Local heritage displayed at former depot
From East Texas Journal, September 1992
By Vernon C. Holcomb, Special to the Journal
Pittsburg, Texas – The Lonesome wail of a train whistle is a common occurrence here, for this has been a railroad town from the early days. Established in 1855, the village had just been selected as the county seat for the newly formed Camp County in 1874 when the railroads began to arrive.
Future prosperity was assured when an east-west line and north-south line crossed here. The East Line and Red River Railroad arrived in 1877, followed by the Texas and Saint Louis Railroad, known as the Cotton Belt Route, in 1880. Both were narrow gauge lines and both changed ownership and names numerous times.
The settlers of East Texas were from the Old South, and they brought with them their agricultural heritage. From the beginning, the cash crop was cotton and transporting the 500-pound bales to market over crude roads was a difficult task. The main market was the riverport of Jefferson and the round trip by ox-drawn wagon took three or four days. Rail transportation revolutionized shipping.
The Cotton Belt was originally the “Tyler Tap,” a narrow gauge, that was started by the people of Tyler and designed at first to tap the Texas & Pacific about 20 miles away. William Harrison Pitts, founder of Pittsburg, recognized the value of a railroad to his land and city and in 1875 donated a strip of land to the Tyler Tap Railroad.
Because of financial difficulty, the Tyler Tap was sold to the Texas and Saint Louis Railroad which extended the track north through Pittsburg in 1880. The Texas and Saint Louis was interested in bringing cotton from Texas and Arkansas to Saint Louis for the lucrative eastern markets. By 1884, the company had 800 miles from Cairo, Illinois, to Texas.
The Cotton Belt had two passenger trains daily through Pittsburg — north and south. Passenger rates were three cents per mile. In May 1885, a Western Union telegraph line was established on the Cotton Belt.
Railroad depots were a center of activity, and that was especially true of the Cotton Belt Depot. In the “gay ’90s” it was a favorite gathering place for young couples on Sunday afternoon. Many people would meet the trains just to see who got on and off. The depot had a colored waiting room, and residents today remember when that was one of the few places the blacks could gather and socialize.
Livery stable teams would meet trains to provide transportation. Then there was a steady stream of wholesale salesmen or “drummers” through the depot and special display rooms were set up for their wares at the hotels. Trains were the way to travel.
Major Pitts had already donated a 110-foot by 40-foot lot to the Tyler Tap Railroad for a depot in 1875. This original lot was expanded by additional purchase when the Texas and Saint Louis was built. A depot was important enough that A.T. Diamond and D. Smart made it a condition of sale when they sold lots in 1880. The deed stated, “The Texas and St. Louis Railroad Company shall as soon as practicable erect their passenger depot on the south side of Jefferson Street.”
The prosperous years in the 1890s led to the construction of new depots all over East Texas in the early 1900s. Pittsburg was no exception, getting its new Cotton Belt depot in 1901.
By the turn of the century, Camp County was shipping peaches, yams and watermelons by the carload, in addition to cotton. The famous Ezekiel Airship departed here for the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair and got as far as Texarkana where a storm destroyed it by blowing it off a flatcar. Trips by merchants to buy goods in Saint Louis were an annual occurrence.
The depot served the community continuously until 1968, when the Cotton Belt asked the Railroad Commission for authority to close the facility. Although local citizens expressed some opposition, the depot closed. Passenger service had been discontinued in 1956. Some freight continued to be shipped until 1970, after which the depot fell into disrepair.
The ensuing years saw numerous efforts to save the structure while the rain, vandals and pigeons took their toll. Finally, in 1990 after several years of negotiations with the Southern Pacific Railroad, Mayor Dave Abernathy succeeded in purchasing the building for the city for $9,000.
During March 1990 a large group of citizens organized the Pittsburg Camp County Museum Association, led by John Holman as chairman. The purpose of the organization was to lease the depot for $1 a year and renovate it for a museum to be named the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Center and Museum. By the end of the year the group had raised more than $25,000 and acquired a collection of several hundred items.
Vernon C. Holcomb, a native of Camp County, is a retired Air Force Lt. Colonel and owner of a small cattle farm.
