The T&P concentrated its efforts on securing Ger-
mans and Swedes, as they were considered splendid
industrious farmers, inured to work and used to the
plow. Since the T&P established and owned the town
of Pecos, it must have been responsible for the French
immigration to Texas reported in November, 1891. A
party of forty-seven winemakers, direct from the wine-
making district of Southern France arrived ... on No-
vemher 1 and left for Pecos. This was the first colony of
500 who proposed to locate in West Texas for the pur-
pose of cultivating grapes for winemaking. As a result
these newcomers settled at Pecos, Barstow, Pyote and
Grandfalls to put to use their expertise in irrigation and
cultivation of crops of grapes, peaches, pears, cantal-
oupes, cotton, alfalfa, some small grain, and other feed
crops.
In its zealous selling job, the T&P also operated its
"Emigrant Sleeping Car" and built a big hotel-like "Im-
migrant's Home" at Baird, where newcomers might
stay until locating sites. Settlers were carried for half
price (2 1/2c per mile) and allowed 200 pounds of bag-
gage for each person. Children between 5 and 12 were
carried at half the adult fee. The "Emigrant Sleeping
Car" would stay for three days at each point on the
T&P, giving newcomers ample time to study the area.
These emigrant groups were called "Zulus" and five
different racial colonies were brought in by the T&P in
response to the T&P advertising. In an interview with
Waters Farnum, he says:
Our family came in 1908 from Clemon, Texas. I
was one year old. My father worked for Dr. Melton
on his alfalfa farm. Father came out in an Emigrant
Car. You leased the car, put household goods and
farming equipment in one end and livestock in the
other end. You were allowed one attendant with-
out charge.
A clear description of these Emigrant's Cars was
given in the Marshall, Texas, News-Messenger, May 31,
1956:
An old car built by the Litchfield Car Company
in 1883 is being restored and overhauled at the
T&P shops to be sent to the Centennial at Dallas. It
was one of the 12 cars used by the Texas and Pa-
cific Railway in hauling many of the early day im-
migrants from the old Eastern states into Texas
and were known as Emigrant sleeping cars in their
days. These cars had four windows on the side and
were equipped as sleeping cars on the interior with
slat seats that could be pulled together to be used
as beds. They had no upholstery or drapery but
were of plain wood finish. Another old car is being
converted in a combination coach and baggage
car. This car was brought from the Pullman Palace
Car in 1876 and was given No.50 when it was
placed in service. One of the latest of all steel bag-
gage cars is being converted into a "bath house," to
be placed in Pullman City during the Centennial at
Dallas. The car has 14 shower bath rooms, with hot
and cold seats, mirrors and all conveniences of a
bath house.
Another description of the Emigrant Car is given us
by Walter Burkholder of Barstow:
On the 15th of December, 1912, my dad loaded
an Emigrant Car, which had a cheap rate, with fur-
niture and the panel job, one pony and a bicycle
among other things. He and my older brother
shipped through to Pecos. My dad sneaked in and
rode as a stowaway. You were allowed to bring
livestock in this car if you wanted to and were al-
lowed one attendant. They had a shetland pony
that the kids had ridden and that their grandfather
had given them. They brought him to Texas with
them. They brought a crate of Indian runner ducks
and they didn't have their mouths shut from the
day they left up there (Iowa) until they got down
here. He never hated ducks so bad in his life. They
had their furniture packed in one corner of the car
and a bicycle about halfway up. He could go right
through the frame of the bicycle where he had a
bed back there 'cause he stowed away. They did
all right until they come out of some little town in
Texas. They came around the curves and they
were both standing in the car door. The brakeman
in the caboose saw that there were two people in
that car and the next time the freight stopped, here
he came. He said, "Where is that other fellow?"
My brother said, "Well, there's nobody else." "We
saw. We know there's somebody else in there."
"OK. Come up and search." They crawled up in
that car and they searched through that panel job
wagon and all through the horses and the bales of
hay, but they never did see the hole where the bi-
cycle was. So they didn't find him.
