page_title: Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard photo of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad's "Katy Flyer".
context_page_description: The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railway is a former Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch, it came to serve an extensive rail network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1988, it merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad; today, it is part of Union Pacific Railroad.
  In the 1890s the MKT was commonly referred to as "the K-T", because it was the Kansas-Texas division of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and "KT" was its stock exchange symbol. This soon evolved into the nickname "the Katy".
  The Katy was the first railroad to enter Texas from the north. Eventually, the Katy's core system linked Parsons, Fort Scott, Junction City, Olathe, and Kansas City, Kansas; Kansas City, Joplin, Columbia, Jefferson City, and St. Louis, Missouri; Tulsa; Wagoner; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, Temple, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and Galveston, Texas.
context_section_description: The Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway was incorporated in May 1870 in Junction City, Kansas.  The company received government land grants to build a supply railroad connecting the frontier military bases of Fort Riley, Fort Gibson, and Fort Scott; and eventually Fort Worth, as well as establishing connections with other railroads that served Fort Leavenworth and Fort Smith — but its broader ambitions were to connect Chicago and New Orleans. Upon its incorporation, the MK&T acquired the Union Pacific Railway, Southern Branch (est. 1865) and its 182 miles (293 km) of track in Kansas.
  At the time of its incorporation, consolidations were also made with the Labette & Sedalia Railway Co. and the Neosho Valley & Holden Railway Co.; MK&T also acquired the Tebo & Nosho Railroad Co., the St. Louis & Santa Fe Railroad Co., and the Hannibal & Central Missouri Railroad Co. Combined with the UP Southern Branch, these small, newly built railroads formed the foundation on which the Katy built. In the late 1890s, a subsidiary once called the Missouri-Kansas-Eastern railroad was established to run from existing MKT rails approaching Kansas City into St Louis via the Missouri River basin.
  Congress had passed acts promising land grants to the first railroad to reach the Kansas border via the Neosho Valley. The Katy portion of the former UP Southern Branch, which had begun building from Fort Riley just north of Junction City, Kansas, was in a heated competition for the prize. On June 6, 1870, Katy workers laid the first rails across the Kansas border, winning the race. Congress' promised land grants were never made, as the courts overturned the grants because the land was in Indian Territory and was the property of the Indian tribes.
  The Katy continued its push southward, laying track through the territory and reaching Texas in 1872,  acquiring other small railroads while extending its reach to Dallas in 1886, Waco in 1888, Houston in April 1893, and to San Antonio in 1901.
  When the Katy railroad reached Houston, its joint ownership of the Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad gave it immediate access to the Port of Galveston and its ocean-going shipping on the Gulf of Mexico.
  A Katy train was robbed by the Dalton Gang on July 14, 1892, at Adair, Oklahoma, in what was then Indian Territory.  The gang got away after a gun battle.   
  In 1896, as a publicity stunt set up by William Crush, the Katy crashed two locomotives head-on, pulling loaded trains, at a site that came to be known thereafter as Crush, Texas.  The collision occurred before more than 40,000 spectators, three of whom died (and several were injured) by debris from the exploding boilers.  Ragtime composer and pianist Scott Joplin, who was performing in the area at the time, commemorated the event in his piano piece, "The Great Crush Collision March" (which he dedicated to the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway).
  In 1911, the MKT purchased railroad lines held by industrialist Joseph A. Kemp of Wichita Falls. These included the Wichita Falls Railway, an 18-mile line between Wichita Falls and Henrietta in Clay County; the Wichita Falls and Northwest Railway Company of Texas; and the Wichita Falls and Wellington, which provided service into Wellington in Collingsworth County. Kemp's brother-in-law, Frank Kell, was a partner in some of these lines, including the Wichita Falls and Southern Railroad, which remained a Kemp-Kell property until it was abandoned in 1954. In 1923, the Katy acquired another Kemp/Kell property, the Wichita Falls and Northwestern Railway, which extended from Wichita Falls to Forgan in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The route to Forgan, the Northwestern District of the MKT Railway, was abandoned in January 1973, and Altus, Oklahoma, became the northern terminus of the branch. The remaining 77-mile link between Wichita Falls and Altus was absorbed in 1991 by the Wichita, Tillman and Jackson Railway.  The Katy acquired the Beaver, Meade, and Englewood Railroad in 1931. This trackage, like the length between Altus and Forgan, was abandoned in January 1973.
  From 1915 until 
caption: The Katy Flyer in 1911
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