The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 101, July 1997 - April, 1998 Page: 305
574 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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A History of the Cane Belt Branch
most because of the violent deaths that surrounded its early operations,
but otherwise it is representative of the struggles for survival many short
lines in Texas faced. The history of the growth and later downsizing of
the Cane Belt line spans the entire twentieth century.
Texas planters recognized the feasibility of sugar cane as a cash crop
as early as the 1830s, when experiments indicated that the area
between the San Jacinto and Guadalupe rivers, about a hundred miles
inland, was promising for the production of sugar because of its favor-
able climate, rich soil, and abundant supplies of water.' By the mid-
184os, sugar cane was being planted on small tracts across the area. It
was not economically efficient to transport large quantities of fresh
sugar cane, a heavy and bulky commodity, a great distance, so by the
end of the nineteenth century a large number of small sugar refining
and manufacturing mills sprang into operation to serve growers in their
immediate vicinity. These mills crushed the raw cane and refined the
juice by a process of straining, evaporation, and clarification that pro-
duced granulated sugar. But economies of scale, shortages of labor,
and improved transportation facilities soon favored the consolidation
of sugar milling operations.
In March 1898, a group of prominent farmers and industrialists in the
lower Colorado County area led by W. T. Eldridge and Capt. William
Dunovant obtained a charter from the State of Texas for the construc-
tion of the Cane Belt Railroad. The railroad was authorized to run from
Eagle Lake, which was then being served by the Galveston, Harrisburg &
San Antonio Railway and the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway
lines, to Bonus, a farming community ten miles to the south.2 On June
7, 1899, this charter was amended to permit an extension of the line
north from Eagle Lake to connect with the Missouri, Kansas & Texas
Railway and the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway at Sealy, and south-
ward from Bonus to "tidewater on the Gulf of Mexico."3 Matagorda was
selected as the Gulf terminus of the line.
Captain Dunovant, one of the most prominent planters in the Eagle
Lake community, was named president of the Cane Belt road, with
Eldridge as vice-president and general manager. The company took its
name from the farming district through which its route was projected, at
that time the primary cane-producing and sugar-refining area in Texas.
'Abigail Curlee, "A Study of Texas Slave Plantations, 1822 to 1865" (Ph.D. diss., University of
Texas, Austin, 1932), 176, cited in "A Short History of the Sugar Industry in Texas," by William
R. Johnson, Texas Gulf Coast Historical Publications, Volume 5 (Apr., 1961 ), 1 2.
SS. G. Reed, A History of the Texas Railroad and of Transportation Conditions under Spain and Mexico
and the Republhc and the State (Houston: St. Clair Publishing, 1941), 297.
'Valuation Report to the Railroad Commission of Texas, December 6, 1923, mimeographed
report (Library, Railroad Commission of Texas, Austin).1998
305
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 101, July 1997 - April, 1998, periodical, 1998; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117155/m1/374/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.