Mr. Burkholder also gives a picture of the kind of
freight that was shipped on the T&P from this country:
One year we shipped from 4000 to 5000 cars of
hay, alfalfa hay down into Louisiana. They had in
those days what they called "Common Freight"
rate and it was five dollars a ton to ship hay from
Barstow to Louisiana. They put it on a mileage ba-
sis and the farmers in Oklahoma could ship it in
much cheaper than they could. They lost their
market and had to quit raising hay. Also in those
days they had a big deal in the summertime with
the hauling of hay from all those farms. All that
hay had to be baled and had to be hauled from 34
mile to 5-6 miles out of town into Barstow to the
railroad and loaded into those cars and shipped
out. Mr. T.F. Moore is the man who handled most
of the hay and was the commission man who had
his own office. In 1914 when I was about 16, one
Sunday they came after me to sew sacks at the
thrashing machine where they were hauling the al-
falfa seed. I stayed on there the rest of the year,
and I never missed a year running the thrashing
machine until I went into the army in 1918.
One of El Paso's most widely known pioneers, W.W.
Bridgers, was also one of the ablest historians as well
as a member of Texas House of Representatives. He
remembers when, at the age of twelve, he was a water
boy for the J.H. Comstock Construction Company, one
of the contracting outfits hired by Jay Gould to put
through the Texas and Pacific. He and the other mem-
bers of the crew were camped near the Pecos River
when the famous furious race between the Texas and
Pacific ended in 1881 with an agreement near Sierra
Blanco which terminated all contracts and made neces-
sary no further roadbuilding. Representative Bridgers,
in a reminiscing mood, believed the rumor ran rife that
Huntington of the Southern Pacific cornered the rail
market in the U.S. At the time he heard that the South-
ern Pacific had taken an option on all steel rails
produced in the United States and he further believed
that the Southern Pacific shipped those rails over the
two other transcontinental railways, Union Pacific and
Central Pacific, which had been in operation since
1879, while Gould, under a disadvantage, had to have
his rails shipped from England by boat. Further remi-
niscences revealed that Bridgers as a water boy had to
haul water seven miles to the dump for the workers
and that on the long trip back to El Paso, after the crew
had been dismissed, he and his party averaged twelve
miles per day.
Another thrilling story told by one of the early day
workers was found in the Railroad Man's Scrapbook.
The following dispatch, filed at Stockton, Texas, in
1880, affords a glimpse of the courage and drama that
rode with the men who surveyed and built the rail-
roads in this section of the country:
Major R.J. Lawrence and corps of the Texas and
Pacific Railroad surveyors, after a number of days
of extreme suffering from thirst in the White Sand
Hills, miraculously arrived at the Pecos River with-
out the loss of any men, but with the loss of some
stock. Wagons were abandoned at different inter-
vals of 40 miles along the trail. Great suffering was
experienced by both men and stock, men strag-
gling along the trail arriving at the river. From the
morning of the 28th until next morning, with the
assistance of those first arriving at the river the last
of the stragglers were brought in with much diffi-
culty, as numbers of them were crazed from thirst
and had entirely stripped themselves of all wearing
apparel. Three of them were found within 100
yards of the Pecos River where they were drinking
the blood of an animal they had killed. Some of the
men were totally blind and on arriving at the river
plunged in head foremost. The party congratulated
themselves on a narrow escape from perishing an
the plains. Had it not been for several of the expe-
rienced and their bravery, the greater number
would have died in the sand. The survey was
abandoned in the Sand Hills, but will be resumed
as soon as the men and animals recuperate.
When the sun and wind parched the prairies in the
early 188Os, many a frontier farmer and rancher kept
his family from going hungry by gathering buffalo
bones and selling them. Large sections of the grasslands
were strewn with the whitening bones of several mil-
lion buffaloes killed by the hide hunters in 1874-79.
Prairie fires had destroyed some of the bones, but
enough were left to provide a boon for those who
hauled them to the towns, and even an appreciable
business for the railroads.
Some of the early Texas hauling was from the Pan-
handle to Dodge City, Kansas. The roundtrip took a
month to six weeks, the time depending on the
weather. Other bones were shipped by coastal steamer
from Galveston or by rail from San Antonio. New mar-
kets were provided as the Texas and Pacific built west
from Fort Worth. A trainload of bones shipped from
this area to New Orleans brought such good prices that
thousands of bone gatherers flocked to the ranges. The
bones were shipped to carbon works in St. Louis and
eastern cities. The old, weatherbeaten ones were
ground into meal for use as fertilizer. A few choice
ones went into bone china. But most of them were pre-
pared for use in refining sugar. Horns were used in
making buttons, combs and knife handles.
