crossing of the St. Louis Southwestern ("Cotton Belt") Railroad and the Houston & Texas Central Railroad
When the Houston & Texas Central railroad built north from Dallas toward the Red River in 1872, it passed through an unincorporated settlement north of Dallas. A year later, the citizens of this area incorporated and the town became known as Plano (Spanish for "flat" or "plain", accurately describing the local terrain). The railroad helped the local economy grow, and it grew even quicker when a second railroad, the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway (SLA&T), arrived in 1888, passing through town as construction proceeded westward from Commerce to Ft. Worth. When the SLA&T went bankrupt in 1891, the St. Louis Southwestern Railway ("Cotton Belt") acquired the property through a newly chartered Texas subsidiary. Both rail lines saw steady traffic for many years, and the Cotton Belt line, now owned by Kansas City Southern (KCS), still sees trains daily as part of a significant intermodal rail link between Ft. Worth and Meridian, MS. The H&TC north/south line became a Southern Pacific property in 1885 and remained in service until the early 1990s. At that time, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) system acquired the right-of-way and began construction of a light rail line serving Plano from downtown Dallas. This is now the DART Red Line serving thousands of commuters each day.
Tower 49 was established in 1904 as an electric interlocker at the rail crossing south of downtown Plano. The 1921 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Plano shows a 2-story "R.R. Interlocking Plant" in the northwest quadrant of the crossing (see first image below). This location is confirmed by a Texas & New Orleans (T&NO) Railway track chart for Plano (see second image below). [T&NO was the principal operating company for Southern Pacific lines in Texas]. The structure no longer appears on the next Sanborn map (1949), so it is likely that it was dismantled between 1921 and 1949. This may have occurred shortly after the Southern Pacific was granted permission to control the Cotton Belt in 1932; with both rail lines under common operational control, the need for a manned tower to remain in service would have been eliminated. Nothing else is known about Tower 49, and a search of historic photos in the Plano Public Library found nothing.
Part of Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Plano dated April, 1921
Texas & New Orleans Railway, Dallas Division, 1926 Side Track Records,
Page 69 (courtesy T&NO Archives)
This side track chart for the crossing in Plano shows Tower 49 as a black
rectangle in the northwest quadrant of the crossing. In this chart, north is to
the left, and the east/west Cotton Belt line is the dashed diagonal line. Note
that just west (below) of the Tower 49 crossing, the Cotton Belt crossed the
Texas Electric Railway interurban line. This junction was interlocked as
Tower 166.
Below is an image of an artwork of the crossing site painted by J. B. Erwin
in 1977. The date that the scene depicts is unknown, but a station is visible
near the crossing. The 1949 Sanborn Fire Insurance map shows a joint depot of
both railroads located in the northeast quadrant of the crossing. Assuming this
is the depot in the image, the two square signs in the image beneath the "Plano"
sign may have contained the names and logos of the two railroads. It is likely
that when Tower 49 was dismantled, the interlocking controls were relocated from
the tower and operated remotely by the station agent, perhaps for a period of
years. Remote controls would have been eliminated when the automatic interlocker
was installed.
Below is an image of the crossing at the site of Tower 49 drawn as part of a "Bird's Eye View" of Plano in 1891. The artist was Thaddeus Mortimer Fowler who traveled extensively throughout Texas in 1890-91 producing Bird's Eye View maps of numerous Texas towns. Fowler's map of Plano included details of the railroad crossing that was the future site of Tower 49. The Plano Cotton Compress is shown adjacent to the crossing with bales of cotton ready to be loaded.
