Macaroni Station

Telfener paid his Italian laborers' passage, fed and sheltered them until work began, and paid from $1.50 a day for common labor to four dollars for skilled tasks. The methods were crude: with no pile driver at first, twelve men hoisted a heavy live oak block on a threaded pulley and let it drop to drive bridge piles. The line lost its land grant on a technicality, having started at Rosenberg Junction instead of Richmond, and before the charter could be amended the state repealed railroad land grants on April 22, 1882. The ninety-one miles cost $2,036,150.

What the plaque says

Macaroni Station Forerunner of town of Edna; a camp and commissary during the building of the New York, Texas & Mexican railway, 1880-1882. Count Joseph Telfener, one of the railway investors, brought laborers from his native Italy; station was nicknamed for them. Mrs. Lucy Flournoy in 1882 had townsite surveyed on her land here. The name "Edna" honors a daughter of Count Telfener. The "Macaroni" line built only 92 miles before it dropped plan to extend into Mexico; even so, it aided growth in coastal Texas. Since 1885 it has been in the Southern Pacific system. (1966)

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Early Jackson County — steps away
• Jackson County, C. S. A. — steps away
• Confederates of Jackson County — steps away
• Jackson County — steps away