DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker at the Southern Pacific Depot of Hondo tells it, here's the story as Duane has it. Back in 1881, a rail line came reaching into this part of Medina County, and that arrival was enough to get a whole town started. Same year those tracks showed up, lots were being sold for a place called Hondo City.
That's how fast a railroad could conjure a settlement out of raw Texas ground. The line doing all that conjuring was the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway — and it wasn't just laying track into the wilderness for the fun of it. That line was connecting up with the Southern Pacific System, which was building east out of California.
Two iron threads reaching across a continent, and Hondo sitting right there in the middle of where they met. For decades, the railroad was vital — the marker uses that word, vital — to Hondo's early growth. You want to understand what a town owed to its depot back then, that single word covers it.
But nothing stays vital forever. Come the 1940s, rail traffic started to decline. And then came the morning that anybody who loved trains in this part of Texas probably still carries somewhere in the back of their memory.
June 8, 1958. The last passenger train pulled out of Hondo Station. Engine No. 6 was the one hauling it — and then it was gone, and that was that.
Now, the depot itself has its own little chapter of survival. In 1970, the Southern Pacific Depot was moved to where it stands today — pulled from its original site, seventeen blocks east, to its present location. And here it sits, still telling the story, right down to this marker dated 1980.
Engine No. 6 left and didn't come back. The depot stayed.
What the marker says
The first rail line reached this area in 1881 and town lots were sold that year for Hondo City. The line was built by the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. It connected with the Southern Pacific System building east from California. The railroad was vital to the early growth of Hondo, but rail traffic began to decline in the 1940s. The last passenger train, pulled by engine No. 6, left the Hondo Station on June 8, 1958. The Southern Pacific Depot was moved to the present location in 1970 from the original site, seventeen blocks east. 1980