Sweet Home

I always thought Sweet Home was in Alabama. Lynyrd Skynyrd and all that. The USGS database lists the name as a "populated place" in Alabama, but on satellite imagery, I don't see much evidence of populace there at all. I did, however, see evidence of population in Sweet Home, Texas, a town that until recently, I did not know existed. Terry & I drove through it intentionally; it's far enough off the beaten path that few people pass through it by accident. So...why would someone drive through Sweet Home, Texas on purpose?

As you can see from this image, Sweet Home is near the town of Yoakum, a town that Terry and I happened to spend the night in recently (and yes, it was "on purpose"...we didn't break down there or anything like that... Terry wanted to visit the Double D Ranch outlet store...another interesting story...but I digress). I was definitely on board with spending the night in Yoakum because, as a Texas railroad history buff, Yoakum has special appeal. It was named for Benjamin Franklin Yoakum, perhaps the greatest railroad magnate from Texas. The town was founded in 1887 as the San Antonio & Aransas Pass (SA&AP) Railway built two rail lines through the area (one of which, shown as a black line in the image above, is now a major rail line for Union Pacific). At age 28, Yoakum was a Vice President of the railroad when the town was named for him. In 1889, he became the General Manager of the railroad and in 1890, he became its "receiver" when the railroad went bankrupt! How's that for working both ends of the deal? He reorganized the railroad, brought it out of receivership, and negotiated its sale to Southern Pacific. Yoakum moved on to the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway and eventually to the St. Louis San Francisco ("Frisco") Railway. When the Frisco merged with the Rock Island railroad in 1905, Yoakum became the Chairman of the Board of both railroads. He later moved to New York, migrated into other businesses, and remained there until his death in 1929.

But what does this have to do with Sweet Home? The other former SA&AP line through Yoakum went to Hallettsville and eventually went all the way to Houston. This line passed through Sweet Home a short distance northeast of Yoakum (or...to be more precise...the railroad passed five miles south of the community of Sweet Home, and the townspeople relocated their town to be on the railroad!) It was great while it lasted, but Sweet Home eventually lost its railroad when portions of the line were abandoned in 1959.

After the abandonment, about five miles of Farm Road 318 was built directly on top of the former SA&AP railroad right-of-way, beginning in Sweet Home and ending at Mont, where the SA&AP right-of-way can be seen diverging from Farm Road 318 in the upper right corner of the image. Driving on highways that are built atop former rail lines is interesting. The highway doesn't follow the terrain; cuts and fills are used to flatten out the grade because trains don't go up and down hills, not in the sense that a highway might. And there are no short radius curves, only those of the long radius, sweeping variety. This particular highway is not a great example; the road is fairly short and the local topography eliminates the need for any spectacular fills and cuts. But it is a highway built on top of a railroad right-of-way, and since we were in the area, that was enough for me to decide to go to Sweet Home, Texas. Where the skies are blue.

Charles Simmons

A few years ago there was talk of Congress funding a $400M bridge in Alaska between two lightly populated locations. It was derisively christened the "Bridge to Nowhere", to be located between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Every time I heard a news story about that bridge, I was reminded of one of the first articles I co-wrote/edited when I was the editor of Clearance Card, the quarterly journal of the Southwest Railroad Historical Society. It was about a land promoter, Charles Simmons, founding a new town in South Texas called Simmons City (promoters are required to have a big ego). Transportation options were limited in those days, so he figured he'd better start a railroad as well. It was simply an efficient means of bringing potential buyers to the willing seller, you understand. Otherwise, he had no use for a railroad. I like people who don't forget that they also need to solve the ancillary problems that impact the success of their main endeavor. Depending on your gauge, Simmons was somewhat successful in his initial endeavor, but ultimately the town dried up and disappeared. The only lasting remnant is the church, built in 1908, that still stands...as shown in these images.

Church in Simmons City, Texas [28 24 21N, 98 16 45W]

So why does the "Bridge to Nowhere" remind me of this story? Well...there was a mystery associated with the construction of Simmons' railroad because old aviation maps (and modern satellite photos) showed his railroad extending well south of its "known" southern terminus in Christine, Texas. Texas Railroad Commission records said that it never went south of Christine, but maps and photos show that it continued much further south and then...it just ended. Frankly, it looked like a Railroad to Nowhere.

Clarity Tunnel

The geography of Texas has historically resulted in the need for very few railroad tunnels. The vast amount of land with relatively few natural obstacles meant that construction could usually go around a potential tunnel, even in central and west Texas where most of the hills are located. But this was not always true; by all accounts, there have been six railroad tunnels constructed in Texas, none of which are still in use for rail traffic. [And I'm talking "real" tunnels, not "urban" tunnels or subways (e.g. the DART tunnel in Dallas) where tracks have been placed below ground.] Two of the tunnels were along the Ft. Worth & Denver South Plains Railway, a branch line of the Ft. Worth & Denver Railway. The line was constructed from Estelline to Dimmitt, a distance of 131 miles, in 1927-28, primarily to serve the cotton business near Lubbock and Plainview. The longer of the two tunnels was Clarity Tunnel, a curved tunnel 742 feet in length named for F. E. Clarity, a member of the railroad's Board of Directors. I do not know the name of the other tunnel, but it was much smaller and located a short distance west of Clarity Tunnel. The story goes that a train derailed in the smaller tunnel, and in the process of cleaning up the mess, the railroad decided to eliminate the tunnel by "daylighting" it, i.e. excavating it so that the tunnel no longer existed. Clarity Tunnel remained in use until the rail line was abandoned in 1989. In the early 90's, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department converted the abandoned right-of-way into the Caprock Canyons Trail between Estelline and South Plains which includes the section encompassing Clarity Tunnel. It's a great bike ride (or on horseback, if you prefer).

Vicinity of Clarity Tunnel [34 14 22N, 101 07 30W]

Artesian Belt Railroad

Artesian Belt Railroad ROW near Somerset, Texas [29 12 41N, 98 38 24W]

The Artesian Belt Railroad is a long forgotten railroad that operated south of San Antonio, Texas a century ago. How it was started and its ultimate demise made a sufficiently interesting story that I co-wrote an article about it. The article was published in Clearance Card, the quarterly journal of the Southwest Railroad Historical Society. Getting it published was easy since I was the editor of Clearance Card. SRHS is no longer the historical society that it once, was having morphed into a vagabond railroad museum. My involvement ceased a decade ago. If Clearance Card is still published, it is likely a museum newsletter. Fortunately, the article we wrote is available on my co-author's website here http://codney.tnorr.com/simmons.htm.