Texas Midland Railroad

The Texas Midland was a rich woman's property that also worked. The Handbook of Texas says it was chartered December 1, 1892, with its office in Terrell, from an unfinished northeastern extension of the Houston and Texas Central that went into receivership in 1885 and was sold to Hetty Green. Her son E. H. R. Green became president. It was the first Texas road to put electric lights on its engines and one of the first with steel boxcars and gas-electric cars. Green sold it to the Southern Pacific in 1928, and its Kaufman-to-Greenville section was abandoned in 1958.

What the plaque says

Texas Midland Railroad A northeast line of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad was built through this area in 1882. In 1892 it was purchased by Mrs. Hetty Green and later reorganized as the Texas Midland Railroad. Under the innovative leadership of her son Edward H. R. Green, it was instrumental in the early economic development of area communities, especially Terrell, where maintenance facilities were located. Later part of the Southern Pacific System, the line was operated until 1958. This railroad car, found at Sand Lake, is typical of business cars used on the line. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 2.2 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 16 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Frank Reaugh — 0.4 mi
• Robert A. Terrell — 0.4 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Terrell — 0.9 mi
• Rockwall and Brin Church of Christ — 1.0 mi