The Railroad That Founded Richardson

Take a look at this authentic 1873 H.&T.C. $1,000 Gold Bond,
which bears the signature of Richardson's namesake, A. S. Richardson, Secretary of the H.&T.C. in 1873.
Courtesy Dr. Steven Butler, President R.H.&G.S.

The above photo is from The Schenectady Company's Illustrated Catalogue of Simple and Compound Locomotives (Philadelphia: J. P. Lippincott, 1897), 24.

In 1873, the Houston & Texas Central Railway founded Richardson, Texas by building a depot some 2 1/2 miles north of an existing settlement called Breckenridge. When it came time to give a name to the new town that a railroad surveyor had laid out around the depot, it was called "Richardson," in honor of H.&T.C. Secretary A. S. (Alfred Stephen) Richardson.

We present here an article, published in Bulletin No. 8 of the Railway Historical and Locomotive Society, in 1924, which gives some of the "Early Engineering" history of the H.&T.C.