Construction
The Panic of 1873 delayed the start of construction until 1881 when Grenville M. Dodge became interested in the project. As chief engineer for the Union Pacific Railroad Dodge had played a large part in the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad. Dodge organized the Texas and Colorado Railway Improvement Company in 1881 to build and equip the FW&DC in return for $20,000 in stock and $20,000 in bonds for each mile of track laid. In the same year The FW&DC and the Denver and New Orleans Railroad Company, organized in Colorado, agreed to connect their systems at the Texas-New Mexico border. The FW&DC received no state subsidy other than the right-of-way easements to cross state-owned lands totaling 2,162 acres (8.75 km2).
Beginning construction at Hodge Junction, just north of Fort Worth, on November 27, 1881, by September 1882 Dodge had completed 110 miles (180 km) of track to Wichita Falls, Texas. By 1885 the line reached Harrold; by 1886, Chillicothe; by 1887 Clarendon and Amarillo; and by 1888 Texline on the New Mexico border. Continuing into the New Mexico Territory the FW&DC finally linked with the D&NO where the railheads met at Union Park, near present-day Folsom, New Mexico, 528 miles (850 km) from Fort Worth, on March 14, 1888.
Service between Fort Worth and Denver began on April 1, 1888. In 1895 Dodge became president of the company, one of several railroads he held a financial interest in.
Read more about this topic: Fort Worth And Denver Railway
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