Gulf, Colorado and Sante Fe Railway Co. signed by Geoge Sealy- 1880's dated Texas Railroad Stock Certificate

Stock signed by George Sealy with great train vignette and large cut cancellations! Galveston, Texas. 

George Sealy (1835–1901) was a Galveston businessman born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He moved to Texas in 1857 to join his brother, and worked at Ball, Hutchings and Company in Galveston. During the Civil War, he served as a private in the Confederate Army. Sealy served as treasurer of Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. After it went bankrupt, he bought the company at foreclosure, and reorganized the company. New towns were developed along the route of the railroad. Named after officers of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway, they include Rosenberg, Sealy, and Temple. George Sealy House that Sealy built is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. Named "Open Gates", the house survived the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, and residents of the house saved Galvestonians by pulling them out of the floodwaters. Open Gates was donated to the University of Texas Medical Branch in 1969 (conveyed in 1979), and it eventually was used as the George and Magnolia Willis Sealy Conference Center.

The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. From its starting point in Galveston, Texas, the railroad eventually extended northwestwards across the state to Sweetwater and northwards via Fort Worth to Purcell, Oklahoma. In 1873, competition between the cities of Houston and Galveston was strong, and the Galveston, Houston & Henderson Railroad (GH&H) was the only rail link between the two cities. The competition between Houston and Galveston was fed by the quarantines, which were often imposed on Galveston traffic by Houston. These quarantines occurred almost annually and were based on yellow fever outbreaks and epidemics. So, the citizens of Galveston decided to build their own railroad line that would reach across Texas, into the Panhandle, and across the state line to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The idea was to bypass Houston. The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad (GC&SF) was chartered, and the state agreed to grant 16 sections of land per mile of track laid.

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