On December 24, 1872, a Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad train carrying 100 passengers arrived in the newly established railroad town of Denison, culminating years of effort to build a rail line from the border of Kansas and the Indian Territory south to the Red River and into Texas. The railroad had earned this valuable right-of-way by finishing first in a national competition to construct a line from St. Louis south to the Indian Territory. Several months later, on March 10, 1873, the nation’s first north-to-south rail service west of the Mississippi River was completed there when a Texas Central Railroad train arrived in Denison from the south. In a brief ceremony, Denison Mayor L. S. Owings read a telegram he had sent to Galveston, Houston, New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco, announcing his town’s new role as an important link in the nation’s rail network. With this connection, passengers and shippers could travel continuously by rail from the Texas Gulf Coast through Denison to St. Louis, with further connections north to Chicago, east to New York, and west to San Francisco.