To give your readers a fair conception of existing conditions at Waxahachie and Ellis County, I found on my first visit to your town by stage from Ennis that your merchants were still adhering to old-time business methods; selling goods on time, at large profits, thereby losing the most desirable business; Ennis selling goods on an average of twenty per cent less for cash, buying the farmer’s produce, principally cotton, and paying cash therefor. Waxahachie did not buy a bale of cotton for cash, but only on account. The result was that Ennis, though but a few years old, soon outgrew Waxahachie, and aspired to be the county seat, which caused a bitter feeling between the two communities. Knowing the magnificent territory contiguous to Waxahachie, I decided that with proper efforts your town could be made one of the best in the State, and arranged to locate there. Had I supposed that to locate there, it was necessary to ask the permission of the old business men, and then conduct business as they directed, I would certainly have gone elsewhere, but of this I was ignorant, and after starting in, determined to exercise my own judgment. I sold goods for cash, at reasonable profit; bought cotton for cash, all that was offered, paying Dallas prices; bought cotton from east of Ennis and Palmer, then paid the farmer seventy-five cents per bale to haul it back to the railroad for shipment. Many of these farmers, after I paid them the cash for cotton, would turn around and spend every dollar of it with me for goods. I bought cotton from Hill, Johnson and Bosque Counties, and did not lose any money on it, although my old competitors predicted that I would soon have to quit. When disappointed in this, a few of the progressive ones, Messrs. Pickett, Trippett and McLain, joined in with me, and we soon established in Waxahachie a good cotton market.

I now began planning for railroad connection, and when I had my plans sufficiently matured, I submitted them to a meeting of the business men, who expressed grave doubt about the possibility of the undertaking, and I only induced them to enter into it by suggesting that an effort, even though a failure, would have the result of throwing Ennis on the defensive and induce them to drop their county seat agitation. They then told me to go ahead and get my plans fully matured, which I submitted at a subsequent meeting, and which were as follows: To get a charter for a Waxahachie tap road with a State land grant of sixteen sections to the mile and have the town issue bonds to the limit of the law, which proved to be $75,000, then augment this amount with farmers’ stock subscription of $25,000 more; to sell these bonds at par to the business men of Waxahachie and commission merchants of Galveston and New York who were doing business with Waxahachie—thus giving us $100,000 cash and the State land grant to build the road with. I stated this could only be done by the adoption of second-hand iron, which I believed could be had, and which would answer the purpose. To buy new iron would cost several times the amount of our cash asset, as it was then quoted at $85.00 a ton at the mills. There was serious doubt about the Legislature passing a bond bill at the time as they had up the repudiation of international bond bill granted under a fraudulent charter, and the International Railroad Company had Galusha Grow of Pennsylvania and John H. Burnett of Galveston at Austin, trying to bulldoze Governor Coke and his Legislature into the issuance of their bonds; hence both the Governor and Legislature were committed against the issue of bonds of the State in aid of railroads. But I believed that Judge J. W. Ferris, who was then one of the most eminent lawyers in the State, and who, through his International bond decision while acting as special Supreme Judge in the case had endeared himself to the Governor and Legislature, as well as the entire people of the State, would be able to overcome this objection, as we were only asking permission to tax our own town. It was then determined to send Judge Ferris to Austin for the purpose of obtaining a charter and bond bill. The committee appointed to make the request of the judge met his positive refusal, but he stated at the same time that if it was attempted to build the road, he would back the enterprise with his money. I was now urged and finally persuaded to go to Austin and endeavor to obtain the necessary legislation. I called a meeting of the taxpayers of Waxahachie, and explained to them that it was of the utmost importance to get up a petition to the Governor and Legislature, asking permission to tax themselves, and I succeeded in obtaining every taxpayer’s name to the petition. I then had the county clerk examine the tax rolls and certify that he found every taxpayer’s name to the same. I then proceeded to Austin, armed with this petition, a letter from Judge Ferris to Governor Coke, and from Dr. Aldredge to friends in the Senate. On my arrival at Austin, I met John H. Burnett and Galusha Grow at the hotel, who proposed to me, if I would assist them, they would assist me, which I declined, telling them that I was opposed to the issuance of their bonds, thus at the outset defining my position with the Legislature. The next morning I sought and obtained an audience with Governor Coke, presented my letter from Judge Ferris and petition from the taxpayers, and after reading this, the Governor said, “Mr. Graber, I will promise you this, if the Legislature passes your bills I will sign them. The question involved in the International bill is the taxing of the whole State to benefit the section through which the road runs, but in your request the good people of Waxahachie are only asking to tax themselves to save their town.” I thanked the Governor for his kind assurance and asked permission to make the statement to the members of the Legislature, which he readily gave. Though I had never before looked inside a legislative hall I soon felt perfectly at home and had the privilege of the House and Senate. In my canvass of the House and Senate I found little opposition to the bond bill after reading our petition, but considerable objection to the further donation of land in aid of railroads, which, however, I was able to overcome by satisfying them we would never be able to build our road without it. As many of the influential members were old army friends to whom I became indebted for valuable assistance, I was able to return home in three weeks, both bills having been signed by Governor Coke a few weeks later. It would not be inappropriate here to mention a little incident to show a proper appreciation of my services at that time. I had wired my wife that I would be home on Saturday, but detained en route, I failed to make it, which saved me considerable embarrassment, as the stage was met a short distance from town by the mayor, city council and concourse of citizens, with a brass band, intending to give me an enthusiastic reception. On the next Saturday a mass meeting was held for the purpose of organizing under our charter, and electing officers. At this meeting I explained to them that I had taken the liberty of stating to members of the Legislature that Judge Ferris would be the president of the company, and asked his election, telling them that it was all-important the enterprise should be headed by the most influential man in the community. Judge Ferris being present, stated he could not under any circumstances consider the acceptance of the position as he did not have the time to give it the attention necessary to make it a success, and placed my name in nomination, which created great enthusiasm, and it was attempted to be carried through without further consideration. I tried to check this movement, by telling them I had as little time to spare from my business as Judge Ferris, had already given them three weeks of most valuable time away from my business and was unable to do anything more than act on the board of directors, if they saw fit to use me in that capacity; but the meeting would not have it that way, and plainly told me if I wanted the road built, I would have to serve, and promised to sustain me with all the means and power at their command. Under this assurance I was finally persuaded to accept, and, after completing the organization with Judge Ferris as vice-president, the meeting adjourned subject to the call of the president.

