A Crossing of the St. Louis - Southwestern, the Texas & Pacific, and the Texarkana & Ft. Smith railroads
The area now known as Texarkana has been a major transportation
junction for hundreds of years. Indian tribes used a trail passing
through the area to move between the Mississippi River and the
desert southwest. In 1873, the Texas & Pacific (T&P) Railway
laid out the Texas side of the town, shortly before a rail connection
was established with the Cairo and Fulton Railroad that had built
across Arkansas. The T&P was operating under a Federal charter
to build a railroad across Texas, and it acquired two other dormant
railroads in 1872 to get started. In 1873, the T&P completed
main lines between Texarkana and Marshall, Marshall and Dallas,
and Texarkana and Sherman.
Another railroad entered Texarkana when the Texas & St.
Louis narrow gauge railroad completed a line from Tyler to Texarkana
in 1880. This line was eventually converted to standard gauge
and became part of the St. Louis - Southwestern (SSW) Railway, commonly
known as the Cotton Belt.
In 1885, the newly chartered Texarkana & Northern Railroad
built ten miles of rail north from Texarkana to the Red River
for logging purposes. This line was later acquired by the Kansas
City, Pittsburg and Gulf (KCP&G) Railroad, led by Arthur Stilwell,
to form a part of the main line he was building from Kansas City
to the Gulf of Mexico. Renamed the Texarkana & Ft. Smith (T&FS)
Railway, it was extended south under a revised charter along the
Texas-Louisiana border and eventually reached the new town of
Port Arthur in 1897. The T&FS became part of the Kansas City
Southern (KCS) Railway when the KCS acquired the assets of the
KCP&G during foreclosure.
The level of rail traffic through Texarkana on these three
railroads justified the establishment of two interlocking towers.
Tower 28 was established as a manual interlocking in October,
1903 where the T&P main line to Marshall crossed the T&FS
south of town. Nine months later, Tower 42, a more complex electric
interlocking, was opened near downtown Texarkana where all three
railroads crossed. Tower 42 survived into the 1990s before it
was razed. The fate of Tower 28 is unknown. All of the original
rail lines into Texarkana remain active today, except for the
T&P line to Sherman which has been abandoned between Paris
and the outskirts of Texarkana. The T&P was acquired by Missouri Pacific and
the SSW was acquired by Southern Pacific; today both lines are
owned by Union Pacific, while KCS continues to own and operate
the former T&FS line.
Historic Photo of Tower 42 from the John W Barriger III
National Railroad Library
Above:
Daniel Hardy took this photo of Tower 42 in August, 1980 (credit: Texas
Historical Commission)
Above: The 1924 Sanborn Insurance map of Texarkana shows Tower 42 as a
2-story "Ry Signal Tower"
in the southeast quadrant of the KCS crossing of the Cotton Belt line.
Below: locations of Towers 42
and 28
This satellite view of
the vicinity of the historic location of Tower 42 (green) shows that while much
has changed in Texarkana over the decades, the railroads remain intact. The
T&P line to Sherman is only an industrial spur but the other lines continue as
major routes for KCS and UP.
