Fort Worth and Denver City Railway, First Railroad through the Texas Panhandle

The railroad worked to grow crops as well as haul them. It promoted winter wheat as feed for cattle, furnished tree seedlings for windbreaks against wind erosion, backed Seaman A. Knapp's push for cotton on the plains and lobbied for the first federally funded experimental farm in the Panhandle. In the drought years of the 1890s it gave farmers free seed, and in other years it lent to them against crop liens. In 1936 it helped run the Sam Houston Zephyr, the first streamlined train in Texas, and it was merged into the Burlington Northern on December 31, 1982.

What the plaque says

Fort Worth and Denver City Railway, First Railroad through the Texas Panhandle Pioneered transportation in the old buffalo and Indian frontier and the open-range cattle empire. Organized by Fort Worth citizens. Although chartered by the Texas Legislature on May 26, 1873, the actual building was delayed by the money panic of 1873. Under General G.M. Dodge, civil engineer who had built several major lines, grading began in 1881 at Hodge, near Fort Worth. Despite the 1882 repeal of the Texas Land Grant Act, private capital was able to push rails northwestward at intervals. Numerous towns, including Amarillo (in 1887) began as camps of the crews building grade and laying the tracks. On March 14, 1888, connection was made with rails of the Denver, Texas and Fort Worth Railroad (now Colorado and Southern) at Union Park, near Folsom, N. Mex. This completed the through route to Denver. In 1908 the Fort Worth and Denver City became a part of the Burlington System; in 1951 the name was changed to Fort Worth and Denver Railway Company. Ever since its beginning, this railroad has been backed by men with unlimited faith in the destiny of the Texas Panhandle. It has advanced the economy based on cattle, grain, petroleum, and manufacturing. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Route 66 Sixth Street Historic District — 2.0 mi
  Thirteen blocks of Amarillo's streetcar suburb that Route 66 turned into a roadside strip, from the 1922 Nat to Texaco, Phillips and Dutch Mill stations, now shops and bars.
• Helium Centennial Time Columns Monument — 4.8 mi
  Four sealed time capsules raised in Amarillo in 1968 for helium's centennial, in the city that for years produced almost all the world's commercial helium from the Cliffside field.
• Cadillac Ranch — 9.0 mi
  Ten Cadillacs from 1949 to 1963 planted nose down in a pasture west of Amarillo by the Ant Farm collective in 1974, on private land where visitors are let in to paint them.
• Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum — 17 mi
  The Panhandle's great collection, some two million objects behind a 1933 Art Deco hall carved with cattle brands, closed to the public since March 2025 over fire-safety violations.

More markers nearby

• A.T. & S.F. No. 5000 "Madam Queen" — steps away
• Henry B. Sanborn — 0.3 mi
• Amarillo — 0.5 mi
• Henry Bradley Sanborn — 0.5 mi