Site of Southern Pacific Railroad Depot

Victoria's first railroad ran to Port Lavaca. The San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railroad, chartered in 1850, reached Victoria in 1860 or 1861 with money from Jesse Wheeler, after Victoria refused to buy stock until the tracks crossed the Guadalupe. In 1869 rain left the roadbed too soft for steam, and light cars were drawn by mules or pushed by sail. Charles Morgan bought the line in 1870, and it reached Cuero in March 1873. By the late 1800s rails circled the old townsite, Missouri Pacific on the west and south, Southern Pacific on the north, east and south.

What the plaque says

Site of Southern Pacific Railroad Depot The coming of the railroad to Victoria was an important part of the town's economic and social history. Although the first line reached Victoria by 1860, the railroad's major impact came after the end of the Civil War. In 1882, the proposed New York, Texas & Mexican Railroad completed a stretch of track from Rosenberg to Victoria and established its line headquarters here. Three years later it was sold to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Southern Pacific built a depot at this site in 1888-89 to serve arriving and departing passengers and to house its headquarters. Later, Victoria served as division headquarters for the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railroad. The two-story depot had a baggage room, waiting rooms, and ticket offices on its first floor, with the divisions' general offices and the dispatcher housed on the second floor. It often served as a gathering place for community social functions. The last passenger train left Victoria in 1953, but the depot remained in use for various purposes until 1979. Although the depot burned in 1984, its history is a reminder of the railroad's importance as a vital part of the economic and physical growth of Victoria. (1986) Texas Sesquisentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• De León Plaza — 0.5 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 1.7 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 25 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Palestine Missionary Baptist Church — 0.2 mi
• Webster Chapel United Methodist Church — 0.3 mi
• Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church — 0.3 mi
• The Victoria Advocate — 0.3 mi