The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904 Page: 283
xvi, 340 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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The First exwas Railroad. 283
cept where they were very slight. It was soon consigned to the '
scrap-heap, and afterwards sold to run a sawmill.
Other locomotives came later, and their names follow in the \
order in which they were received: "Austin," "Columbus," "Rich-
mond," and "Harrisburg." ,These were not very different in ap- /
pearance from the engines now in use, except that they were of
much lighter weight. They comprised all that the road owned up \
to the time when it was sold (1868) and its name changed to the-
Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad.
About the first of December, 1855, the track was completed to, \
the east bank of the Brazos River, opposite the town of Richmond,
making thirty-two miles in all. To construct a suitable' bridge over
the Brazos River at that time would necessitate delay in building
the road, and cost a great deal of money. The state legislature had
passed several acts to assist railroad-building, one of which author-
ized the loan of six thousand dollars on every mile of road com-
pleted; therefore it was politic to devote all energy to adding miles :
of track. But the river had to be crossed, so a temporary bridge ,
was decided on. In 1856 an ordinary pile bridge, only about six \
feet above the water at a low stage, was built, perhaps one hundred
feet below the permanent bridge now in use, leaving an opening of
fifty feet for the passage of steamboats and other vessels which
occasionally navigated the river at that time. This opening was
covered by one span, supported or braced by logchains underneath.
A large flatboat was kept moored under the span to carry it out of
place when rired. The-bridge being so low, it was supposed that \
when a rise in the river occurred the drift would not accumulate
sufficiently to do any harm until the water rose higher than the
bridge, and allow the drift to pass over; but this proved to be a
mistake. The bridge caught the drift, which at one time threat- k
ened to form a permanent raft, the river being blocked for two or
three hundred feet; and it was only after a great deal of labor, (
with the assistance of a steamboat that happened to come up at
the time, that the raft was cleared. Then three more spans of sim-
ilar construction and length were added, making an opening of
about two hundred feet for the passage of drift. The spans were
always floated out of place on flatboats, and moved to the bank,
when a rise in the river came. On such occasions the road used
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 7, July 1903 - April, 1904, periodical, 1904; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101030/m1/291/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.