All the up and coming towns along the T&P became
important shipping points for bones. Tom Low and
others made good money hauling them to Sweetwater
before the railroad reached our area. Prices varied con-
siderably but averaged about $8 a ton.
Some of the haulers watered their bones to make
them heavier. One who hauled them from Kent County
to Colorado City always spent the night at Lone Wolf
Creek where he allowed the bones to soak while he
slept. This increased the weight about one-fourth. In
the Texas towns the wagons stood in the streets while
the buyers went from one another and offered bids. Af-
ter making a sale, the driver moved on to the railroad
and added his load to one of the piles along a siding.
The matter of obtaining water has always been a
large problem for the railroad. In a letter dated Febru-
ary 14, 1968, to Mrs. Belle S. Toole, Mr. Malone dis-
cusses water trains that were used at one time:
There are no official records of those old water
trains. The forerunners to the short-lived water
trains were, of course, the water tank cars or in
most instances box cars carrying barrels of water
which were so much a part of the work trains that
followed right on the heels of the construction
forces laying the track. Water was not only a requi-
site for the construction workers but also for the
railroad's considerable herd of beef cattle and
horses in the construction period in West Texas.
While I cannot substantiate this as factual, it is
my opinion that the water trains lasted only a very
few years at most. To provide the tremendous
quantities of water necessary to operate the steam
engines, the railroad, shortly after construction,
went about setting water tanks all up and down
the line. These first water tanks-and there were
two of them at Monahans-were wooden. But also,
the records are lacking as to when they were first
installed.
SECTIONS, SECTION HOUSES AND TRACKS
The railroad under the guidance and strict orders of
General Dodge continued to be built across the western
plains at the rate of one mile and a half a day. The sec-
tion houses were built from ten to twelve miles apart.
Ward County has been associated with several num-
bers, but according to the Texas and Pacific records in
Dallas, the number assigned to the first section house in
Ward County was 603.37 which meant that this section
house was 603.37 miles from Texarkana.
These structures served for depots, equipment stor-
age and housing for labor crews until eventually in-
creased usage required larger, more modern facilities.
When the Texas and Pacific started to operate, it used
boxcars for passenger and freight stations, but by 1887
that era had almost passed. Spick and span station
houses stood along the right-of-way at regular inter-
vals. In addition to the stations, about every ten miles
there was a residence for the section foreman. These
"section houses" were identical wooden structures
neatly stripped from ground to roof. In design they
were rectangular prisms twice as long as wide, gabled
at the ends. Across one of the long sides of each was a
sturdy spacious porch. On the opposite side was a shed
room, used for storage. Up the outside wall of one of
the gabled ends, a ladder-like stairway slanted to a
door on the second floor, the only entrance to or exit
from the upstairs quarters, reserved for the telegraph
operators at some sites. The ground floor was for the
use of the section foreman and his family if he hap-
pened to have one. These sites were seats of official-
dom ... The section foremen and their crews who
lived in long, low buildings near the section houses
were not able to maintain the tracks without the aid of
"extra foremen" who were sent where special work
was needed. Those extra foremen and their crews lived
in special boxcars on the tracks until their assignment
was finished. Sometimes a regular section foreman was
made an extra foreman and vice-versa.
The records of the T&P Railway gives a picture of
what was in Ward County as clearly as any other state-
ment that we have been able to find. We have included
Metz which was in Ector County in order to show the
relationship of all the other section houses and build-
ings and because many of those who worked in Mona-
hans had at sometime or another lived at the section
house at Metz. The following is a statement of the
buildings, water stations, coal chutes, turntables, stock-
pens, etc. in Ward County (and Metz in Ector County)
on January 1, 1910.
