Rail service reached Colorado City on April 16, 1881, when a Texas & Pacific supply train arrived with materials to build a freight and passenger depot, completed the next month at the foot of Oak Street in a style and size similar to the A T & P Station in Fort Worth. Cattle pens were later built east of the station on land donated by Aaron W. Dunn, John Wesley Mooar, W.H. Snyder, and George W. Waddell. The railroad and stockyards made Colorado City the major shipping center and supply station for the vast ranching region of West Texas and parts of Eastern New Mexico. W.A. Crowder arrived in 1885 as the T & P Railway agent, and during his 35 years of service local rail traffic flourished as trains brought manufactured goods needed by ranches, including barbed wire and windmills, while cattle, hides, salt, ice, wool, and buffalo bones were shipped eastward to market. The 1881 depot was later destroyed by fire and replaced by a new freight station in 1896, and another depot built at the foot of Walnut Street in 1907 served passenger trains until service to the city ended on March 22, 1967.