G&I train arrives in Port Bolivar--three years late!

On this day in 1903, a Gulf and Inter-State Railway passenger train from Beaumont pulled into Port Bolivar slightly more than three years behind schedule. The Galveston hurricane of September 8, 1900, had destroyed the G&I's tracks and trapped a G&I train near Port Bolivar; damage from the storm forced the company into receivership, though it was subsequently returned to its owners. It took three years, however, for the company to finance and complete the repairs to its track. The G&I had been chartered in 1894 and acquired in 1898 by two contractors interested in developing a new port on the upper Texas coast. In conjunction with their plan, the Santa Fe Railway organized the Santa Fe Dock and Channel Company to build docks and rail arteries at Port Bolivar. The railroad operated daily passenger service until 1930, when operations were reduced to a tri-weekly train between Port Bolivar and Beaumont. A number of cattle-shipping pens and flag stops made the train's schedule "highly irregular." By 1994, the line's last remaining track had been absorbed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe.