Railroads were crucial to the development of Arkansas following the Civil War.
While several southern states had extensive railroad systems by the outbreak of the war in the spring of 1861, Arkansas had one short section of rail line. Once the guns were silenced, Arkansans eagerly joined the national effort to open up the entire country to train traffic. The impact would be huge.
It was the U.S. War Department which took the first step toward introducing railroads to Arkansas. In 1850, the War Department ordered Capt. Joshua Barney to conduct a survey for the best route "of a line of railroad from St. Louis to the Big Bend of the Red River."
Congress approved legislation in February 1853 for "grant of lands to the states of Arkansas and Missouri to aid in the construction of a railroad from a point on the Mississippi opposite the mouth of the Ohio River, via Little Rock, to the Texas boundary near Fulton, in Arkansas, with branches from Little Rock, in Arkansas, to the Mississippi River, and to Fort Smith."
The Cairo & Fulton Railroad Co. was incorporated in 1853. The respected Roswell Beebe, a longtime Arkansas railroad supporter, was named president, though he died three years later. In January 1853, the Legislature granted the company vast amounts of land--alternate sections for a distance of six miles on each side of the railroad, amounting to six sections of land per mile of track. (These grants would later increase to 10 sections per mile.) The objective was for the railroads to sell the land and recoup their construction costs.
Little progress was made, with the economic panic of 1857 hampering development. As Michael Hodge explains in his entry on railroads in the Butler Center's Encyclopedia of Arkansas, "The first actual railroad in Arkansas was laid from what is now West Memphis to Madison, which is on the St. Francis River, in 1858."
A part of the Memphis & Little Rock Railroad, that forlorn 38 miles of track in the Delta lowlands, comprised the state's total railroad mileage as Arkansans marched off to war.
While very little railroad construction occurred in the Confederacy during the War, the M&LR did complete a 50-mile western section, taking the tracks from what is now North Little Rock to DeValls Bluff, leaving incomplete the flood-prone lowlands of the Cache and L'Anguille rivers.
As Hodge writes: "... in 1866, a contract was granted to former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest ... for the purpose of constructing the final leg of the Memphis and Little Rock Railroad from the White River to the St. Francis River. His railroad work did not prevent Forrest from becoming one of the major Ku Klux Klan organizers in Arkansas. The camp they established near the St. Francis River for this purpose became the town of Forrest City, named after the general." Thus the first railroad, the Memphis & Little Rock, was completed in April 1871 with the bridging of the White River at DeValls Bluff.
Reconstruction was a great boon for railroad construction in Arkansas. Many of the Reconstruction leaders came from states with extensive rail systems, including Gov. Powell Clayton, a native of Pennsylvania.
In July 1868, the Legislature adopted provisions allowing for state aid for railroad construction. Ultimately, $5 million-plus in railroad bonds were issued, and 662 miles of track were laid, although 249 miles of that total were built without public support.
The track built without state aid was the Cairo & Fulton Railroad Co. The C&F declined $3 million in state aid, instead issuing $8 million of its own bonds. By June 1871, tracks were laid to Jackson Springs, now known as Jacksonville. By February 1873, the first train arrived in Little Rock from St. Louis. The line reached Texarkana in January 1874, and the railroad bridge across the Red River was completed three months later. In 1881 the C&F--now combined with the Iron Mountain and known as the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern--was acquired by ruthless railroad mogul Jay Gould.
Fort Smith gained rail transportation in 1874 with the completion of the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad. Gould bought the LR&FS in 1882. When added to the Iron Mountain, Gould now owned the largest rail system in Arkansas.
Gould's major competitor in Arkansas was James W. Paramore, a St. Louis cotton merchant who wanted, as historian Carl Moneyhon has noted, "to connect a larger hinterland into their market." Paramore's St. Louis Southwest Railroad, which was commonly called the Cotton Belt, brought rail transport to southern Arkansas via Jonesboro, Clarendon, Stuttgart, Pine Bluff, Fordyce, Camden, and Texarkana.
We can thank Paramore for hiring Samuel W. Fordyce to survey the Cotton Belt route. Fordyce later became president of the railroad. Both the town of Fordyce in Dallas County and the historic Fordyce Bathhouse in Hot Springs were named for him.
The Gould and Paramore railroads crossed paths near Jonesboro, and a village emerged at the juncture, which was given the name Paragould in honor of both men.
Northwest Arkansas received its first railroad service when the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway, known as the Frisco, built a line from Monett, Mo., to Brentwood in Washington County. New cities sprang up along the Frisco line including Rogers, a community named for Charles W. Rogers, Frisco general manager.
The Rock Island Railroad came to Arkansas in 1898 when it purchased the Little Rock & Memphis. The Rock Island expanded its operations into an integrated network, and, as Hodge writes, "until its bankruptcy in March 1980, the Rock Island line was a major player in the Arkansas railroad scene.
A much smaller railroad tied northwest Arkansas to the Mississippi River city of Helena, the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad. Established in August 1906 from the older St. Louis and North Arkansas line, the M&NA stretched through the Arkansas Ozarks and across the Delta, connecting Helena with Kansas City.
While many made fun of the railroad--"M&NA stands for might never arrive"--the railroad had a major impact on Arkansas and was badly missed after the line was sold in 1935.
It is impossible in a column to comprehensively consider the entirety of Arkansas railroad transportation. On another occasion, I will write about the scores of short line railroads that brought rail transport to small towns such as Ola, Norman, and Augusta.
Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.