Cass County once had a railroad just 7½ miles long

The Texas, Arkansas and Louisiana Railway was chartered on September 4, 1897, with a very local ambition. Its planned eight-mile route would connect the Texas and Pacific at Atlanta with the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf at Bloomburg.

The company did not start from bare ground. It widened and extended an older narrow-gauge logging route, producing about 7½ miles of operating railroad by the late 1890s. The short line carried farm produce, lumber, express shipments, and some passengers. Wells Fargo handled its express business.

The 1916 numbers show what paid the bills. The company owned two locomotives and two cars, although it also received freight cars from a connecting railroad. Freight brought in about $14,000 that year, compared with roughly $1,700 from passengers. Freight therefore earned more than eight times the passenger business. The line filed its last annual report with the Railroad Commission in 1918 and was abandoned in 1920. It was small even by short-line standards, yet for two decades Cass County had a railroad entirely its own.