The Man Who Brought the Valley into the 20th Century—Uriah Lott

Norman Rozeff
HHPS, September 2008

Uriah Lott is not a name that will ring a bell with the majority of today's Valleyites. That oversight needs to be rectified, for more than any other single individual Uriah Lott was instrumental in changing the face of the Valley forever.
Who was this man with the strange name? Simply put he was the man who connected the Valley with the outside world and assured its future. He was a Yankee, having been born of Dutch heritage in Albany, NY on 1/30/1842. Receiving only a public school education, he, in his 20s, went off to Illinois where he worked as a station helper on the Chicago and Alton Railroad. He was drawn to adventure and to the Southwest. In the summer of 1866, the year after the conclusion of the Civil War, he embarked for New Orleans and then took a Morgan Steamship Line vessel to Brazos Santiago. He journeyed upriver to Brownsville on Kenedy and King's sternwheeler Bessie, which would later gain fame as the last operating steamboat on the Rio Grande. Returning to the port he took a job as a ship agent and correspondent for the Rio Grande Courier.
It was Corpus Christi, however, that drew his attention in 1867. He took the 84-hour sta-gecoach trip from the Valley to Corpus Christi. Unfortunately the city and he were struck by a deadly yellow fever epidemic. Lott was to lose his small store and became an agent visiting ranches. In doing so he became familiar with hides and wool. Soon he went out on his own as a commission agent. He added a hardware business, handled insurance, and, by 1871, even owned a cargo vessel plying between Corpus Christi and New York City. Participating in community affairs he was later instrumental among others in com-pleting a deep-water channel in to the city.
In 1872 he brought his wife and their baby daughter to Corpus Christi. They purchased a house on a hill for the family. In the neighborhood were prominent Texas families, in-cluding those of Richard King, Mifflin Kenedy, and Dr. Merryman.
As Port Isabel and Indianola began to compete with Corpus Christ (CC) as shipping out-lets, Lott and others pushed to complete a narrow gage railroad line from CC to Eagle Pass with a branch to Laredo. On 9/18/1875 the Corpus Christi, San Diego and Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railway Company was chartered. Lott was its president.
If nothing else, Lott was a promoter. He brought to the city a new Baldwin 4-4-0 locomo-tive in mid-September 1875. This was to generate enthusiasm and investors. After five years the line covered but 95 miles to Mesquite. Captain Kenedy and Lott sold the com-pany in early December 1881. The new owners soon finished the last 15 miles to the Rio Grande at Laredo. The line was re-christened the Texas-Mexican Railway Company. The new line soon made redundant most of the commercial traffic on the Rio Grande from Laredo to Brownsville/Brazos Santiago. The steamboat monopoly was to suffer econom-ically.
When a severe Texas drought dealt the sheep business a bad blow, Lott once again lost most of his assets. He then moved to San Antonio (SA) and tried his hand at ranching. San Antonio at the time needed a connective outlet to sea transportation. Eventually a railroad company was chartered to build a line from SA to Aransas Pass (AP). Lott became president of the SA & AP Railway Company in 1885. He immediately began to promote the line in order to secure additional financing. He succeeded, in part, from a large investment by Capt. Kenedy, who that year had sold properties of his totaling $1,350,000.
As the line advanced eastward it began to generate new communities and stimulate older ones. These included Elmendorf, Floresville, Kenedy, Runge, Yoakum, Moulton, Shiner, Beeville, Sinton Cuero, and Alice. Some of these were on branch lines. The railroad tracks reached CC on 10/28/1886.
The fact was that while Lott always had big dreams for more railroads, he never had the money himself and was always in search of backers. In 1886 he did secure money to extend the line westward from SA, eventually reaching Boerne, Comfort, and Kerrville and more importantly he later established a line from CC to bustling Houston. His tri-umphs and failures would go on and on.
In 1902 Lott approached Benjamin F.Yoakum, the president of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad, known affectionately as the Frisco Railway. For years in the past Yoakum had been Lott's right hand man. They recalled that 15 years earlier Lott had broached the subject of extending the railroad from Alice to Brownsville, but this latter city never came up with any financing. Lott now rationalized that in addition to the cattle to be hauled there was good land to be opened to agriculture. Yoakum picked up the ball, formed a syndicate, and soon had 72 subscribers to the proposed line. St. Louis financiers came in with substantial funds.
Lott then lost no time in instigating a start. A survey part left CC on 1/2/1903. The wa-gons had written on their canvas covers "ST. L., B. & M. RY." This stood for " St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railway" that was to be chartered on 1/12/1903.
Some famous South Texans who were among the incorporators beside Lott were: Caesar and R. J. Kleberg, John B. Armstrong, Robert Driscoll, James B. Wells, John G. Kenedy, Arthur E. Spohn, F. Yturria, and R. King. Some depots along the line were later named for these gentlemen.
Through the efforts of Lon C. Hill, Sam Fordyce (an Arkansas railroad investor), and others the line would immediately commence a branch to the west after it reached Six Shooter Junction (soon to become Harlingen) in April 20, 1904. In fact preliminary survey work had commenced on this branch in November 1903. The quick completion of this branch, called either the Sam Fordyce or Hidalgo Branch, led, of course, to the eventual town improvement platting of La Feria, Mercedes, Donna, Alamo, San Juan, Pharr, McAllen, Mission, and later Weslaco. The rest is history.
The Valley owes a major debt to Lott, for it was due to his persistence and his dogged efforts that investors were attracted to the area's potential. While his vision often ex-ceeded his reach, he did accomplish much and has left a major legacy in South Texas.
Southeast of Waco is the small town of Lott with a population of about 800. It is named in honor of Uriah. A more prominent legacy lies in the naming of the South Texas com-munity of Harlingen. This sizeable city was named by Lon C. Hill in honor of his friend Uriah Lott's ancestral home, Harlingen, Holland and more likely for Lott's grandmother, Elizabeth Van Harlingen who resided in Harlingen, New Jersey, a small community founded by Dutch settlers.
After a lingering illness, pioneer Uriah Lott died in Kingsville on March 29, 1915. He was buried in the Chamberlain Burial Park of that city. It was not until 1924, however, that a granite marker was placed on his tomb. While he may not have any statues to his memory, his indomitable spirit lives on in the dynamic progress of South Texas.