Tagged: cottonbeltroute

To most Americans in the late nineteenth century, the railroads looked like the key to prosperity and progress. Without the market access the railroads provided, there would have been little point in raising cotton in small-town Grapevine. Wagon freight rates averaged one dollar per 100 pounds per 100 miles. After 1879, rail freight rates were never more than one-half that expensive. Since Grapevine was not too far from major economic centers, it seemed destined to have a railroad. In 1888, the St. Louis, Arkansas, and Texas Railway (SLA&T) built its Cotton Belt line through Grapevine, thus allowing Grapevine to thrive as an agricultural trade center supplying goods to area farmers and serving as a shipping point for their produce. The SLA&T originated in Tyler, Texas in 1870. Influential Grapevine businessmen urged the railroad company to build what became known as the Cotton Belt Route through Grapevine in 1887, inaugurating service...