From the Abilene Reporter News; Friday, January 27,
2006
Col. Morgan Jones helped bring railroad to Abilene
As West Texas was being developed, towns' fortunes were tied to
railroad service. If one railroad meant prosperity to a town, then
another would surely bring more people and trade.
Col. Morgan Jones, a native of Wales, had a hand in building
hundreds of miles of railroads, including the Abilene &
Northern and Abilene & Southern.
Jones' credentials include working as a foreman of a crew for
the Union Pacific Railroad on the Transcontinental Railroad,
meeting a deadline to bring a stalled T&P line to Fort Worth in
1876, and serving as president of Fort Worth & Denver City
Railroad.
Jones later became president of the Wichita Valley Railway Co.,
and constructed a line from Wichita Falls to Seymour. In 1905, the
line was extended to Stamford. Abilene's city leaders requested
that he continue into Abilene - offering a $40,000 bonus if he
could complete the line on schedule. This line became the Abilene
& Northern.
Late in 1908, Jones revealed plans to build a rail line from
Abilene to Uvalde, where it would meet the Southern Pacific line.
Landowners and towns along the route - Iberis, Hatchel, Winters and
Ballinger among them - were asked to donate land for right-of-way,
shops and depots - plus come up with a sizeable bonus. After
considerable debate and no little arm-twisting, his conditions were
met, and on Jan. 6, 1909, the first Abilene & Southern rails
were laid along South 2nd Street in downtown Abilene.
To support the Abilene operation, separate depots for the two
lines stood on South 2nd Street east of Locust Street. The building
of a modern depot for the A&S convinced the T&P to also
build a new brick depot. That depot still exists on North First
Street and now houses the Abilene Visitors and Convention Bureau.
The Spanish-styled A&N depot, which had become part of the
Burlington Northern system, was replaced in 1929 and is still
standing.
As the A&S proceeded south, it bypassed Tuscola and led to
the creation of a new town on the rail line: Ovalo. (Tuscola would
later move to its present site to be on the Gulf, Colorado &
Santa Fe line.) The first freight and passenger run traveled from
Abilene to Ovalo on May 19, 1909. The fare: 60 cents. Three days
later, the first passenger train arrived in Winters to much
fanfare.
Ballinger received passenger service on Sept. 10, 1909. Regular
passenger and freight service was established, enabling passengers
to get from one city to the other in four hours. A self-powered
motor coach was later added to the A&S rolling stock and made
two round-trips a day.
Jones had ambitions of extending the line to either San Angelo
or San Antonio. When agreements could not be reached, he turned his
attention to a proposed line toward Waco after the Santa Fe chose
to build through Tuscola and Buffalo Gap instead of Abilene. Legal
tangles stalled this plan, so Jones instead built a line from Anson
to Hamlin, with plans (never realized) to extend on to Paducah. The
first train over these tracks ran on Oct. 1, 1910, bringing
passengers into Abilene for performances by the Barnum & Bailey
circus. Two trains per day were soon running between Hamlin and
Ballinger through Abilene.
According to the Handbook of Texas Online, Jones' plans to build
railroads in other areas of the state forced the Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fe and the Texas Central to construct long extensions to
their main lines. Without federal or state land subsidies, Jones
built most of his railroads in a semiarid, largely unoccupied
region. As a result, he helped to open the unexpected bounties of
the Texas plains, the Web site said.
The Anson-Hamlin track was the last laid by Jones. He died April
11, 1926, in Abilene at age 86. From 1909 until his death, he was a
frequent resident at the Grace Hotel, where his third-floor room
overlooked the railroad.
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