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From: Dolores <>
Subject: Re: [AR-RAILROADS] Arkansas Railroad History-Pt.4 Final
Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 14:36:26 -0400
References: <046301c13636$767b23c0$79cd5ecc@cei.net>


Diana - thanks for this series. I've printed and saving to one of my family
notebooks.

Did you rec my request for Wilson, ARK records for early 1930s railroad
employees??? Thanks, dolores

Diana Boothe wrote:

> Arkansas Railroad History-Pt.4
>
> St. Louis & San Francisco Railway (Frisco).
>
> The Arkansas Division of the St. Louis & San Francisco arrived in
> Fayetteville in 1881, completing its line to Fort Smith in 1882, which
> marked the company's first road into Arkansas. Although plans for branching
> a line from Fayetteville to Little Rock ended in Pettigrew (appx. 40 miles),
> it eventually acquired other companies like the Kansas City, Ft. Scott &
> Gulf (Memphis) by 1901.
>
> St. Louis Southwestern Railway.
>
> Also known as the Cotton Belt Route, it was originally organized in 1871
> by citizens of Tyler, TX., as the Tyler Tap to "tap" either the
> International & Great Northern or the Texas & Pacific. It laid 21.5 miles of
> narrow gauge (three feet wide as opposed to the standard four feet, eight
> and a half inches) by 1877, when financial problems caused its sale to a
> group led by James W. Paramore, who renamed it the Texas & St. Louis
> Railroad, intending to use it as a feeder to Texarkana's St. Louis, Iron
> Mountain & Southern, thereby gaining access to St. Louis. Jay Gould's
> Missouri-Pacific gained control of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern
> in 1881, and then revoked Paramore's traffic agreement, attempting to block
> access to St. Louis or force a sale. Paramore's and the railroad's titles,
> "The Narrow Gauge King" and "The Yard-Wide Road," began at this point when
> he decided to run a separate line through Texarkana to St. Louis and on to
> Cairo, II., on the Ohio River. Hiring S.W. Fordyce to locate the route,
> Paramore's aim was to transport mostly cotton, reasoning that the compressed
> bales could be hauled on smaller (narrow gauge) roads using lighter
> equipment at half the bond debt. The tracks were laid from Gatesville, Tx.,
> to Birds Point, Mo., by 1883. In 1886 the company reorganized into the St.
> Louis, Arkansas & Texas because of financial trouble and pressure to link
> standard gauge roads (it set railroad history by switching gauges in 24
> hours, using 1.5 million cross ties in the process). Fordyce became
> president, holding the receivership; Paramore, although a majority
> stockholder, dropped out, dying a year later. Still floundering in 1891, it
> consolidated as the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, arriving in St. Louis in
> 1903.
>
> Texas (Arkansas) & St. Louis Railroad.
>
> See St. Louis & Southwestern Railway.
>
> Taken from "Arkansas Roadsides" by Bill Earngey
>
> ==============================
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--
dolores SAMONS harvell

Genealogy -
Disturbing the dead
and irritating the living.


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