This 1883 map shows the new T&P line and its towns.

In 1881, the Texas & Pacific Railway, eager to be a part of a southern railroad route that ran all the way from the east coast to the west, extended its line westward from Abilene across the open prairie of west Texas and beyond to what would later become Roscoe.
        In those days, there were no settlers where Roscoe now stands.  The Texas & Pacific put a water stop about every ten miles for its steam engines, and what would later become Roscoe was one of those. The original depot, an old box car, was called Katula, but there was no development until 1889, when a switch was built on the main line.  A shipping pen for cattle was constructed, soon followed by a hotel, a store, and some houses.  In 1890 the settlers named their new community Vista, but when they applied for a post office in 1891, they were told that its name was too close to Vesta in Shackelford County, so they re-named it Roscoe, reportedly after Roscoe Thompson, the son of the region's T&P superintendent.    

  At the same time, a small town was also growing thirty miles to the northwest at a place originally established in the 1870s as a camp for buffalo hunters. First known as Hide Town, it was later named Snyder after Pete Snyder, who owned the trading post there. By 1900 it, like Roscoe, was a viable and growing community. However, its development was hindered by the fact that everything, including lumber and other materials, had to be transported overland by wagon. 

      In those days before motor vehicles and good roads, the key to prosperity and rapid development for any new west Texas community was the presence of a railroad that could quickly and efficiently transport people and goods. As settlers arrived and new towns sprang up, railroad fever abounded, and plans for new rail lines were made all over the region—Abilene to Ballinger, Sweetwater to Mexico, Colorado City to Lubbock, Hamlin to Brownwood. The Santa Fe railroad, already well established, spent years surveying and mapping the territory and was eager to exploit it. Growth was inevitable, and money was to be made for any railroad that served the newly settled country formerly the domain of Comanches and buffaloes.
    In Abilene, the largest city in the region, several businessmen and entrepreneurs were intent on capitalizing on the opportunity. Among them were W. G. Swenson of S. M. Swenson and Sons, Ed S. Hughes, Col. Morgan Jones, George Paxton, and Gen. Fleming W. James and his son Henry. Over a period of years, these men were involved with plans for several railroads, some of which never made it out of the planning stage and others that were built only to be swallowed up later by larger lines.
    But the Roscoe, Snyder and Pacific Railway would be neither of these. It was not only completed but went on to thrive as an independent line for more than three quarters of a century.  It began as a grand idea of General F. W. James to connect the city of Snyder to the Texas & Pacific Railway at Roscoe.
    General James was an interesting character. Born in Virginia in 1847, he was a confederate veteran and a graduate of Virginia Military Institute. In 1866 he moved to Texas and with his two brothers founded the Texas Military Institute. Originally in Bastrop and later in Austin, it was one of the leading educational institutions in Texas at the time. During reconstruction, he also organized the Texas Militia. Commissioned as a colonel, he was later promoted to major general, which accounts for his title. He also studied and practiced law in Austin and elsewhere. In 1884 he organized and was president of the First National Bank of Baird, and in 1889 organized and became vice president of the Farmers & Merchants National Bank of Abilene.
    Gen. James’s original hope was not only to connect Snyder to Roscoe by rail, but to go on to New Mexico to connect up with other lines there. However, the Santa Fe was already working to do something similar, so he initially made no moves. But in 1905, the Santa Fe postponed its construction in the region. For one thing, there were fears of a financial panic on the east coast which could cut off needed money for construction, and, for another, its negotiations with the city of Abilene had stalled. So, the Santa Fe began a search for an alternate route in case the proposed line through Abilene didn’t work out.
      Gen. James saw the Santa Fe’s delay as the chance he’d been looking for and decided the time was ripe to build the line from Roscoe to Snyder. In the summer of 1906, he initiated talks with community leaders in both cities, and on August 31 the Roscoe Times first mentioned the proposed new railroad, stating that after several weeks of negotiations, [with] contracts between F. W. James of Abilene and associates as parties of the first part and Roscoe and Snyder as parties of the second part, a “consummation devoutly to be wished for has been reached.  The Company has contracted for the delivery of steel early in the spring, and it looks now as if we will have a railroad north sooner than we expected.”
      The agreement called for James and associates to build a standard-gauge railroad from Roscoe to Snyder within two years. In return, the communities would offer land and put up a $50,000 bonus to assist in the completion.  The business office was to be located in Roscoe.

This 1903 map shows both Snyder in Scurry County and Roscoe in Nolan County.

Survey work on the proposed line began on September 24, 1906, and on October 1, the charter establishing the Roscoe, Snyder and Pacific Railway was signed by the following businessmen, all from Abilene: F. W. James, J. E. Willis, Eugene Wood, W. H. Swenson, Ed S. Hughes, Henry James, and J. M. Wagstaff.  It was also signed by the contractors to be in charge of construction: N. T. Reed, A. A. Reed, and W. F. Reed, brothers from Hutchinson, Kansas. The capital stock was $200,000, and the charter set the proposed route as follows:

Commencing in Nolan County at a point on the line of the Texas and Pacific Ry. Co. at or near the town of Roscoe, Texas, in said county and running thence in a northwesterly direction through the counties of Nolan, Fisher, Scurry, Borden, Garza, Lynn, Lubbock, Hockley, Cochran, and Bailey in the State of Texas to a point at or near the center of the west line of Bailey County, a distance of about two hundred miles.

Bailey County is on the New Mexico border, which the Santa Fe had recently reached from the northwest.

     Over the next several months surveying was undertaken, groundwork laid, materials ordered and obtained, men hired, and grading done.  Then, on Thursday, June 6, 1907, the first pick struck the earth on the right-of-way in Roscoe, and laying of the track began. Work proceeded rapidly, and by the following Wednesday, the first mile was completed. 

     The work gangs were made up of men who typically worked for ten hours a day at 15¢ an hour, and, over the course of the next year, crews sometimes numbered as many as three hundred men.  Horses and mules were used for hauling, grading, heavy lifting, and such tasks as grubbing out trees.

     The Reed brothers of Kansas, who had contracted to build the line, lasted only a few weeks before being forced to withdraw because of financial difficulties brought on by the panic of 1907. In their place, Ed S. Hughes and Henry James formed a construction company and took over the operation, signing a contract on August 7. The Board of Directors agreed to furnish $10,122 per mile plus the cost of the steel tracks, which they were buying used for $28 a ton from the Texas & Pacific, and the cross ties, which they were purchasing on credit. Completed track had 3100 crossties per mile and the rails were 56-pound steel.

Proposed route for the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railway.