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Texas and New Orleans Air-Line Railroad Company. Charter, By-Laws and Rules of the Sabine and Galveston Bay Railroad Company. Also, the Land Grant Law and Loan Law of the State of Texas; With the General Laws of the State, to Regulate Railroad Companies.
New York: Slote & Janes, Stationers and Printers, 93 Fulton Street, 1859. Large 8vo, original printed beige wrappers. 47 pp. A rare Texas railroad company charter. The Texas and New Orleans Railroad was originally chartered as the Sabine and Galveston Bay Railroad Company on 1 September 1856 to construct a railroad from Madison (present day Orange), Texas to Galveston Bay, incorporated by William Fields, William P. Herring, George W. Smyth, William Smith and Abram M. Gentry, the latter serving as the company’s first president. With initial capital set at $2 million, construction began in mid-April of 1858. The railroad’s promoters soon came to envision a line connecting Houston and New Orleans, issued land grant bonds, ordered equipment and rails and began laying track west from Beaumont. In December of 1859 the Railroad changed its name to the Texas and New Orleans Railroad Company. By January of 1861 the company had laid eighty-one miles of track and connected Houston to Beaumont. During the Civil War the Railroad served as a Confederate supply line and was protected by a thousand soldiers. The contents consist of the Act of Incorporation, dated 1 September 1856; Law Amending Charter (an act granting an additional two years to complete the first 25 miles of road), 13 February 1858; Acts A, B, C, and D ranging from 1853 to 1858 and covering donations of land to railroad companies to encourage the construction of railroads, investment of special school funds in railroad bonds, and the regulation of railroad companies; and company by-laws and rules. Rare. Not in OCLC, which records just a few publications relating to this railroad, the earliest published in the same year as the item offered here. REFERENCES: Williams, Howard C. Texas and New Orleans Railroad. Texas State Historical Association. CONDITION: Good, vertical crease through center of entire pamphlet, moderate wear and light stains.
Item #4126
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