Abilene & Northern Railway Company Historical Notes, 1906-1952.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     
Texas Transportation Archive
 
Texas Transportation Archive
     
This view shows the newly constructed A&N depot at Abilene. (Collection of Murry Hammond)
 
The route of the A&N is shown on the 1908 edition of the Rand-McNally Commercial Atlas when the line was under the control of the Wichita Valley Railway. [Click map for more information]
 
 
 
 
  by Murry Hammond  
 
The Abilene & Northern Railway Company was chartered on February 5, 1906, for the purpose of constructing a line of railroad "from a point near Hamlin in a southeasterly direction to Brady, about 100 miles, with a branch from a point near Anson in a northerly direction to Stamford, about 15 miles." Capital stock was issued at $200,000, and the business office was at Abilene. Members of the first board of directors included C. H. Steel of Anson; R. L. Penick of Stamford; D.T. Bomar of Fort Worth; Ed. S. Hughes, William G. Swenson, Henry James, H. O. Wooten, A. Holt, and George L. Paxton, all of Abilene.
 
     
 
Charter board members Hughes, Swenson and Bomar formed the Fidelity Construction Company to construct and equip the line. Construction was begun between Abilene and Stamford in 1906, the line officially opening for business on January 1, 1907. No further construction was undertaken between Brady and Anson.
 
     
 
Prior to completion, the Colorado & Southern Railway purchased all outstanding capital stock and operated the A&N under an informal lease arrangement, which was formalized on February 1, 1908 when a lease agreement was executed between the A&N and C&S subsidiary Wichita Valley Railway. This enabled the WV to have a through-route between Wichita Falls and Abilene. The line was operated under this arrangement until June 1952 when all former A&N properties were merged into the Fort Worth and Denver and the former Abilene & Northern Railway was no more.
 
     
     
   
  Bibliography and Further Reading  
     
 

Interstate Commerce Commission Valuation Docket No. 717, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, published in ICC Reporter Vol. 134, pg. 815.

Rand McNally and Company. Commercial Atlas of America. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1908.

S. G. Reed, A History of the Texas Railroads and of Transportation, Conditions under Spain and Mexico and the Republic and the State. Houston: St. Clair, 1941.

Zlatkovich, Charles P. Texas Railroads: A Record of Construction and Abandonment. Austin: University of Texas, Bureau of Business Research, 1981.

 
     
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Text and images were digitized and proofread from the original source documents by Murry Hammond. Contact Murry for all corrections and contributions of new material.