The Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway was the Texas subsidiary of the

Kansas City Southern Railway The Kansas City Southern Railway Company is an American Class I railroad. Founded in 1887, it operates in 10 midwestern and southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and ...

, operating railroad lines in the states of

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

and

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, with headquarters at

Texarkana, Texas Texarkana is a city in Bowie County, Texas, United States, in the Ark-La-Tex region. Located approximately from Dallas, Texarkana is a twin city with neighboring Texarkana, Arkansas. The Texas city's population was 36,193 at the 2020 census. ...

. On June 18, 1885, the Texarkana and Northern Railway, organized by William. L. Whitaker, a lumberman and railroad contractor in Texarkana, was chartered by the state of Texas, and built a ten-mile line from Texarkana north to Whitaker's timber lands along the Red River. On July 9, 1889, the charter was amended, changing the name to Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway, and granting authority to extend the line all the way to

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the third-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 89,142. It is the principal city of the Fort Smith, Arkansas–Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Are ...

. By 1892, when the T&FS had built another 16 miles north from the Red River to

Wilton, Arkansas Wilton is a city in Little River County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 374 at the 2010 census, down from 439 at the 2000 census. Geography Wilton is located in northeastern Little River County at . U.S. Routes 59 and 71 pass thr ...

, the

Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad The Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad was a railway company that began operations in the 1890s and owned a main-line between Kansas City, Missouri, and Port Arthur, Texas. It was led by Arthur Stilwell before being thrown into receiversh ...

gained control of the railway and set about using the T&FS as the Texas link in its planned route between Kansas City and the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United ...

. At that time,

Article X of the Texas Constitution Article X of the Texas Constitution of 1876 covers railroad companies and the creation of the Railroad Commission of Texas. The federal government later created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroads, and eight of the nine sections ...

required all railroads operating in the state to be headquartered in Texas. By 1897, the T&FS had extended its rails 85 miles from Wilton north to Mena, Arkansas, as well as 29 miles southward from Texarkana to the Arkansas-Louisiana border, where it joined KCP&G rails leading to Shreveport. South of Shreveport, the T&FS also constructed a line from the Louisiana-Texas border on the Sabine River southward to

Beaumont Beaumont may refer to: Places Canada * Beaumont, Alberta * Beaumont, Quebec England * Beaumont, Cumbria * Beaumont, Essex ** Beaumont Cut, a canal closed in the 1930s * Beaumont Street, Oxford France (communes) * Beaumont, Ardèche * ...

and Port Arthur, Texas, a new city created as the marine terminus of the route. The entire KCP&G route opened from Kansas City to the Gulf on November 1, 1897, with the T&FS operating 105 miles of the main line in Arkansas and 79 miles in Texas. In the wake of a financial crisis, the KCP&G was reorganized as the Kansas City Southern Railway on April 1, 1900. In 1934, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court upheld an Interstate Commerce Commission ruling that overrode the Texas law requiring in-state railroad headquarters. Subsequently, the Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway was leased to the Kansas City Southern in 1934 and merged on December 31, 1943.

References

External links

*
"The Kansas City Southern Lines" (1950), ''Kansas City Southern Historical Society''
Defunct Arkansas railroads Defunct Texas railroads Logging railroads in the United States Texarkana, Arkansas Texarkana, Texas Former Class I railroads in the United States Predecessors of the Kansas City Southern Railway Railway companies established in 1885 Railway companies disestablished in 1943 {{US-ClassI-rail-transport-stub

See also

References

External links