Cedar Park Historical Marker Dedication
Brushy Creek Railroad Train Trestle
(at the Brushy Creek Sports Park)
March 7, 2009

The dedication of Historical Plaque
Brushy Creek Railroad Train Trestle Historical Marker Dedication

      
     
 click on thumbnail for an enlarged view

RAILROAD ROUTE FROM GRANITE MOUNTAIN TO THE CAPITOL

While the Austin and Northwestern line was being built, a dramatic event occurred which was soon to affect the new line. The State Capitol in Austin caught fire and burned to the ground on November 9, 1881. When the new plans for another Capitol were accepted, they called for a limestone structure, the materials to be quarried southwest of Austin, but the stone proved unsatisfactory to the commission in charge of the job. The contractor proposed using granite from Indiana, but the commission insisted on stone from Texas. George W. Lacy and W.H. Westfall offered granite from Granite Mountain near Marble Falls free of charge to the State of Texas. As soon as an agreement for the granite was reached on July 21, 1885, the State began building a railroad spur from Burnet, sixteen miles to Granite Mountain, finishing it December 1,1885.

The "Lone Star Engine" pulled 15,700 flat carloads of granite from the quarry, through Grover, Liberty Hill. Leander, Walkerton, Whitestone, Cedar Park, Rutledge, Cummings, and Rattan on its way to the Capitol.

The railroad was originally built as a narrow gauge line, with 3 feet between the rails instead of the standard 4 feet - 8.5 inches. The line reached Burnet in 1882. It was extended to Granite Mountain in 1885 and began hauling pink granite to Austin for the Texas State Capitol building. The narrow gauge line continued to serve a rugged, remote area, otherwise difficult to travel.

While the granite hauling job financially secured the troubled Northwestern Railroad, occasionally an entire train went into the ditch. Such a train wreck happened on the southwest corner of the Brushy Creek Recreational Park property, causing several massive blocks of granite to be dumped into the Brushy Creek. These stones never arrived in Austin to be used in the construction of the Texas State Capitol and remain intact and undisturbed just as they fell in the late 1880's.

AUSTIN NORTHWESTERN TRAIN CROSSING THE BRUSHY CREEK TRAIL WITH GRANITE ROCKS ON TRESTLE (1886)