Red River Railroad Museum Katy Depot

The Red River Railroad Museum tells the story of the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad — the "Katy" — from downtown Denison, the city the railroad created. The Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway was incorporated in May 1870 at Junction City, Kansas, and that June its crews laid the first rails across the Kansas border, winning a federally sponsored race for land grants; the Katy went on to become the first railroad to enter Texas from the north. Denison itself was founded in 1872 in conjunction with the Katy depot and named for railroad vice president George Denison, and because it stood where the MKT crossed the Red River it grew into an important commercial center of the 19th-century American West — the railroad even placed early system shops there before shifting heavy work to Waco. The museum preserves and shares that Katy heritage from the railroad's historic Texas gateway.