Texas Railroads, C.S.A.

The Texas and New Orleans, first on the plaque, was the line the Confederacy most wanted finished. Chartered in 1856 as the Sabine and Galveston Bay Railroad and Lumber Company, it reached Houston from Beaumont in May 1861, and the fall of New Orleans ended work on its Louisiana half. Secondary accounts say Magruder pulled up the Beaumont-to-Orange rails, but an 1870 court inspection found them still in place. Service stopped in 1868. Rebuilt to standard gauge, the road ran its first through train to Orange on November 20, 1876, and through trains to New Orleans began in 1880.

What the plaque says

Texas Railroads, C.S.A. Harris County was 1861 center for 492 miles of state railroads, with Texas & New Orleans going from here to Orange; Houston & Texas Central to Millican; Houston Tap & Brazoria to Columbia; Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado to Alleyton; and Galveston, Houston & Henderson to Galveston. At Hempstead on the H.&T.C., passengers took the Washington County R.R. to Brenham and from there went by stagecoach to Austin, the state capital. Eastern Texas R.R. went from Beaumont to Sabine Pass; Memphis, El Paso & Phoenix ran 5 miles out of Jefferson; and a "Southern Pacific" went to the Louisiana line from Marshall. Making junction with the San Antonio & Mexican Gulf which ran from Port Lavaca to Victoria was the 15-mile Indianola R.R. 1,000 troops guarded and maintained the T.&N.O. Other troops destroyed 2 lines to prevent their use in possible invasions. War ruined 7 roads, because overtaxed industry could not replace worn tracks, parts or rolling stock. By 1865 only the H.&T.C. and the G.H.&H. still ran trains, and their tracks and rolling stock were much in need of replacement. The railroads had met the challenge as they have in every war. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 27 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• The Menil Collection — 28 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Rothko Chapel — 28 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Pillot Cemetery — 2.3 mi
• Spring Creek County — 2.5 mi
• Old Salem Lutheran Church Site — 3.4 mi
• Wunderlich Farm — 6.1 mi