As it built west, the railroad established a junction point here, with one branch to the northwest, being in early years simply a stub line to Coleman but in 1911 opened westward to connection with the Santa Fe’s “Belen Cutoff” near Albuquerque, via Sweetwater, Lubbock and Clovis. The other branch, more westerly, was destined for San Angelo and points west, but those dreams did not come to fruition.
Laborers: John Moore, John Dunn, John Thomas, Louis Hoseman, H. Bedall, Joe Martin. Each paid $1.25/day, most working six days a week. Walthall was paid about $15/month each for their room and board.
Despite the absence of a depot, this was a rather active station for the company due to switching needs as trains arrived at the junction. In the middle of the 20 th Century, building records indicate the presence of a telegraph office and a residence for the telegraph operator, a pump house with water tank and crane and a residence for the operator of it, four bunk houses and a section foreman’s house for maintenance of way personnel, two tool houses and a chicken house.
As mentioned above. In later years, when traffic on the line northwestward to New Mexico eclipsed the San Angelo branch traffic, the company began to refer to this as “San Angelo Junction”.
As construction approached this point there was debate within the company regarding the best destination for its westward terminus. On June 8, 1885 the charter had been amended to provide for a change of route west of Temple, routing through counties of Bell, Coryell, Lampasas, Brown, Coleman, Runnels, Taylor, Tom Green, Nolan and Mitchell, forming a junction there with the Texas & Pacific Railway. Jay Gould’s Texas & Pacific line between Fort Worth and El Paso had been completed in 1881, linking Texas and California. It would take years, but the Santa Fe would ultimately make a junction point with that line, at Sweetwater, and then continue to meet its own line westward at Farwell/Texico.
Coverage of the debate within the company over its westward course of expansion may be found in the Galveston Daily News issues of April 10 & 14, May 1, 3 & 9, and October 16, 1885.
This station has the distinction of having a geologic formation named after it (the “Coleman Junction” formation, a limestone strata which is highly saline. It has another distinction, being one of three points where the Santa Fe suffered an armed robbery of its trains. This robbery occurred on June 9, 1898. Fireman Lee Johnson was killed. The Wells Fargo Expressman was L. L. White and the Conductor was Joe Thompson. Additional details pending investigation as time permits. For report on an early inspection of this area, see Galveston Daily News of October 18, 1885, which covers a visit by M. Marx and Sylvan Blum (director).
On a visit to this station with the author in 1991, retired maintenance-of-way employee Martin Lehnis recollected from long ago a fatal accident near the station, when a maintenance-of-way crew stopped work and stood back while a passing train roared through. The train kicked up a piece of rock ballast and it hit one of the section men square in the forehead and shattered the front of his skull, killing him on the spot.