Waco History Podcast

Passenger rail travel in America enjoyed its heyday in the early 1900s, carrying at its peak in 1920 an estimated 1.2 billion passengers that year. Trains made travel possible and relatively comfortable even in inclement weather, something no other method of transportation could offer at the time. In 1911, Texas became the state with the most railroad mileage, a position it has not relinquished. Mary Sendón of Waco recalls a train ride she took around 1908: "When I was about seven, my father and my Grandmother Kemendo took me with them to Houston on a train. And that, to me, was the most wonderful experience I ever had in my life. My grandmother had relatives there. And I had never been anywhere on a train. I didn't know what a train was like even. And I remember my grandmother got train-sick. She was riding backwards; that's what did it. Well, there was a doctor on the train, and he said, ‘Well, just let her lie down on this—' It wasn't a divided seat; it was kind of a bench. And they let her lie down to res