I forgot to explain that through the issuance of the bonds, it was agreed that the town should be issued stock to the amount, thus every taxpayer became a stockholder and was entitled to vote in the organization. While at Austin, in company with some members of the Legislature, I called on General Braxton Bragg, who had just come to Texas with a party of civil engineers, with the intention of making this his home—he was anxious to get a first job and promised me he would undertake the location of our road at his actual cost (estimated not to exceed 500 dollars). As soon as organized I took up a correspondence with him, and entered into a contract to run three preliminary lines and cross section the line adopted, furnish plans and specifications of a first-class road. He surveyed one line to Ennis, one to Palmer and one to the nearest point on the H. & T. C., which was adopted. We next advertised for bids for the whole work complete, contractor furnishing the road complete, ready for operation, except equipment, and another for the grading only. We had a bid on each, one from John McCarthy of Kansas City, who was returning from Galveston, where he had in a bid for a large contract with the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe and had lost out. He carefully examined our assets, which were one hundred and eighty-five sections (estimated) of land certificates to be issued by the State (the line being 11 45-100 miles long), $75,000 of Waxahachie bonds and about $13,000 of farmers’ stock subscriptions which I had secured by hard labor, and in which I had valuable assistance from Judge Anson Rainey, who was then a young lawyer in Judge Ferris’ office. Mr. McCarthy, satisfied with our assets, submitted a proposition to deliver us the road complete as per General Bragg’s specification, except to substitute fifty-six pounds of good second-hand iron approved by General Bragg, which was considered sufficient for our purpose, in consideration for our entire assets, and complete the same in two years. We also had a proposal from Roach Brothers & Tierney for the grade only at thirteen cents per yard. As John McCarthy’s bid was the best for us we awarded him the contract, and immediately notified him by wire at Kansas City, to which we received a reply from his wife, by letter, saying Mr. McCarthy was not at home, but we would hear from him as soon as he returned. In the meantime I wired General Bragg at Galveston, who was the chief engineer of the G., C. & S. F. for a report on Mr. McCarthy, but had his answer, “Drop him.” This in connection with an indefinite letter finally received from McCarthy, made me conclude it best to let him alone. In the meantime, I had induced Mr. Roach to hold his bid open (which was 13 cents per yard, one-third cash, one-third in bonds and one-third in provisions and forage he expected to use to feed his teams and men) until we heard definitely from John McCarthy and in case of his failure to make us a good bond, and furnish us ample evidence of his ability and good intentions, we would give him the contract for the grade, as in his bid. After our decision to drop Mr. John McCarthy, we entered into a contract with Roach Brothers & Tierney for the grade, to go to work at once—as he had his outfit at Fort Worth already. He was on the ground sooner than expected, and gave us only a few days to prepare for a formal beginning of the work. We wanted to celebrate the event with a great barbecue. On account of the short time for notifying the farmers, the board of directors opposed my plans of having the celebration, but I determined to have it anyway, and sent out invitations to all interested in the building of the Waxahachie Tap, to join us in celebrating the commencement of the work. I solicited a few of our best farmers to donate the meats, which they did cheerfully in the greatest abundance. The day set apart for the celebration, the farmers began to arrive in the early morning in large numbers—not only our own Ellis County people, but a large number from Hill and adjoining counties, and by one o’clock the crowd was variously estimated at from 1500 to 2000 men, women and children. Such a large enthusiastic gathering had never been known in this part of the State. The board of directors had in the meantime concluded to join in with us, and, although they had told me they would have nothing to do with it, had ordered carriages, and I was invited to a seat with Mr. John C. Gibson, who informed me they had not prepared any program, which I had asked them to do in the morning. I asked Mr. Gibson his age, and found he was the oldest man on the board. When everything was ready, I was handed a spade by Mr. Roach, who stated that it devolved on me to turn the first dirt. I climbed on top of a wagon bed with the spade and addressed the crowd in a few words which I remember about as follows:

