The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company was incorporated on May 28, 1873 by a group of Galveston merchants and businessmen seeking a direct connection from their city to interior parts of Texas. At that time, Galveston had rail connections to the interior only via Houston, which was a competing trade point. Galveston suffered periodic traffic embargoes on this line as a result of yellow fever epidemics, for which the only known treatment was a quarantine of infected populations. The people of Galveston considered that Houston civic leaders suffered from an excessive propensity to embargo trade from Galveston without true evidence of an epidemic, and sought direct rail connection with the north to gain independence from control by a commercial rival
source:www.texassantafehistory.com
