Texas Railroad History - Towers 28 and 42 - Texarkana

Crossings of the St. Louis Southwestern, the Texas & Pacific, and the Texarkana & Fort Smith railroads

Left: This image comes from a larger photo taken by railroad executive John W. Barriger III from the rear platform of his business car in the 1930s. Barriger's train was moving east through Texarkana on St. Louis Southwestern ("Cotton Belt") tracks. His camera is pointed generally west, but he turned slightly south to photograph Tower 42 while facing its northeast corner. Barriger's car has just passed over tracks of the Kansas City Southern Railway visible running north / south on the opposite (west) side of the tower. Tower 42 also managed crossings of the Texas & Pacific Railway which Barriger's train would be passing over in a few moments if it had stayed on the Cotton Belt main track to the left. Instead, his train has switched onto the passenger lead for Union Station where he will soon arrive. (photo, John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library) Below: On a different trip through Texarkana in the 1930s, Barriger is facing north from his business car on a soutbound Kansas City Southern train, passing through the yard of the International Creosoting & Construction Company. As his train completed its crossing of the second of two Texas & Pacific tracks -- one on each side of Tower 28 -- Barriger snapped this photo of the tower, capturing with it a man holding a lantern standing on the tracks between the two diamonds. The photo has been brightened; Barriger's original is much darker, having been taken at dusk. Barriger's train continued south overnight to Shreveport and DeQuincy, Louisiana, eventually passing Tower 31 as it neared Beaumont the next morning. (photo, John W Barriger III National Railroad Library)

Below: southwest corner of Tower 42 with KCS tracks in the fore-ground (Daniel Hardy, August, 1980; Texas Historical Commission)

Long before the railroads, a trail passed through the Texarkana area to move people and goods between the Mississippi River and the desert southwest. The term Texarkana had been applied to settlements in this region for years, well before the town was formally established in December, 1873. The name clearly derives from a combination of the states it stradles, Texas and Arkansas, and another nearby, Louisiana, but precisely who created the name and when remains in dispute.

The impetus for the first railroad at Texarkana began with the idea of building a railroad across Texas to be part of a projected southern transcontinental line. This was prior to the Civil War, years before the first Transcontiental Railroad was built, a period when the Legislature somewhat freely granted state charters to railroads promising to build across Texas. There were two competing concepts. One envisioned tracks diagonally across the state from the Arkansas border to El Paso. In the opposite direction, tracks would extend diagonally across Arkansas and Missouri to reach St. Louis, expected to become the major rail gateway between the east coast and the western U.S. The other concept was to build rails connecting Atlanta, Vicksburg and Shreveport, more or less a straight line, with Marshall, and then continue across the state to El Paso.

Two Texas railroad charters issued during this time led to the eventual construction of tracks at Texarkana. One was granted to the Vicksburg & El Paso Railroad Co. which the charter law also called the Texas Western Railroad. This charter changed hands but was eventually reacquired by the original promoters who then asked the Legislature to change its name to Southern Pacific Railroad, unrelated to the famous Southern Pacific that evolved in California in a similar timeframe. The name change was granted in 1856 by the Legislature, overriding a veto by Texas Governor Elisha Pease. Work began at Swanson's Landing, a riverport at the south end of Caddo Lake (near the present day town of Karnak) connected by waterways to New Orleans. This enabled rails, locomotives and other materials to be shipped to Texas by barge. A track was completed southwest to Marshall by the end of 1859, enabling residents there to take the train 27 miles to Caddo Lake for a day of recreation on the water. Tracks were also completed to Jonesville in the direction of Shreveport, intending to connect with a Louisiana railroad at the state line. During the Civil War, the rails between Swanson's Landing and Jonesville were taken up to be used to advance a direct rail line between Marshall and Shreveport.

