six miles south of San Marcos, the Katy tracks crossed under the I-GN tracks near the community of Hunter. On the other side, the lines resumed their parallel trek south toward New Braunfels. As shown by these photographs taken approximately 70 years apart by John W. Barriger III (left, c.1940, from the rear platform of his business car on a northbound trip) and Bruce Blaylock (right, June 6, 2010, from the cab of the Union Pacific locomotive he was piloting on a southbound trip), very little has changed! Bruce describes this crossing:

"At Mile Post 215.58 on the MP (upper) track is an 85-foot skewed girder bridge built in 1915. As you can see, the clearances are very tight and I never held my arm out of the cab while running through Hunter Cut. A shifted load would be a real problem here. Some years ago, the bridge was raised a few inches to accommodate double-stack trains."

Since there is apparently a local indication of the 1915 date for the bridge installation, the obvious question is...was there always a bridge here, i.e. was this the original track arrangement in 1901? The Katy tracks were built 25 years after the I&GN tracks, and it's rare for the second railroad to go under the first one. There's no indication (e.g. a creek bed or unusual topography) that would convey the need for an I&GN bridge prior to the Katy's construction. Since the Katy needed to move west of the I&GN tracks, the bridge may have been added when the Katy was building south simply because there was no less expensive way to do it. Rather than build a lengthy bridge, the Katy could have paid the I&GN to raise their tracks (which are straight) onto a fill so the Katy could cross beneath it. No evidence to the contrary has surfaced thus far, and Hunter is not listed in any RCT documentation pertaining to crossings.

The positional swap of the rail lines (east for west) at Hunter did not disturb their general southwest heading. So if the rail lines were near each other and mostly parallel, how did they cross at nearly a right angle at Tower 92 in New Braunfels? The culprit was the I&GN. The Katy tracks more or less maintain a southwest heading on the entire route through New Braunfels, with short adjustments at various places. The Katy crossed the Guadalupe River geographically about where it would be expected, in the community of Gruene (less than a half mile from the famous Gruene Hall dancehall which had already been hosting live music for 23 years when the Katy showed up!) The Katy made one final adjustment to a due south heading about three quarters of a mile north of the crossing that became Tower 92's location and returned back to a southwest heading just as it was crossing the I&GN at grade.

As can be discerned from the earlier map showing the rail lines between San Marcos and New Braunfels, beginning northeast of New Braunfels the I&GN (the east line) takes a diverging path onto a south-southwest heading, gradually moving farther away from the Katy, continuing straight for nearly five miles. This brings it to the Guadalupe River about a mile due east of downtown. After crossing the river, the curve necessary to go back west into downtown required a west-northwest heading because the river crossing had put the latitude of the tracks a bit farther south than downtown. Continuing on this heading, the I&GN crossed the Katy after passing through downtown and then immediately began to curve back to the southwest to return to the original heading toward San Antonio.

Right: The January, 1913 issue of The Signal Engineer carried this news item reporting the I&GN's plans to install interlocking plants at New Braunfels and Jacksonville. The New Braunfels plant was installed in Tower 92 and commissioned on November 1, 1913. The Jacksonville plant was ... never bought? The first appearance of Jacksonville in RCT interlocker records is dated eighteen years later in 1931 when a 4-function interlocker was authorized to control the I&GN's crossing of the St. Louis Southwestern ("Cotton Belt") with a swing gate tied to an electric interlocker, similar to the later switch arrangement at San Marcos.

Above: Tower 92 controlling the Katy / I&GN crossing at New Braunfels was a manned, 2-story structure that housed a 23-function mechanical interlocker. These two undated photos of Tower 92 face northwest although the tracks in view are southbound to San Antonio. RCT records from 1916 show that the tower was operated by I&GN personnel who likely had responsibility for maintaining the tower and interlocking plant. In 1957, the ICC granted MP and the Katy permission to replace the Tower 92 manual plant with an automatic interlocker. Presumably the tower was removed shortly thereafter. (photos courtesy Jim Burns, New Braunfels Historic Railroad and Modeler's Society collection) Left: This June, 1983 photo by Jim Hinkhouse shows a young boy running toward a northbound Katy train as it crosses the Tower 92 diamond. The automatic interlocker cabinet to his right has a "92" placard (magnification below.) The control stand near the diamond allowed trainmen to override the signals when necessary.

Above Left: This view looks south from the County Rd. 235 grade crossing of the former I-GN tracks, with the former Katy tracks to the left. The I-GN tracks are visibly rising to cross the bridge at Hunter Cut while the Katy tracks remain level and gradually descend to go through the cut. Above Right: This view from Third St. in Austin shows the former MP tracks curving to cross the Colorado River bridge. Previously, this would have been the west leg of the wye with switches for a "straight ahead" track on Third St. Except for what is now the main line, all of the tracks at the north end of the Colorado River bridge in Austin have been removed, as have all of the other tracks on Third St. east of the bridge.

Below: There is still a switch at San Marcos Jct., but the cabin is long gone. The overpass visible in 2022 (left) for Aquarena Springs Dr. opened in 2018, replacing the street grade crossing that previously existed (right). (Google Street View)

The Katy was able to stay independent but it was similarly affected by economic downturns. The entire company entered receivership in 1915 and came out of it in 1923 under the name Missouri - Kansas - Texas Railroad, hence both MK&T and MKT are used as abbreviations (but it was mostly just "the Katy".) Some of its routes were sold off or abandoned, and some of its leases of other railroads were canceled. To compete with the larger systems, the Katy began to consolidate management and operations. The headquarters for the entire company was relocated to Dallas and the Texas subsidiary corporation was dissolved (due to changes in law, it was no longer necessary.) The railroad gradually abandoned non-productive routes, but managed to remain in business into the 1980s. In 1988, it was purchased by MP, 100 years after MP had lost its lease on the Katy due to the voluntary receivership undertaken by the new management when Jay Gould was ousted. MP was no longer independent; it had been acquired by Union Pacific (UP) in 1982. In 1989, the Katy was merged into MP and ceased to exist as a separate corporation. Similarly, MP was fully merged into UP in 1997.