King Cotton:
The cotton in the foreground is almost ready for harvest, as
Norfolk Southern locomotives lead southbound UP train ADEWF south of Mumford, Texas on
September 7, 2003.
This is another of the more historically significant photos in the Texas
Railroad Sesquicentennial site. In today's petroleum-funded world, it is perhaps
difficult for many to comprehend how the lowly cotton boll could have so
dominated the Southern economics of the middle and late 1800's.
Nonetheless, while
sugar played
a leading role in birthing the Texas rail
network, it was cotton that financed that network's growth across much of
the state.
or
Return Sesquicentennial Sunday - Central Texas