“Fellow Citizens: We are proud to see so many of you here, manifesting, by your presence, an interest in our work; an interest on your part it has been charged did not exist, particularly with our farmers, who recognize that they are as much interested in the building of this road as our town. The doubting Thomases will directly witness actual beginning of the work by our contractor, Mr. Roach, who has one of the best-equipped grading outfits in the country and will push his work to an early completion. Upon such occasions it is customary for the president of the company to turn the first dirt, an honor which on this occasion I turn over to Colonel John C. Gibson, the oldest member of the board of directors.” I then turned the spade over to Mr. Gibson, who eagerly accepted the honor and performed the duty. Mr. Roach having his teams ready, then proceeded with the work. Permit me to say here, that it proved a grand sight to everybody present, the most of whom had never seen anything like it, to see about fifty splendid teams with their scrapers turning up the ground, and the moral effect at that time cannot be overestimated, as the effort of Waxahachie’s building of a railroad had been ridiculed by people interested in our failure, particularly the people of Ennis. I omitted to mention, I visited Ennis before we definitely determined on a location, and to a meeting of their business men, submitted a proposition to adopt their line for a subsidy of twenty thousand dollars, which created considerable ridicule, but I told them they might laugh as much as they pleased, the road would be built and some day would become a main line by an extension east and west, and though the point of junction might never become a rival town, it would always prove a standing menace to their town, and prevent capital from locating with them. How well my judgment was founded is proven by the result. On the completion of the road to Fort Worth, this road has furnished more tonnage than the main line from Garrett to Denison, which no doubt proved a great surprise to the H. & T. C. management, who had expressed themselves unwilling to operate it for its earnings—hence I had to conclude a traffic arrangement with them to enable us to operate it. Then, again, when the Central undertook its extension from Garrett east, Ennis sent a committee to Houston to try to secure this connection, and failed, although it was rumored they were instructed to offer a bonus of one hundred thousand dollars. I also forgot to mention that before the adoption of the Garrett line, I secured a donation of one hundred acres of land from Mr. Garrett, divided into town lots—this in spite of the strenuous opposition of his agent, Mr. Neal. Mr. Garrett at that time resided somewhere in East Texas. After the commencement of the work it soon became evident that I must get to work and sell bonds outside of Waxahachie; we were needing cash to meet payments to Mr. Roach—although I had an understanding with our business men, that they would take as much as ten thousand dollars, at par, they were slow to come up with their money—I therefore made a trip to Galveston for the purpose of selling $20,000 of our town bonds. I called on Mr. R. S. Willis, who was then the president of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Road. Mr. Willis was a good friend of mine and I was buying my goods of him largely. He said, “Mr. Graber, let me advise you to drop that scheme, it is visionary, you can never build the road. Attend to your own business. If you were to succeed, you would never receive thanks for it. I’ll not subscribe one cent.” I said, “Mr. Willis, I appreciate your advice, and esteem your judgment highly, but must decline to be governed by it. We are going to build that road.”

