How the West was won: plying would-be investors with railroad barbecue
The prospectus in the Aug. 17, 1866, edition of the Galveston News was a tour de force of salesmanship. In trying to persuade the good people of Galveston to invest in railroad projects connecting the towns of East Texas, the writer spared no words of fear or flattery.
“The bowels, nay, we might say the crust of our hills and valleys contains unknown fortunes of mineral wealth. All these interests must be developed. … Unless the people act, this glorious result will be accomplished by foreign capital … and benefits resulting therefrom will flow into their pockets.”
“Foreign capital” in this case referred to the financiers of the northeastern U.S., as this was just over a year since the cessation of the American Civil War.
The group behind the effort was the Tyler Tap Railroad Co. from Tyler, and it was inviting potential investors to a “railroad barbecue” in that city: “We call on you to take steps by public meetings, and send delegates with proper vouchers to meet at Tyler …” Vouchers, in this case, meaning pledges of money for investment.
In the years before and just after the Civil War, the railroad barbecue was a traditional technique used by promoters to solicit investments for building the small branch, or “tap,” railroad lines that connected two or three towns in the states of the southern and western U.S.
The American banking system had not yet developed to the point of funding such ventures on a wide scale — the infamous “robber barons” such as Jay Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt were just getting their start — so the capital came in the form of loans and land grants from state legislatures and stock purchases, known as “subscriptions,” from local citizens and landowners.
Generating interest in the stock sales was the job of the railroad barbecue. Promoters — some more honest and capable than others, to be sure — would place an ad in a town newspaper inviting citizens to a free barbecue dinner where the pitch would be made. Local cooks were hired to make the barbecue, and local politicians were invited to speak and endorse the project.
The idea, of course, was that fat and happy locals would open their checkbooks or hand over bags of coin and cash to the “canvassers” (salesman wandering through the crowd) in exchange for stock certificates. Promoters specifically forbade any alcohol from being served, as they discovered that drunk locals rarely made contributions.
Railroad barbecues were held both at the beginning and end of a railroad project. Once completed, the citizens from the towns along the new branch line would be invited to the terminus for a celebratory barbecue.
What were these barbecues like? An article in the Dec. 8, 1859, edition of The Asheville News in Asheville, N.C., described the citizens gathering around the depot to wait for the first locomotive to arrive (two hours late in this case). After politicians made speeches, the feast began.
The barbecue had been cooked the night before, using the age-old method of digging trenches in the ground, filling them with coals and placing a wire grate on top where the meat was cooked.
“The trenches having been opened all the preceding night the assistants, like working fiends at Pluto’s furnaces, had been boiling the victims to appease the insatiate appetite,” the newspaper reported with mythological flourish.
Guests were invited to “Gather around the thousand feet of tables — and feast upon the eight thousand pounds of barbecued flesh of beef, and sheep, and hogs, and kids — with a sprinkling of smaller game — with huge mountains of bread piled like Pelion upon Ossa.”
There’s no record of a celebratory railroad barbecue at the completion of the Tyler Tap Railroad. It was eventually chartered in 1871 by a special act of the 12th Texas Legislature, and by 1877 only a short stretch of 21 miles had been completed from Tyler to the nearby town of Big Sandy.
It was bought out by venture capitalists from St. Louis, Mo., and renamed the Texas and St. Louis Railway Co. in 1879, which would eventually become the famous “Cotton Belt” rail system.