Distance from Stations
Texarkana 593.05.... METZ
Section house 167-168, 16x32,
I story frame
L. 16x24, 1-story, 4 rooms
Front gallery, 7x28
Back gallery, 7x22
Mexican house, 12x72,
1-story frame, 6 rooms
Tool house, 12x12
Water house, 5x16
2 privies, 4x6 each
Stock pens-
I pen, 27x39
1 pen, 54x118
I pen, 65x118
I pen, 55x155
I pen, 36x91
1 pen, 18x23
I chute
I alley, lOxIB
1 chute platforms, 8x24
Wing fence, 180 ft. long
603.37....SANDHILLS Section House 169-170, 16x32,
1-story frame
L, 16x24, 1-story, 4 rooms
Description and Dimensions
Front gallery, 7x28
Back gallery, 7x22
Mexican house, 12x24,
1-story, 2 rooms
Mexican house, 16x20,
1-story, I room
Tool house, 12x12
Water house, 5x16
2 Privies, 4x6 eac604.37 .... SAND PIT
No Company Buildings
608.58....MONAHANS Comb. Depot, 24x27,
1-story, frame
Office, 10x24
2 waiting rooms, lixiS
Freight room, 22x24
Freight platform, 1,000 sq. ft.
Double closet, 6x10
Agent's dwelling, 14x24,
1-story frame
L, 12x24, 1-story, 4 rooms
Gallery, 6x16
Side gallery 6x30
Shed room, 4 ft. 6 in, x 11 ft.
Privy, 4x6
Pumper's dwelling, 14x24,
1-story frame
L, 12x24, 1-story, 3 rooms
Gallery, 6x16
Privy, 4x6
Shed Addition, 10x16
Old Pump house, 12x12
Stock pens-
1 pen, 55x118
1 pen, 50x56
1 pen, 47x50
I pen, 32x64
I pen, 18x64
1 pen, 32x43
1 pen, 21x32
1 alley, 10x160
1 alley, 10x43
Wing fence, 94 ft.
I Chute
1 Chute platform, 8x24
Water troughs
Cotton platform, 30x36
Crane house, 20x28, 24-ft
huge frame
Coal bin, 26x240
Coal chutes, 7 pockets
Incline and level track,
492 ft. long
Pile and frame, 5 pile bents;
B.D. 29 frame bents on
B.D. pile foundations
Level track 16 ft. high
Coal heaver's house, 14x32,
1-story, 2 rooms
Junk house, 12x14, used to be
dry sand house
Water tank, 16x24, cypress on
wood foundations
Water tank, 11x27, Calv. steel
on stone foundation
Pump house, 18x18
Water from 3 dug wells
Coal house, 10x2613.90.... AROYA
Section house 171-172, 16x32,
1-story frame
L, 16x24, 1-story, 4 rooms
Front gallery, 7x28
Back gallery, 7x22
Mexican house, 18-6x73,
1-story, 5 rooms
Tool house, 12x12
Water house, 6x16
2 Privies, 4x6
619.38 Water tank, 16x24, cypress
on stone foundation
Pump house, 12x14
Coal bin, 10x20
Pumper's dwelling, 14x16,
1-story frame
L, 12x14, 1-story frame,
2 rooms
Gallery, 6x12
Water from dug well
623.44...,PYOTE Comb. depot, 24x32,
1-story frame
Office, 8x14
Waiting room, 14x15
Freight room, 17x23
Double closet, 6x10
Section house, 173-174, 16x32,
1-story frame
L, 12x20, 1-story, 4 rooms
Front gallery, 6x28
1 Mexican house, 12x18
I Mexican house, 12x14
1 Mexican house, 18-6x73,
5 rooms,
1-story frame
I tool house, 12x12
Privy, 4x6
Cotton Platform, 16x32
Stock pens-
I pen, 20x42
1 pen, 32x58
I pen, 48x58
1 alley, 10x20
I chute
I chute platform, 8x24
830.69.... QUITO WATER
STATION Water tank, 7x26, Galv. steel
on wood foundation
Pump and boiler house, 10x36,
1-story frame
Coal bin, 8-28
Well derrick, 32 feet high
Water from 2 drilled wells
632.37.... QUITO WATER
STATION Water tank, 7x26, Galv. steel,
stone foundation
Pump house, 12x12
Coal bin, 8x28
Water from pond
632.69.... QUITO Section house, 175-176, 14-26,
1-story frame
L, 12~4, 1-story, 3 rooms
Gallery, 5x22
Outhouse, 13x15
Back room addition, 13x15
Mexican house, 16x86, 1-story,
6 rooms
Privy, 4x6
Stock chute, 24 ft. long
Platform, 8x24
634.42.... QUITO QUARRY No Company buildings
639.12.... BARSTOW Comb. depot, 20x51,
1-story frame
Office, 11x20
Waiting rooms, 15x20
Freight platform, 1,560 sq. ft.
