Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad

The Katy began as a race for land. Kansas chartered the Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch, in 1865, and Congress offered right-of-way and bonus land to the first line to reach the Indian Territory border. Backers included George Denison, August Belmont, J. Pierpont Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. The courts later held that Congress could not give away Indian land, so only the right-of-way came. In Texas the Katy absorbed the Denison and Pacific and merged it in 1881, and by 1890 owned 849 miles of Texas track. The ICC approved its sale to Union Pacific in 1988.

What the plaque says

Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad In 1865 the Union Pacific Railway southern branch was incorporated to build a railroad from the St. Louis-Kansas City area to the Gulf of Mexico. In 1870, with construction completed to the border of Indian Territory, the line was renamed the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad. This title was often shortened to M-K-T, which led to the familiar nickname by with the line is best known -- "The Katy." Following the route of an old cattle trail, the Katy became the first railroad to cross Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma, and enter Texas from the north. On Christmas Day 1872, over 100 passengers rode the first Katy train into Denison, a new townsite named for M-K-T Vice President George Denison. The construction and acquisition of branch lines soon extended the Katy east to Greenville, west to Rotan and Wichita Falls, and south to Galveston and San Antonio. By 1904, the system had over 1,000 miles of track in Texas. The railroad transported cattle, cotton, and other crops to market. It also carried passengers on such trains as the "Texas Special" and the "Katy Flyer" before passenger service ended in 1965. Today (1975) Denison is a division headquarters on the M-K-T and the home of about 600 railroad employees. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 0.5 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 5.3 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 13 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Choctaw Cultural Center — 16 mi
  The Choctaw Nation's history told from the Chahta side at Calera, with galleries from Nanih Waiya to the Trail of Tears and the reservation today, a living village and daily stickball.

More markers nearby

• Waples-Platter Grocery Company — steps away
• North-South Railway Connection — steps away
• Present Home of XXI Club — 0.3 mi
• Site of Saint Francis Xavier Academy — 0.3 mi