Essays

Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado

Midland and Northwestern Railroad
May 5, 2004

After the story on the wildflowers last week, (which are already fading) and companion stories on television and radio, I had several dozen folks call me to talk about the flowers. Several people wanted to know about the Fasken Railroad, for they had stopped at the historical marker on State Highway 158, and had realized that the old road bed was visible. That got me in a daydreaming mood, imagining how it what it would have been like to take a ride. By the way, the biggest mesquites along Highway 158 before you get to FM1788 germinated on the old road bed after it was abandoned in 1923. After flashfloods in 1920 washed away some of the crossties the railroad was sold to the Texas and Pacific.

Dateline May 1, 1919. Your correspondent took a ride today on the Midland and Northwestern Railroad. For newcomers to the area, first I will give some background of the railroad and its route and then tell “Part One” of the story of the trip.

The railroad was chartered in January of 1916 by the Midland Farms Corporation, owned by David Fasken of Toronto, Canada. It was completed in 1918, from Midland up to Seminole, by the way of Smackover, just a-ways north of Andrews – oh, I forgot, with the establishment of the post office in 1909 they changed the name to Florey after the ranacher who bought up most of the land around the 6 year old town! Fasken bought Chicago meatpacker Nelson Morris’s C Ranch in 1912 – you remember him, don’t you?

Morris had the first drift fence in this part of west Texas built, and had the first windmills erected near Midland. And at one time, his herd of Black Angus cattle was the largest ever seen anywhere in the world! Who can forget August 5th, 1891, when at Mr. Morris’ request, General R.G. Dyrenforth arrived in Midland, along with several professors and Edward Powers, author of “War and the Weather?” They were out to prove that explosions make the rain fall!

On the evening of August 17th, 1891, twelve hours of balloon explosions and ground explosions ripped the west Texas skies apart. At dawn, the skies were clear, but at 5 p.m. a drenching rain forced Dyrenforth and assorted observers to shelters, and the jubilant Dyrenforth drove back to Midland through six miles of flooded road. At Morris’ ranchhouse, two-hundredths of an inch fell. On August 25th the experiment was repeated, and fourteen hours later another thunderstorm rolled through the area.

Local ranchers were not impressed – “it always rains in late August.” (I’ve wondered about that quote in the national magazines– nobody had been in this region more than 10 years – so how could they say always? And look at the drought of 1918-1919 – we have not seen more than a spit of rain for over a year!)

Many of you know David Fasken’s nephew, Andrew, who moved to Midland to oversee his uncle’s investments. He and his family now lives out at the town of South Camp, right in the northwestern corner of Midland County, fifteen miles from town, along with employees of the railroad. The Faskens have great hopes of selling small tracts of land on the C Ranch for farms and middle class “estates,” but so far he has not had much success. (Oh, cursed dry weather!)

In 1917, the Fasken operation also began the town of Fasken as a speculative enterprise to the east of Andrews. A depot, store, hotel, barbershop, school, stockpens and even a small zoo of local animals have been built. So far, only two houses are there, but a number of the lots have been sold. One of those houses rode a wagon from the town of Shafter Lake about 15 miles away, when that town was mostly abandoned when the citizens of Andrews County voted to make Andrews the county seat. A tornado hit Shafter Lake in 1916 -- you might remember the story about the teller at the bank there who hid in the bank vault while the building was destroyed.

The Midland and Northwestern tracks meet the Texas and Pacific tracks about 5 miles west of downtown. Their engine belongs to the Texas and Pacific, and but the railroad does own one passenger coach, two flatcars, and a mail and express car. We pulled out right on time and chugged along nice and steady for three miles, where we coasted to a stop. The fireman hopped down and opened the first pasture gate (one of almost 20!) We eased through and stopped again while he closed the gate and walked back to the engine.

In the passenger car with me was a cattle buyer from Dallas, on his first trip on the railroad. “What a hick railroad! I have never been on a railroad that had to – look – there is that automobile that left before us. Well, I guess we are going faster – but still!.” Sitting on the flatcar behind us were two men of Mexican descent – accommodations there are cheaper, but you get to dodge cinders coming out of the smoke stack – once in a while one is still hot. Also on the flatcar was a load of lumber for a lumberyard at Seminole.

The cattle buyer was a bit nervous. He kept getting up and leaning out the window to check on his three cattle cars behind the mailcar. “I am supposed to stop at the first pens north of Fasken,” he offered. “See that last one – how come it is swaying so much?”

I tried to distract him with a little bit of history. “Mr. Fasken got every other section along the railroad for building it, and he put in loading pens at several of them so ranchers could load up easily and not have to drive them down to the T&P. Of course, most of the first third of the railroad crosses the C Ranch, you know.”

After an hour or so, and after several gates we were on the C ranch. BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! The cattle buyer jumped up and ran to the front of the passenger car and opened the door to see what the rifle shots were about – and came back shaking his head. “The fireman and the engineer were shooting at a coyote! Talk about bad shots – they were undershooting him and not accounting for the movement of the train – everything was going off to the side.”

“If they had hit it, we would have had to stop – their pelts are worth a little, you know, and there is a bounty on them, too. I think you get a dime for a pair of ears.” The train kept on moving along for another hour, and when we stopped for a cross fence getting near South Camp, the engineer couldn’t get the engine moving again. The two Mexican men hopped off and started walking – they were headed for South Camp where they worked as track maintenance laborers. We sat there for three hours while the two trainmen worked. Then the automobile we had passed long ago pulled up beside us. After some discussion, the fireman hitched a ride on into South Camp and returned with a part some an hour later, riding a lathered horse.

I had come prepared, and pulled out my knapsack of sandwiches and shared them while we waited. My wife’s green tomato pickles were a hit – we polished off the whole jar. The engineer shared water from a jug he had put in the mailcar.