to Morgan City. By the 1870s, the Southern Steamship Company had expanded its geographical reach through new assets and alliances. For example, a Morgan agent in 1873 was able to sell a single ticket for passage between New Orleans and San Antonio, Texas, which employed several modes of transportation. Starting on rail from Algiers, Louisiana, the journey included coastal steamboat passage combining two packets, another rail segment, and finally the passenger reached San Antonio via stagecoach. Meanwhile, in Texas, Morgan started withdrawing from Galveston as a port. The Galveston Wharf Company no longer gave his ships favored treatment. In addition, the only railroad from that citythe Galveston, Houston and Hendersoncould not run any of its rolling stock north of Houston. Morgan also adapted to the progress of the railroad networks. First, in 1873, he changed his freight tariffs from rates by container volumes to rates per hundred pounds of weight. Second, he had started a plan to bypass Galveston as a logistics center in favor of Houston. Around the same time, he also forwarded his passengers and freight through the Houston Direct Navigation Company, which transferred between coastal steamers to Buffalo Bayou packets in Galveston Bay, thus avoiding the port of Galveston, along with its regulations and fees. Houston Direct Navigation Company ran its steamers from Galveston Bay to the wharf at Houston. Later he bought enough stock in the company to become its largest shareholder, further aligning his interests with Houston and against Galveston. On July 1, 1874, Morgan forged an agreement with the Ship Channel Company (Houston) to improve navigation of Buffalo Bayou. Morgan agreed to dredge to a depth of nine feet and at least 120-feet in width in exchange for company stock. Less than two years later, he completed a channel through Galveston Bay to an existing channel through the Red Fish Bar, and the final segment terminated about six miles east of Houston, at a place he named Clinton, Texas. He next commissioned the construction of a short line railroad of just over seven miles to network his wharves at Clinton with two Houston railroads: the Houston and Texas Central and the International and Great Northern. When this line started operation on September 11, 1876, Morgan gained access to most of Texas and no longer needed Galveston within his transportation network. Next, he engineered a takeover of the Houston and Texas Central, ousting the all-Texas