The cabooses were built by the International Railway Car Company for the Norfolk & Western Railroad, each weighing 54,000 pounds and entering service in 1969, 1970, and 1976. The three different heralds painted on their sides refer to the railroads that served Kingsland, Texas. During the 1920s, more than 30,000 cabooses, also called crummies, were registered in the United States. Conductors and railroad crews used them as offices, watched for fires from the cupolas, and signaled the engineer the location of the last train car. By the 1980s, modern railroad technology had made cabooses obsolete. The Antlers bought the cabooses at auction in Decatur, Illinois, in 1996, moved them by rail to Kingsland, and refurbished them into hotel rooms with a living area, kitchen, queen bed, small bunk beds, and a bath, while keeping the observation cupolas intact.