The first railroad through Shreveport entered from the West when
the Vicksburg, Shreveport, & Texas Railroad Company planned to
connect Marshall, Texas to Shreveport and head east, eventually
connecting Shreveport to Monroe and then to Delta, Louisiana.
The route was surveyed in 1853 and construction on the Delta-
Monroe section began in 1854. Work began from the west to
connect Marshall and Shreveport. The Southern Pacific Railroad
Company (not related to the present day company of the same
name) had completed the first ten miles of the western track by
early 1857 and soon reached Jonesville. The Texas Legislature
chartered a railroad line from North Louisiana to El Paso,
Texas. However, the Civil War caused all work on the railroads
to cease. The work from Delta to Monroe had been completed and
the section from Marshall to Shreveport had been graded. By 1861
trains ran regularly through the seventy-five-mile Madison
Parish section of the The connecting rail from Shreveport had
not been finished, so the track