Water house, 5x8
Douhie closet, 6x10
Cotton platform, 16x96
Stock pens-
I pen, 28x38
1 alley, 10x48
1 alley, 11x28
Wing fence, 40 ft.
1 chute
I chute platform, 8x24
Sand bin, 8x34
Even though the terrain through the county was
rather desert-like and uneven as far as sandhills were
involved, there were little bodies of water that required
span bridges for the railroad. The T&P listed four such
bridges in the area of Quito and the Pecos River.
Water played an important part in the development
of the railroad as it passed through this area. Monahans
had three wells with capacity of 200,000 gallons daily;
Pyote had a well with "Limited" daily capacity; Quito
had two wells with "Limited" daily capacity also. Since
Ward County was being developed as a cattle raising
area, the T&P provided for cattle crossings and other
traffic crossings along the line.
It is interesting to hear those who have lived in this
area at one time or another relate their experiences as
they and their families tried to cope with the raw unde-
veloped country. Laverne Gay Holloway of Whitney,
Texas, and her brother, Raymond Gay, visited Mona-
hans Sandhills State Park in 1977 and related the fol-
lowing to Edith Grissom of the museum:
My father, W. Sim Gay, was foreman at the T&P
section camp near the present park entrance in
1908. I was five and Raymond was nine months
old. We were the second family to live in the fore-
man's cottage which is now the Concessions build-
ing in the Sandhills State Park. Our family was in-
vited to dinner with the ranchers and they were all
impressed as they had new potatoes with flour
sprinkled over them and cooked in milk. They
were just the most delicious potatoes we had ever
eaten. We had never seen a black person, so our
aunt dressed up as one and we were really scared.
One day a hobo stopped at our house and was
showing off for some cowboys and he picked up a
rattlesnake, holding the head with one hand and
the tail with the other. The snake outwitted him
and bit him on the hand. He was so very sick all
day on the front porch with his hand soaking in a
bucket of coal oil (kerosene) and when it turned
green, we would get a fresh bucket. When a freight
train came by, he was taken to a hospital. He lived.
In an interview with Mrs. W.T. "Willie" Chandler of
Midland by Mrs. Rita Feaster on May 14, 1979, Mrs.
Chandler tells what it was like to live in the housing
provided by the developing railroad:
Before we lived in Monahans, we lived at Metz
in a box car that they fixed up for us to live in
while they were building us a section house at
Monahans. We were at Metz 14 months. That was
51 years ago (1928) because I remember my last
baby was born when we were in the box car. I
came to Midland for the delivery. They built the
section house in Monahans for us and we stayed
there until February of 193a. The house was a three
room house-a well built house-painted that old
yellow and bordered in black, the railroad colors.
They had a fence around the front of our house
and at the back were the Mexican houses-five of
them. There was a signal maintainer who worked
with his motor car. He took care of the signals on
the blocks and he lived up town somewhere. If I'm
not mistaken, he was a single man. The workmen
had two room houses and they were as well built
as ours. There was no indoor plumbing. We had an
outdoor toilet and I don't remember how we got
our water. There was a ranch house up kinda
north of us. I don't know whether it was Jim
Tubb's house or not. It was kinda out in the pas
ture like. For water we had a company well west of
the depot, and I guess it was piped down there as
best as I can remember. That was the best water I
think I have ever tasted.
I sure do miss hearing the trains running, 'cause
you know we lived right on the tracks. People used
to wonder how I ever stood the noise of the trains
passing through. Lots of times I didn't even know
they were going by. You know you just kinda get
used to them. The early passenger trains would run
early in the morning before time for us to get up
and we wouldn't know whether the train had run
or not. My husband would go down to the depot to
get a schedule to see if the train had run or not. Of
course, he'd go out on his motor car with his men
and he'd want to know if the train had run. They'd
laugh at us - living right on the track and
wouldn't know whether the train had come or not.
Courtesy: Ward County 1887-1977 Historical Archives.