DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Texas City Terminal Railway Company. Now settle in, because this one starts with brothers and a dream, winds through oil and ocean water, and weathers more than one catastrophe before it's done. Minnesota investors Jacob R. and Henry H.
Myers and Augustus B. Wolvin — three men with ambition and capital — formed the Texas City Improvement Company in 1893 and got to work developing a port facility and a townsite right here on the Texas coast. By 1897 they had built a rail spur line connecting their port facilities to the national railroad systems sitting 4.5 miles inland.
Four and a half miles. Not so far on a map, but the difference between a port that goes somewhere and one that just sits and watches the water. Then Wolvin made his move.
In 1898 he acquired the company and split it cleanly into two pieces: the Texas City Company for the townsite, and the Texas City Terminal Company — TCT for short — for the railway and the docks. And Wolvin wasn't done maneuvering. He took his case all the way to the United States Congress, persuading them to fund the dredging of the channel for ocean-going vessels, completed by 1904, and then to designate Texas City a U.S. port of customs in 1905.
That is a man who understood that geography is only potential — infrastructure is the thing. Enter Hugh B. Moore, a TCT official who clearly inherited Wolvin's talent for persuasion.
In 1908 Moore convinced the Pierce-Fordyce Oil Refinery Company to relocate to the port industrial area. And once you bring in one oil company, you build a reputation. Moore kept at it, kept courting, kept convincing, and by the 1920s oil and petroleum refined products made up over eighty percent of the tonnage moving through that port.
Eighty percent. The whole character of the place had shifted. But here's the thing about TCT that doesn't get said enough — it wasn't only a railway and a dock operation.
The Texas City Terminal Railway Company provided Texas City its early water, electric, and sewage utility systems. It established the community's first telephone operation, its first newspaper, its first banking. The same company that ran the trains and the docks was, in a very real sense, the nervous system of the whole town.
Now, a story this long doesn't come through clean. In 1947 a catastrophic dock explosion shook Texas City in a way that left a mark on the entire nation. National recession hit its share of blows.
And in 1983 hurricane damage came calling. Three serious body shots. But TCT continued — continued to expand, continued to upgrade its port and rail facilities.
Some things, it turns out, are built to take the hit and keep on working.
What the marker says
Minnesota investors and brothers Jacob R. and Henry H. Myers and Augustus B. Wolvin formed the Texas City improvement company in 1893 and developed a port facility and townsite here. By 1897 the company had built a rail spur line linking its port facilities with national railroad systems 4.5 miles inland. Wolvin acquired the company in 1898 and created the separate Texas City company for the townsite and the Texas City Terminal company (TCT) for the railway and docks. He persuaded the U. S. Congress to fund dredging of the channel for ocean-going vessels by 1904 and to designate Texas City as a U. S. port of customs in 1905. TCT official Hugh B. Moore persuaded the Pierce-Fordyce oil refinery company to move to the port industrial area in 1908. He continued to attract oil companies, and by the 1920s oil and petroleum refined products made up over 80 percent of the tonnage handled at the port. The Texas City Terminal railway company provided Texas City its early water, electric, and sewage utility systems and established the community's first telephone, newspaper, and banking operations. Despite a catastrophic 1947 dock explosion, national recession, and hurricane damage in 1983, TCT continued to expand and upgrade its port and rail facilities.