The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1915-04-02
Railroads or Good Roads Which,
BY Q. G. PAYNE.

far remote from rail transportation to
the worlds markets, and lines begun
or projected into these regions will be
completed or built. But these will be
long lines for long hauls.
All over the Southwest are almost in
Vulnerable short or branch railroad
lines, varying in length from three or
four miles on up to 40 or 90 miles.
They are usually owned and operated
by one OF the larger railway systems OF
the section as feeders for freight and
passenger traffic.
Many of these short lines we're built
to develop an industry peculiar to a
given locality, such as the sawmill roads
of the piney woods regions and the
oil-feld and coal mine roads scattered
throughout the Southwest. These roads
usually were built by the promoters of
the particular industry being developed
and later leased or sold to one of the
big railway systems for operation.
The greater railway lines traversing
the Southwest, extending north and
south or east and west, except where
they converge at important centers, OF
necessity over the greater area were run
far apart. 1t thus developed that hum.
dreds of communities, rich in agricul-
tural possibilities, were left miles and
miles from a railroad. The universal
poor wagon-road, and the fact that the
only means of transportation over it
was the wagon and team, and that dur
ing great part of the year almost inn
possible, made life in these remote COM
munities very unattractiye if not quite
unbearable.
Whenever a new railroad was pro-
jected through a given section there was
great rivalry among the towns along
the proposed route and every induce
ment of free right-of-way and bonus
was offered by the rival communities to
get the road to come their way. These
bonuses Of land and money, from the
State, from individuals with large land
holdings and from communities, have
always been a considerable factor in
railway promotion and building in the
Southwest.
But what of the communities and
towns left to one side of the railroads?
Many were Furnishing, for country
towns; frequently they were prosperous
county seats, such as Canton in Van
Zandt County, Fairfield in Freestone
County, Quitman in Wood County,
Glen Rose in Somervile County, and
Ozona in Crockett County-all in Texas.
All the States OF the Southwest have
numerous similar examples. Where
they were county seats these railaoad-
less towns have continued, but they
have seen small stations on the new
roads grow into proud social and COM
mercial pre-eminence in few short
years. Usually the town that failed to
get the railroad and lived only on its
social and commercial advantages has
seen its population drawn away by the
clang and whistle of the locomotive and
its buildings moved or left to decay. |
have seen the site of one such county
seat in Texas grown up with giant pines
and another given to the peaceful culti-
walton of cotton.
During all these years OF develop
ment-railroad and town building-in
the Southwest, every community has
looked forward to the coming of the
railroad as the summum bonum, or
highest good. Many Of them have
raised-for them-enormous sums of
money which they used to build short
line to the nearest railroad point, or give
it as a bonus to the larger system to
DuIIu SUCH q uTduCli ltI6s 1HOy Juo6
had to have railroad, regardless of
cost. Not infrequently, in fact usually,
great financial assistance was secured in
the railroad town out of which it was
proposed to build the branch. The pro-
motion of short line railroads by am
bilious engineers, up to three years ago,
was rapidly becoming a business in the
Southwest.
Everybody knows, who travels bit
in the Southwest, that these branch line
railroads are frequently little short OF
makeshifts. They have been built with
the least possible amount OF grading,
tortuous of route and steep of climb
and declivity. Their rails are light,
they have little ballast, their equipment
the ancient cast-off from the main lines
that operate them. Their service, pas