page_title: History of the Southern Pacific
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Southern Pacific / Origins
caption_attribution_description: English: Southern Pacific Railroad station in Belmont from a postcard mailed in 1907; eBay store Web page states: "Caption reads "S.P.P.R. Station - Belmont, Cal". Card is postally used in 1907"
context_page_description: The history of the Southern Pacific stretches from 1865 to 1998.
  The Southern Pacific was represented by three railroads. The original company was called Southern Pacific Railroad, the second was called Southern Pacific Company and the third was called Southern Pacific Transportation Company. The third Southern Pacific railroad, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, is now operating as the current incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad.
context_section_description: One of the original ancestor-railroads of SP, the Galveston and Red River Railway (GRR), was chartered on 11 March 1848 by Ebenezer Allen, although the company did not become active until 1852 after a series of meetings at Chappell Hill, Texas, and Houston, Texas. The original aim was to construct a railroad from Galveston Bay to a point on the Red River near a trading post known as Coffee's Station. Ground was broken in 1853. The GRR built 2 miles (3.2 km) of track in Houston in 1855. Track laying began in earnest in 1856 and on 1 September 1856 GRR was renamed the Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC). SP acquired H&TC in 1883 but it continued to operate as a subsidiary under its own management until 1927, when it was leased to another SP-owned railroad, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad.
  The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway (BBB&C), was chartered in Texas on 11 February 1850 by a group that included General Sidney Sherman. BBB&C was the first railroad to commence operation in Texas and the first component of SP to commence operation. Surveying of the route alignment commenced at Harrisburg, Texas, in 1851 and construction between Houston and Alleyton, Texas, commenced later that year. The first 20 miles (32 km) of track opened in August 1853.
caption: Belmont, California station, about 1907
exif: {"Image Make": "HP", "Image Model": "HP pst2600", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "198", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:05:04 08:25:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "640", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "404", "EXIF Saturation": "7840", "EXIF Sharpness": "7856", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[1, 0, 19, 0, 32, 32, 32, 48, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 55, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 56, ... ]"}