www.txrrhistory.com - Interlocking Tower
20 - Bells, Texas
Text by Jim King
The north Texas town of Bells was originally known as Dugansville,
named for an early pioneer settler, and this was the name of the
community when the Texas & Pacific (T&P) Railroad built
through the area as it constructed a line eastward from Sherman
to Brookston in 1873, a line that eventually reached Paris and
Texarkana.
In 1877, citizens of Greenville and Denison chartered a railroad
to run between the two towns, and by 1880, the Denison & Southeastern
(D&S) Railway had begun building a line from Denison toward
Greenville, crossing the T&P at Bells, the new name for Dugansville.
[The
Handbook of Texas says that Dugansville's name changed to
Bells in 1879 and speculates that the town may have been named
for church bells. But considering that the D&S investment
group included investors named E. Bell and W. Whitewright, it
is not surprising to find towns named Bells (or Bell's) and Whitewright
along the line between Denison and Greenville.] The line to Greenville
was completed in 1880, but the name was changed to the Missouri
Kansas Texas Extension Railway to reflect the sponsorship of the
MKT ("Katy") Railroad. The line was formally merged
into the Katy in 1881.
Both rail lines were very active, so it is not surprising that
Bells hosted one of the first manual interlocking towers in Texas,
approved by the Railroad Commission as Tower 20 in 1903. The Katy
was known to have built a tower as early as 1887 in Mineola
at another crossing of the T&P, so it is likely that a tower
structure was built in Bells in this timeframe as well. The proximity
of larger towns (e.g. Sherman, Denison, Greenville) limited the
population growth of Bells despite the junction of two rail lines.
The T&P line gradually fell to secondary status, and in the
1980s it was severed between Paris and Texarkana. The Katy line
also was reduced to limited operation when the MKT was merged
with Union Pacific in the 1980s. The segment between Bells and
Denison was abandoned since UP had better routes between Denison
and Dallas. Today, a connection at the former site of Tower 20
is in place to permit Sherman-Greenville and Sherman-Paris operations.
The operations are leased to a shortline operator, and Bells sees
very little railroad traffic these days.
Tower 20 Photos
The photo below was provided by George Kimbrough and is a
picture postcard of the Bells, TX depot and tower. George also
has some interesting photos of a train derailment that occurred
in Bells in 1902. This photo and the derailment photos are posted
on the bellstexas.com
website on their history
page. Photo used with permission of George Kimbrough.
George writes the following about the Bells tower and depot:
"The tower was located on the northeast corner of the intersection,
probably no more than 8 or 10 feet from both tracks. I remember
climbing the steps to the tower and watching the "tower man,"
Mr. Troy Griffin, as he pushed and pulled the line of brightly-colored
levers that were taller than I... And there was the telegraph
chattering away with its messages, all quite a treat for a youngster
of six or eight."
"As for a depot, I only recall there being one depot building,
located 50 feet or so south of the east-west tracks, and southwest
of the tower. Access to the depot and the tower was from the south,
parallel to the tracks. As for memories of the depot...most vivid
was the huge coal stove that sat in the waiting room, and the
wooden benches. I also have faint memory of the hook alongside
the track in which the mail sacks would hang, waiting to be snapped
up by those trains that did not stop in Bells."
Tower 20 Historic Photo
Interlocker at Bells, Modern Photo
Photo by Jim King
The remnant of a cabin interlocker is all that's left at the site
of Tower 20. The line to the right curves south toward Greenville
while the line to the left is heading toward Paris.
Tower 20 Location Map
by Jim King