I next called on Ball, Hutchins & Company, and Mr. Seeley asked, “Have you been to see Mr. Willis?” I told him I had and had his refusal. He then asked to be excused. Walking down the street, I met Mr. W. L. Moody, in front of his place of business. He expressed himself as glad to see me, and said, “I see in the News you are down here for the purpose of placing $20,000 of your Waxahachie bonds; step into the office. Colonel Jameson will put us down for a thousand dollars.” He furthermore said, “When you get your $20,000 placed here, I think I can place the balance for you in New York.” I thanked him, took their $1000 subscription, and dropped into Leon H. Blum’s. Met Leon coming out. He said, “Go back in the office, tell brother Sylvan to put down a thousand dollars for us.” I next called on several other commission houses, who assured me they would subscribe, but could not just then. It soon became evident to my mind they wanted their customers personally to ask them. I therefore concluded to return home, and induce my board of directors, who were all shipping cotton to different houses to assist me in the matter, by going down with me, but could not induce them to go. This want of interest on the part of the board at that critical period was indeed discouraging. They well knew that the taking of $10,000 by Waxahachie and $20,000 more by our commercial city at par, would establish the solid character of the bonds in New York, but they were unwilling to spare the time and incur the expense. Could there have been anything more discouraging? It seemed as though they were determined that I should not succeed, and did not want the road built, which was talked frequently by people in Waxahachie as elsewhere. They seemed afraid of inviting competition in their business, and preferred to continue as they had. Meeting with Major Douglas of Tyler one day in Galveston, he said to me, “Graber, why don’t you go ahead and build your little road?” I gave an evasive answer. He said, “I know what is the matter—you have seven old mossbacks pulling back.” He said, “My board of directors told me to go ahead and build the road, and I am doing it. I have not had a meeting of my board since I commenced.” Major Douglas was then building the Tyler Tap Road and was president of that company.

I now began looking around to secure iron, ties and bridge work. I soon had the latter promised by our carpenters for stock—there were only a few small culverts and bridges. On one of my trips to Houston I met Mr. H. M. Hoxie, general superintendent of the International & Great Northern Railroad, with whom I was well acquainted, who was changing the iron on the Galveston road to a heavier lot. He made me a proposition to furnish us sufficient iron for our road, taken up from the Galveston road, which was fifty-six pound and in good condition, subject to our inspection, for $20,000 f. o. b. cars at Houston, which proposition I accepted subject to the approval of my board. I had a contract with the Houston & Texas Central Railroad to haul iron, ties and bridge timber, for stock in our road. In about a month’s time I had a wire from Mr. Hoxie, “Come down, inspect and receive the iron. Answer.” I immediately had a meeting of the board and asked their consent to close the deal, but they wanted time to consider. “Wait and see what the crop is going to do; where is your money?” etc. I told them I was satisfied I could induce Hoxie to accept bonds. But they insisted on waiting. I begged and plead with them not to lose this splendid chance of securing iron, which they certainly would by waiting, telling them it might be lost to us in three days. There were other tap roads building—the towns of Henderson, Georgetown and Tyler were all busy, but my pleadings were in vain.