The other charter was granted to the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific which was to build west from Texarkana through the counties bordering the Red River. It was planned to cross the Brazos River at Fort Belknap (85 miles northwest of Fort Worth) before turning southwest to El Paso. A total of 65 miles of track was laid west from Texarkana prior to the Civil War. Additional grading was done in the vicinity of Jefferson, a major riverport with access to New Orleans. The validity of the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific charter came into question in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War stemming from a disputed land grant provision. The Legislature solved the problem by granting a new charter in July, 1870 under the name Southern Transcontinental Railroad Co. The new company would be allowed to acquire the assets of the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific and the Southern Pacific. On March 3, 1871, Congress granted a Federal railroad charter to the Texas Pacific Railroad (renamed Texas & Pacific Railway -- "T&P" -- a year later) for the purpose of building a transcontinental rail line from Marshall to San Diego, California. The Texas Legislature authorized the T&P to acquire the Southern Pacific and the Southern Transcontinental Railroad Co., which happened on March 21 and March 30, respectively, 1872. A year later, the T&P acquired the assets of the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific out of foreclosure.

By the end of 1873, new construction plus the acquired assets resulted in the T&P having three main track segments: 1) from the Louisiana border through Marshall and Longview to Dallas; 2) from Marshall north through Jefferson to Texarkana; and 3) fifty-four miles of track from Sherman east to Brookston in the direction of Texarkana. Building eastward from Sherman was deemed the better approach because materials could be shipped there from the Port of Galveston using the Houston & Texas Central (H&TC) rail line out of Houston that had reached Sherman in 1872. The T&P completed the tracks from Brookston east to Texarkana in 1876, and that same year, it extended its line westward from Dallas to Fort Worth.

The T&P was following the two-track approach the Legislature had envisioned, with a southern line from Shreveport through Marshall to Dallas, and a northern line running west from Texarkana to Sherman and beyond. The plan west of Sherman was undetermined; the T&P had acquired rights and physical assets of the Memphis, El Paso & Pacific but not its charter, and thus the T&P was not bound by the provision to build to Fort Belknap. In the east, the two lines were linked by the tracks between Marshall and Texarkana. In the west, Fort Worth became the target connecting point for the two lines. From there, a single line west to El Paso would be built.

At Texarkana, the T&P laid out the Texas side of town in 1873 while awaiting arrival of the Cairo and Fulton (C&F) Railroad, a company chartered in Arkansas. The C&F would provide a direct route to St. Louis through its connection with the St. Louis & Iron Mountain Railway at the Arkansas / Missouri border. By January, 1873, the C&F had built from the border to the north side of the Arkansas River at Little Rock. While a bridge over the river was constructed, the C&F continued building toward Texarkana. The bridge opened in December, 1873, and a month later, C&F rails reached Texarkana, connecting with the T&P and creating a new route for rail service between Dallas and St. Louis. In May, 1874, the C&F and the St. Louis & Iron Mountain were reorganized into the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern (SLIM&S) Railway. Left: The Cobb Digital Map Collection at the Texas General Land Office contains an 1877 map of the SLIM&S from which this excerpt is taken. The map was produced by the railroad to show its routes and connections from St. Louis through Poplar Bluff, continuing across Arkansas into Texas. The T&P had yet to build west of Fort Worth, so the track in that direction is marked with a different line style indicating future construction. Two International & Great Northern lines are also in bold -- southwest from Longview (to Palestine) and from Mineola to Troup. The north / south line through Dallas and Sherman to Denison is the H&TC. At Denison, the H&TC's connection to the Missouri, Kansas & Texas ("Katy") Railway provided routes through Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to Kansas City and St. Louis, although the latter route was longer than the one through Texarkana.

While the C&F was planning its path across Arkansas, the International Railroad was chartered in Texas in August, 1870 by investors involved with the C&F. The idea was for the International to become a Texas extension through Austin and San Antonio to the Rio Grande River. The goal was to create a major route for international trade between St. Louis and Mexico via Texarkana. The International's construction commenced at two locations, Hearne and Longview, in 1871. Longview was chosen because it was already apparent that the newly chartered T&P would soon have a line between Longview and Texarkana via Marshall. By February, 1873, the International had completed tracks from Longview through Palestine to Hearne.

In this same timeframe, the Houston & Great Northern was building north from Houston to Palestine. Anticipating the connection at Palestine, the International's management saw value in a combined railroad that would eventually serve Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Laredo. An agreement was reached in December, 1872, and the two railroads began operating under a combined management structure based in Houston while awaiting permission to merge. In March, 1875, the Legislature authorized the new railroad, the International & Great Northern (I&GN). Soon it would be Texas' largest.

