|
History of the Railroad Commission of Texas
|
Hey Everyone! I'm glad you want to learn more about how the
Railroad Commission got started.
Well, it all began back in 1889, when Attorney General James
S. Hogg was fighting with supporters of the railroads. Mr.
Hogg had actually sued a number of railroad companies, as
well as the Texas Traffic Association (the organization that
decided how much people should pay to ride the trains or ship
goods on them) because he thought some of the railroads were
trying to take over the entire industry and keep other railroad
companies from having a fair shot at competing with them for
customers. Mr. Hogg decided to run for Governor of Texas,
and he promised people that if they elected him, he would
create a commission to regulate the railroads and make sure
they didn't do anything illegal. Well, you can imagine that
some of the railroads weren't too happy about that, especially
when he won the election and became Governor in 1890.
|
click to view larger version
of images
Governor James Hogg
|
Railroad Commission Secretary E. R. McLean
with staff members in Capitol office in early 1900's
Texas Capitol in 1892 |
The people, though, were happy that Governor Hogg was going
to do something about the problem. At first they had supported
the railroads. Forty years earlier, in 1850, Bexar County
had been the first of many counties to issue bonds to railroad
companies to encourage them to lay tracks in the area. Two
years later, in 1852, the state government even began giving
railroad companies land for every mile of track completed.
In the Eastern United States, railroads usually followed
the people. As people began leaving big cities to move out
west, they built railroads to connect their new small towns
with the big cities they came from. For Texas, though, it
was the other way around. Texas didn't have many big cities,
so the state government wanted to get more people to move
out to Texas. One way to encourage this was to build railroads
to make it easy for people to move here and travel back and
forth to the East. However, it takes a lot of money to get
a railroad up and running, and some of the companies were
afraid that they would spend too much money to build the railroad
lines and then not make enough back in profit. That explains
why the state offered free land (and even loaned money) to
the railroads-they had to get them out to Texas somehow.
|
|
Some railroads were given extra sections of land that ran
near the railroad, so as soon as the companies had finished
building railway lines in that spot, they sold their extra
land to settlers from the East and from Europe. Sometimes
the railroad companies even helped the new community build
courthouses, jails, and schools, because the more people they
could get to move to Texas, the more people would use the
railroad, and the more money the railroad companies would
make.
After the Civil War, two major railway lines were completed.
The Texas and Pacific Railway Company finished building its
railway line from Texarkana to Sherman and from Longview to
Eagle Ford-a total of 251 miles-in 1873. Then, in 1881, the
line moved from Fort Worth toward El Paso, using a land grant
from the State for 5,338,528 acres! Not surprisingly, by 1882
the State didn't have any more public land left to give to
the railroads.
|
John H. Reagan, first Chairman of the Railroad
Commission
Railroad Commission office on
the fourth floor of the Capitol in the early 1900's
|
Engineering Division of the
Railroad Commission office in early 1900's
R. A. Thompson, Railroad Commission
Chief Engineer in 1902
|
About that time, people began to realize how much power the
railroad companies held. Dirt roads for wagons were rough
and short, and there weren't even any waterways to use for
shipping goods in and out of Texas. Railroads were the only
way people could ship materials and products, and believe
me, the railroads realized how important they were. Some of
the major railway companies formed an organization, the Texas
Traffic Association, which set prices for using the railroads
at whatever they felt people would pay. In some cases, it
was cheaper to ship something from Texas all the way to another
state than it was just to ship it to another Texas city. M.
M. Crane, a prominent Texas political leader of the time,
described the situation like this: "The owners of the
railroads were like many other people," he said. "Having
the power to charge what they pleased, they were never overly
modest in fixing their compensation." Basically, the
railroads knew that people depended on them, and they wanted
to use that to make as much money as possible.(next
page)
|
|
