Texas & Pacific Railway

Prosperity returned with more railroads, the Handbook of Texas says, when the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient began building in 1903. To court the lines Sweetwater built up its water supply: a small town lake in 1898, then Lake Trammell in 1914, Lake Sweetwater in 1929-30 and Oak Creek Reservoir in 1950-52. Railroad shops gave a steady payroll. The Gulf refinery ran from 1929 to 1954, International Harvester had a factory from 1920 to 1950, and at one time the town was a large telegraph center. Sweetwater had 10,367 people in 1940 and 11,415 in 2000.

What the plaque says

Construction of the Texas and Pacific Railway began in East Texas in the early 1870's. By 1880 the line was expanding westward. It reached Sweetwater in 1881, with the first train arriving on March 12 of that year. Sweetwater became a railroad town, with business and homes built along the rail line. The railroad was a major influence on the town's development, bringing in settlers and building materials and providing shipping access for local products and livestock. The railroad station at this site was razed after passenger service was discontinued in 1969. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pioneer Museum — 0.4 mi
  Nolan County's settlement story in a dozen rooms of Judge R. A. Ragland's 1906 house in Sweetwater, a town that started as a dugout store for buffalo hunters and a post office called Blue Goose.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 3.4 mi
  Hangar 1 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the women of the WASP trained to fly every aircraft in the Army's arsenal in World War II, then waited thirty-three years to be called veterans.
• Heart of West Texas Museum — 27 mi
  Colorado City's museum in a restored downtown house, from a mammoth dug up at Lake Champion in 2001 to an Ice Age bison and the wartime telegrams sent to a local family.

More markers nearby

• Nolan County — steps away
• W.A.S.P. (Women's Airforce Service Pilots) Training Base: Avenger Field — steps away
• S.D. Myres — steps away
• Herefords in Sweetwater — 1.1 mi