Waco & Northwestern Railroad (a subsidary of Houston & Texas Central) was built under charter given Waco group in 1866. When tracks reached Waco, Sept. 18, 1872, W. & N.W. president John T. Flint was master of ceremonies as the area's first merchant of the 1840's, George Barnard, drove a gold spike into the last rail. Then came the first train. The railroad moved cotton and other goods out and in, enabling Waco to serve great volumes of traffic drawn from area by the Brazos River suspension bridge, built 1868-1870, also by Flint and other civic-minded men.