PECOS RIVER RAILROAD. The Pecos River Railroad Company was chartered on March 1, 1890, to build a railroad fifty-four miles in length from Pecos City (now Pecos) to the Texas-New Mexico Territory border. The road was organized by James J. Hagerman and associates as part of their project to irrigate and develop lands along the Pecos River. The capital was $750,000, and the business office was in Pecos. Members of the first board of directors included Hagerman, Henry C. Lowe, Edgar B. Brown, Charles B. Eddy, J. G. O'Connor, W. H. Austin, and Harold P. Brown. The railroad opened on January 1, 1891. In that year the company owned no equipment and earned $3,193 in passenger revenue and $12,837 in freight revenue. The Pecos River was controlled by the Pecos Valley Railway Company, which built north from the Texas-New Mexico Territory border to Eddy (now Carlsbad) and was later extended to Roswell. In 1898 Hagerman organized the Pecos Valley and Northeastern Railway Company and the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway Company to build from Amarillo to Roswell. This formed a through line from Amarillo to Pecos that was acquired by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company in 1901. The Pecos River was leased to the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway on July 1, 1913, and operated by that company until merged into it in 1948. The Pecos River had no physical connection with the remaining mileage operated by the P&SF. The former Pecos River Railroad was abandoned in 1990 and 1991.
