$19.00 USD
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Nice image of train coming out of roundhouse.
Issued to Goldman Sachs, 100 shares.
No date - 19??
Vertical and horizontal folds. Bit staining bottom of image. Cancelled with holes. Paper creases.
7¼" x 11¼"
The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company (M-K-T or Katy), the first railroad to enter Texas from the north, began its corporate existence in 1865, when its earliest predecessor, the Union Pacific Railway Company, Southern Branch, was chartered by the State of Kansas to build from Fort Riley, Kansas, to the state's southern boundary. In 1870 the railway's name was changed to the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway Company, a change which defined both the company's strategic intent and its service area. The newly named railroad was intended to funnel business from Missouri, Kansas, and the north and east to a new rail route across Indian Territory to and through Texas. The Katy, touted in advertisements as the Gateway to Texas, breached the Texas frontier near the site of present Denison, where the first regular train arrived on Christmas Day, 1872. The Katy did eventually expand operations in Texas to serve Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, San Antonio, Houston, Galveston, and Wichita Falls. The company had no charter to build in Texas, but the one granted by Kansas was approved by the Texas legislature on August 2, 1870. In a series of rather unusual concessions by the Texas legislature to the railroad, the road was not required to take out a Texas charter but was given the same rights as if it were incorporated in Texas. Similarly, although the Constitution of 1869 prohibited land grants to railroads, the legislature did provide that the incoming road be exempted from taxation for two years if it built fifty miles in Texas within three years and reached the Colorado River near Austin in six years. The Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway Company did not become officially incorporated in Texas until 1891; until then it operated in the state under its own name or through various subsidiary companies. Ultimately the company did not receive any state land nor did it earn exemption from taxation as it did not build beyond Denison under its own charter until after 1882. In 1880 the Katy was acquired by Jay Gould, who leased the railroad to his Missouri Pacific Railway Company in December of that year. However, during the Gould era the Missouri, Kansas and Texas continued to expand in Texas, reached Dallas, Fort Worth, and Waco, and made significant progress on a line to Houston and San Antonio. The railroad acquired several short lines, such as the Denison and Southeastern Railway Company and the Denison and Pacific Railway; upon their acquirement they were operated as the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Extension Railway Company, until they were merged with the parent company in November 1881. In that year Gould also transferred the Dallas and Wichita Railway Company to the Katy. By 1882 the Katy had 638 miles of trackage in Texas. In 1890 the Katy owned 849 miles in Texas in addition to the Gould controlled International and Great Northern, which it leased in 1881. However, in that year Attorney General James S. Hogg won his suit to cancel this lease as well as the Katy's right to operate in Texas as a foreign corporation. This resulted in the chartering of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas on October 28, 1891, to acquire all of the parent company's Texas properties with the exception of the International and Great Northern and the East Line and Red River Railroad Company. The Texas legislature approved the consolidation. In 1895 the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas railroad reported passenger earnings of $1,200,000 and freight earnings of $3,000,000 and owned 133 locomotives and 163 cars. In 1896 two locomotives of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad took part in a spectacular publicity stunt, the Crash at Crush. In 1899 the legislature authorized the Katy to take over the old East Line and Red River, which was re-chartered as the Sherman, Shreveport and Southern Railway Company. Included in the act was a provision that the line abide by the rates, rules, and regulations of the Railroad Commission until set aside by the courts. This provision has prevented the Katy from joining other Texas lines in attacks on the commission. Over the next several years the Katy continued its expansion in Texas; by January 1, 1904, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas owned and operated 1,119.33 miles of rail in Texas. On May 1, 1914, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company of Texas leased seven companies, including the 309-mile Texas Central Railroad Company. These leased lines gave the company over 1,600 miles of operated track in Texas.In 1915 all of the Katy properties in and out of Texas went into receivership. C. E. Schaff, who had been president since 1912, was receiver. On April 1, 1923, the company was reorganized as Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company of Texas.
