COTTON BELT RAILROAD
RAILROAD
MOTOR CAR, HAMILTON, TEXAS
The Cotton Belt Railroad
was completed in 1911 connecting Hamilton
with Comanche and Gatesville. The first train from Gatesville arrived on 14 February, 1911, and the first train from
Hamilton to Comanche ran on 3 September, 1911.
ALEMAN, seven
miles southeast of Hamilton,
was the new town started in 1907 at the Cotton Belt Railroad as
a new location for the Pleasant Point
community which was about a mile away from the new railroad. Mexican
workers employed to build the new railroad referred to the new town as Aleman
which means German in Spanish.
Not only did the railroads increase business and economic growth, but they
also provided an accessible mode of travel to any railpoint in the
USA. Rail transportation was much faster than horse-drawn
conveyances and much more reliable than the new-fangled automobiles.
None of the roads in the county were paved at that time. Daily excursion
trains were provided for Hamiltonians who chose to visit the Cotton Palace
in Waco.
"COTTON
PALACE." The Handbook of Texas Online
The last Cotton belt
train into Hamilton arrived about 3:00 p.m. Wednesday, February 5,
1941.
While my Dad was a student at Baylor University
(1919-1921) all of his traveling between Waco and Hamilton was on the
railroad. Daddy took Mother and me to Aleman
to ride the last passenger train which came into Hamilton. Our cousin, David
Boyd, who was the Cotton Belt brakeman, sold us the last tickets on the
last train to arrive in Hamilton.--Elreeta Weathers
