THE PROVISIONS in the treaties of 1866 by which the Five
Civilized Tribes agreed to give rights of way to any railroads
that might be built across their lands had evidently been in-
serted through the influence of persons who expected that
sooner or later these Indian lands would be opened to white
settlement. Charters were soon issued to railroad companies
that proposed to construct lines across the Indian Territory.
These charters all provided that if the Indian title to these
lands should ever be extinguished and if the lands should be-
come a part of the public domain of the United States, the com-
panies were to receive generous land grants in alternate sections
on either side of their tracks. Under such a charter, construc-
tion was begun on the north-south line, originally called the
southern branch of the Union Pacific, but soon to be known as
the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas. By 1870 the line had reached
the border of the Indian Territory, and three years later had
been completed entirely across it to Denison, Texas, just south
of the Red River. Here it was soon joined to lines reaching
farther south, thus forming a direct railway route from St.
Louis to the Gulf of Mexico.

This railroad, which gave the cattle raisers of eastern and
central Texas a contact with the important markets, lessened
somewhat the great northern drives of trail herds from this

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