The Fort Worth and Denver Railway , nicknamed "the Denver Road," was a class I American railroad company that operated in the northern part of

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

from 1881 to 1982, and had a profound influence on the early settlement and economic development of the region. The Fort Worth and Denver City Railway Company (FW&DC) was chartered by the Texas Legislature on May 26, 1873. On August 7, 1951, the company changed its name to the Fort Worth and Denver Railway Company (FW&D).Handbook of Texas Online - Fort Worth and Denver Railway
/ref> The main line of the railroad ran from

Fort Worth Fort Worth is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat of Tarrant County, Texas, Tarrant County, covering nearly into Denton County, Texas, Denton, Johnson County, Texas, Johnson, Parker County, Texas, Parker, and Wise County, Te ...

through

Wichita Falls Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls metropolitan statistical area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita Counties. According to ...

, Childress, Amarillo, and Dalhart, to Texline, where it connected with the rails of parent company

Colorado and Southern Railway The Colorado and Southern Railway was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I railroad in the western United States that operated independently from 1898 to 1908, then as part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad until it was ...

, both of which became subsidiaries of the

Burlington Route The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwest, Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington Route, the Burlington, CB&Q, or as the Q, it operated extensive trackage in the states of ...

in 1908. At the end of 1970, FW&D operated of road on of track; that year it reported 1493 million ton-miles of revenue freight. (Those totals may or may not include the former

Burlington-Rock Island Railroad The Burlington-Rock Island Railroad was a joint railroad in Texas, United States. It came into existence on July 7, 1930, through the reorganization of its predecessor, the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway Company (T&BV), nicknamed the "Boll W ...

.) In 1980, operated mileage had dropped to 1181, but freight was 7732 million ton-miles.

Construction

The

Panic of 1873 The Panic of 1873 was a financial crisis that triggered an economic depression in Europe and North America that lasted from 1873 to 1877 or 1879 in France and in Britain. In Britain, the Panic started two decades of stagnation known as the "L ...

delayed the start of construction until 1881, when

Grenville M. Dodge Grenville Mellen Dodge (April 12, 1831 – January 3, 1916) was a Union Army officer on the frontier and a pioneering figure in military intelligence during the Civil War, who served as Ulysses S. Grant's intelligence chief in the Western Th ...

became interested in the project. As chief engineer for the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

, Dodge had played a large part in the construction of the

first transcontinental railroad America's first transcontinental railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad), Overland Route") was a continuous railroad line built between 1863 and 1869 that connected the exis ...

. Dodge organized the Texas and Colorado Railway Improvement Company in 1881 to build and equip the FW&DC in return for $20,000 in stock and $20,000 in bonds for each mile of track laid. In the same year, the FW&DC and the Denver and New Orleans Railroad Company, organized in

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, agreed to connect their systems at the

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

border. The FW&DC received no state subsidy other than the right-of-way easements to cross state-owned lands totaling . Construction began at Hodge Junction, just north of Fort Worth, on November 27, 1881, and by September 1882, Dodge had completed of track to Wichita Falls, Texas. By 1885, the line reached Harrold; by 1886, Chillicothe; by 1887, Clarendon and Amarillo; and by 1888, Texline on the New Mexico border. Continuing into the New Mexico Territory, the FW&DC finally linked with the D&NO where the

railhead {{Short pages monitor">Defunct New Mexico railroads American companies established in 1951