I now felt that I must give up, I could do nothing more. They were determined that I should not complete the road; in fact, it seemed they did not want it at all, and I immediately tendered my resignation, which was promptly accepted, and John C. Gibson elected to succeed me. As soon as it became known that I had resigned, the people demanded of the board to send me down to close the deal for the iron, and soon the secretary came with a request for me to close the deal and a tender of the money to pay my expenses. I told him I was ready to waive all personal feeling in the matter and now go down in a private capacity, close the deal and have my successor sign the contract, as my only ambition was to see the road completed, even by a set of men that deserved no consideration at my hands, but that I must wire Hoxie first and know if iron was still on hand. I wired Mr. Hoxie at Houston and received no answer. I repeated the wire the next day and had his answer, “Too late, iron sold.” This proved a surprise and disappointment to all concerned and for a time it seemed as though Waxahachie was doomed. I had turned over to my successor and his board, the grade, a splendid piece of work completed and paid for; sixty-five thousand dollars in Waxahachie bonds; a farmers’ stock subscription of about eight thousand dollars; about one hundred and eighty-five sections of State land certificates to be issued on the completion of the road, and every alternate lot in the town of Garrett out of the subdivision of one hundred acres.

The board now went to sleep over the situation; they had no one to suggest or try to do anything towards the completion of the road, which, for nearly three years was a dead enterprise—and left the board with an investment in bonds of about $6000, which would prove worthless unless the road was completed under the terms and provisions of the charter, which were: the completion and operation of the road within five years. They now got desperate, and induced Mr. Royal A. Ferris to go to New York and offer the charter and its franchises, and all of the assets of the company to any responsible party that would complete it, even with old iron, and run a train in before the expiration of the time in the charter. Mr. Ferris succeeded in inducing a Mr. Riordan to accept the proposition. He went to work and completed the road, and after a few months’ operation, demonstrating to the Central people its value, sold out to Mr. Waldo for account of some individual stockholder of the H. & T. C. what Waldo termed a pretty good bank of dirt with two streaks of rust for $85,000. In the hands of the Central it was soon refurnished with new iron and completely overhauled, making it a first-class road, and soon extended to Fort Worth.

This terminated the history of the Waxahachie Tap Road in the loss of all interest the town had in it through the farcical conduct of its leading business men, acting as its board of directors.

When a meeting was held just before the election on the bond proposition, I told the people, as long as I could control it, if they would vote the bonds, the road should never pass into other hands, only with their consent, and should pay its value. It was my intention to hold on to the State land donation until it would become valuable and already had the promise of a few surveyors to locate the same free of cost, save actual expenses. I believed then the land within our day and time could be sold for from $5 to $10 per acre, which would amply reimburse the town for its issuance of the bonds, and they would own the road besides. The result was, we had a unanimous vote on the bond. To fairly illustrate the character of the men I was connected with in this enterprise, some few years after the Santa Fe was completed west of Waxahachie, we had a proposition from the management to build a branch of their road into Waxahachie for a bonus of $10,000. A meeting to consider the proposition was held; and these men who were still in control, expressed themselves as opposed to meeting the Santa Fe proposition, saying, If they propose to build in here for $10,000 they will do so anyway. Realizing that they were about to lose another valuable opportunity, I told them that I came to subscribe my money and not to talk, knowing well any suggestion I might make would fall flat, but felt that they were about to make a serious mistake in turning down this proposition; there were movements being made on the railroad checkerboard constantly and something might occur that would force the Santa Fe Company to withdraw their proposition in less than thirty days, and rather than have this happen I was willing to subscribe $1000. One of the old members of the board of railroad directory smiled at my suggestion, and made a motion to adjourn sine die, which was carried and thus Waxahachie was again cheated out of another golden opportunity; as in less than thirty days this company had to withdraw its proposition on account of a trouble with the Gould lines. When about three months after Mr. N. A. McMillan was sent to Galveston to have them renew or make another proposition, Mr. R. S. Willis told him they could not consider such a thing; that they had all they could do to look after their main line; but frankly told him, “You people missed your opportunity. Had you accepted our proposition when we made it, we would have built into your town.”