The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1892-02-11
VELASCO REFRIGERATOR.
WITH PRESIDENT LEE
OF THE VELAsC0 SYNDICATE.
1t Is the Hope of the Live Stock Interests
Of the Southwest and Will Become the
Great Shipping Port for the Live
Stock Products of the Future.

Mr.. w. M. ID. Lee, president of the
Brazos River Channel and Dock COM
pany and Texas Land and Immigra-
ton company of Velasco, the syndi-
cate of brave, energetic men, which
has, by the expenditure of millions of
money out of it's own pocket, secured
the only deep water port on
the Texas coast, is registered
at the Driskill. Mr.. Lea is q livestock
man Of years. experience, and is per-
sonally known to nearly every dele
gate present at this convention.
A STATESMAN reporter met Mr.. Lee
last night and asked him few ques-
tions concerning Nelasco, and if his
liar significance. Mr.. Lee said: 81
could not resist the temptation to
come here and shake hands with my
old friends and assure them that L
was still working in the stockmen's
interests, inasmuch as | have been
somewhat instrumental in giving
them an outlet to the markets of the
world for their livestock and livestock
products. My opinion is that deep
water port on the coast of Texas is the
hope of the livestock interests of the
Southwest. The excessive freight rates
to the packing centers and ports of
the East has made profits on live
stock shipments absolutely nil, and
the quarantine against southwestern
cattle is another bar to the splendid
development of that interest. The
solution of the problem is refrigera-
tor packery for his products on the
Gulf coast at port where there is
sufficient depth of water to handle
the vessels that can carry the freights
in refrigerators across to Europe,
where the stockman's best market
lies, and which has heretofore been
packed 900 miles from the stockman's
ranch and then transported 900 miles
to the seaboard.
"VeIasco is today the only port on
the Gulf coast where there is enough
water to handle such vessels as are re-
quired in this traffic, and will be
the only one for years to come,
if indeed it is not the only one that
will ever be secured on the Texas
coast. Something must and will
be done by the stockmen to recoup
their losses of recent years on account
of the freight rates and quarantine
and feel sure they will take early
acti looking to contamination of
what | have suggested. In proof Of
this | see that today they have pass
ed a resolution offered by Mr.. Geo. b.
Loving, of Fort Worth, to visit Velas-
co in q body on the 10th of March and
see for themselves all that we claim
for our deep water port and the feast
bility and eminent practicability of
establishing there packery and re-
frigerator such as L have suggested.
awe will soon be in posi-
ton to handle the stock products
of Texas and the entire West, as we
are pushing the Velasco Terminal
railroad to an intersection of every
trunk line in the state, and another
charter was filed today by Mr.. 7. j..
Allen of Kansas City for the Velasco
and Northern railroad, which will
come in on the west side of the Brazos
at Velasco from some of the principal
Northern cities.
ave are reaching out every day
and appealing to the various COM
mercial interests of the Great West,
and the live stock interest is not the
least of those interests"