Railroad construction in Texas, interrupted by the Civil War and by the national economic depression of the early 1870s, entered a recovery period in the late 1870s and early 1880s. Chartered on May 31, 1879, the Texas Central Railway was owned by the Houston & Texas Central Railway and competed with the Texas Pacific to build a line westward through North Central Texas. Extending from Ross Station near Waco in 1879, it reached the Erathe - Comanche County line in 1880. The railroad laid out the town of De Leon on April 10, 1881, and railroad official Robert M. Elgin conducted the sale of town lots from the back of a flatcar on July 7. Although the initial sale of lots was slow, the town soon developed and attracted new settlers from the southeastern United States. Railroad offices, shops, and a roundhouse were built there, and De Leon became the area's primary shipping point for cotton and later peanuts and other products. Acquired by the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) Railroad in 1910, the line continued to operate until 1967, when local backers purchased part of it and continued shipping service to customers along "The Peanut Line" connecting Dublin, De Leon and Gorman.