In the 1850s Texas still rode on horses and in wagons that were pulled by horses, mules, or oxen. For water transportation sandbars and rafts or debris made steamboat travel very hard on Texas rivers. The Rio Grande was a place for shipping during the War with Mexico. In East Texas there were bigger rivers so small boats could travel about 100 miles up the river in the fall or spring when there was more rain. A lot of towns had stagecoaches, which could hold a few people, freight, and mail. Also there was something called the Butterfield line, which went across north Texas. Finally they started to build railroads in the 1850s. So by 1860 there was about 400 miles of railroad tracks and the trains carried products for the markets.

Transportation

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