HOW KING, KENEDY AND STILLMAN RETARDED CITY'S GROWTH

From I Would Rather Sleep in Texas
Mary Margaret McAllen Amberson
James A McAllen
Margaret H. McAllen

As the French Imperialist forces began to crumble across northern Mexico, along the Rio Grande rumors of a new railroad abounded. In Brownsville the United States Army announced the sale of Sheridan's railroad, which it no longer needed.

Miflin Kenedy and Richard King, who wanted to protect their steamship monopoly, offered $60,000 for the line but they were outbid by a firm of outsiders called West and Chenery who paid $108,000. Kenedy and King , however, owned the land upon which the railways's Brazos Santiago terminal sat.

They also owned the terminal facilities at White's Ranch for the steamers that transported goods to the rail head, so they exercised their right to deny the new owners access. West and Chenery found themselves owners of a stub line with no place to load or unload goods. Consequently, they returned the railroad to the government...

King and Kenedy lobbied the Texas Legislature and on October 1, 1866, received an exclusive charter to build a railroad linking Brazos Santiago and Brownsville. But this caused infighting between Kenedy and Charles Stillman, along with Stillman's lawyer William G. Hale.

Kenedy had planned to use the charter to start a railroad after the Civil War, but Charles Stillman and and Hale threatened to break their relationship with Kenedy if he pursued it.

Stillman feared that the rail line would deprive his company of wharfage and ferry rights, as well as diminish steamboat shipping. None of them acted, the charter serving only to preserve King, Kenedy, and Stillman's steamboat and ferry monopoly and to block railroad expansion.

Curiously, James Stillman, Charles's son, later explored the idea of a railroad of his own, asking Antonio Yznaga, the tenant grocer of the Stillman store, to look into the profitability of the line as early as 1871.

Kenedy, King and Stillman's failure to act resulted in vociferous admonition by Humphrey E. Woodhouse who lashed out at their high steamboat shipping fees and demanded more than a paper railroad. Despite their continued river monopoly, by June 1867, only one of King and Kenedy steamboats continued to run on the Rio Grande, the rest were moored and idle, owing to a trade slump and low water levels. Then the hurricane of September 1867 destroyed much of Sheridan's railroad.

Three years later, the Texas Legislature responded to complaints from Brownsville merchants, who continued to lobby for a railroad, by revoking the charter held by King, Kenedy and Company since they had not fulfilled their obligation. The legislation, in turn, granted a charter to Simon Celaya, an antimonopolist, who organized the Rio Grande Railroad Company.

(In this 1879 Wallis photo, 1) Jas. Browne 2) Spud Murphy 3) Porter Blacksmith 4) Simon Celaya and 5) Jose Tiga(?) stand on the corner of the first Cameron County Courthouse. Celaya is credited with building the narrow-gauge railroad to Point Isabel.)

He and other businessmen were convinced that King and Kenedy overcharged freight shipments. Celaya had financial backing from Woodhouse, who remained behind the scenes lest Kenedy and King seek retribution against his schooner business. Celaya also had the political backing of Governor Davis.

(Davis served as governor of Texas from January 8, 1870, to January 15, 1874. A Florida native, Davis was born on October 2, 1827. His family moved to Texas in 1848, settling in Galveston. After reading law in Corpus Christi, he served as customs inspector in Laredo (1850-1853), district attorney (1853-1856), and then district judge (1856-1861) at Brownsville).

Simon Mussina and his brother Jacob donated the land for the railroad's right-of-way. The list of stockholders was kept secret, in order that King and Kenedy would find it difficult to probe the stockholders for shares. Among one of the stockholders was John "Rip" Ford. Stockholders could not sell without the consent of other company members.

When King and Kenedy did buy 10 shares of stock, the board of directors refused to acknowledge the sale. Celaya built 22.5 miles of off-gauge, 42-inch tracks from Point Isabel to a station in Brownsville. The train, known to many as the trenecito, ran up and down the line between Point Isabel and Brownsville in 1871. (That is the engine at the Historic Brownsville Museum, claimed as the only of its kind left in the world.)

However, King, Kenedy and Company continued to thwart railroad transport by bringing two lawsuits against the Rio Grande Railroad Company...They lost both cases in court.