By the 1870s, east coast rail baron Jay Gould had begun to shift his attention to the west and southwest, planning a major presence in Texas. It offered ports on the Gulf through which commodities from Midwest and Plains states could be exported, plus the potential for trade with Mexico. The I&GN became his target, already moving freight and passengers between St. Louis and Houston via Texarkana. In 1879, Gould acquired control of the Missouri Pacific (MP) Railroad based in St. Louis. For his southwest expansion, railroads would be merged by lease or acquisition into MP. In December, 1879, the selection of Gould as President of the Katy was accomplished by his loyalists who had infiltrated Katy management over several years at Gould's behest. The plan had been hatched because the Katy's diluted stock prevented Gould from acquiring controlling interest, the usual path to a takeover. Gould soon leased the Katy to MP. To attack the I&GN, Gould also needed the T&P. It offered the potential of a southern transcontinental route, but more important to Gould, it provided a critical link for the I&GN's access to St. Louis via Longview and Texarkana. The T&P had become stalled at Fort Worth, unable to finance construction to El Paso. Sensing opportunity, Gould offered to build the T&P west of Fort Worth in exchange for $40,000 in T&P stocks and bonds for each mile completed. A deal was struck and track-laying began in April, 1880. Gould was effectively in command of the T&P, and by April, 1881, he owned controlling interest. He proceeded to lease the T&P to MP. Gould also wanted the SLIM&S in his pocket before attempting to take on the I&GN. His plan was simple -- route the T&P's St. Louis traffic via Oklahoma on the Katy rather than the SLIM&S through Texarkana. Gould also bought the terminal railroad at St. Louis that facilitated the SLIM&S' path into the city. Constrained at both ends with diminished traffic, SLIM&S ownership capitulated in December, 1880 and sold a large block of stock to Gould, giving him about 30% of the company. They did not further resist his control and the SLIM&S was leased to MP. The I&GN realized its fate and sold out to Gould in June, 1881 in an exchange for Katy stock. Gould finessed who or what actually owned the I&GN, and he tried to cast doubt on that idea that it was the Katy by leasing the I&GN to the Katy. Right: A full month before his acquisition of the I&GN, the Galveston Daily News of April 30, 1881 reported speculation by New York papers that discussions were being held to consolidate Gould's MP and Texas railroads, including the I&GN. The article was incorrect regarding Gould's ownership of the Katy; he was President, but he lacked financial control.

In the high stakes railroading of the Gould era, there were always threats, and the biggest for Gould was the Texas & St. Louis (T&SL) narrow gauge. It had originally been chartered as the Tyler Tap Railroad in 1871 to bring rail service to Tyler by "tapping" the T&P at Big Sandy. This was finally accomplished in 1877. The name was changed to the T&SL in 1879 when a 107-mile segment was built from Big Sandy to Texarkana. By 1884, construction had been completed across Arkansas and Missouri to Bird's Point on the Mississippi River. There, barges moved railcars across the river to Cairo, Illinois. The expansion overextended the T&SL's finances and it went into into receivership in January, 1884.

As the corporate reorganization proceeded slowly, the bankruptcy judge grew impatient, forcing the T&SL to be sold rather than merely reorganized. Selling required dividing it into two properties, the Texas lines and the Arkansas - Missouri lines, for compliance with Texas' railroad ownership laws. The Receiver, Samuel Fordyce, cautioned the judge that operational issues would risk profitability, but the advice was ignored. The sale was executed to a bondholders' committee in early 1886. In February, the committee deeded the Texas assets to the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas (SLA&T) Railway in Texas, a new company created for the purpose of restarting the Texas portion of the railroad. In April, the Arkansas and Missouri assets were similarly deeded to the St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railway in Arkansas and Missouri with Sam Fordyce as President of both companies. The combined SLA&T consisted of a single main line between Bird's Point and Gatesville, southwest of Waco. By 1887, Fordyce had converted it to standard gauge and was developing a plan to compete with Gould on Midwest traffic through Fort Worth. To do so, Fordyce built a branch from Mount Pleasant to Commerce, 57 miles west. There, the line split into two branches: one to Sherman and one to Fort Worth, completed in 1888.

Left: This January 21, 1881 T&SL advertisement in the Galveston Daily News introduced "Cotton Belt Route" as a marketing tag for the T&SL. The nickname stuck for the next 110 years. Right: The Fort Worth Daily Gazette of June 4, 1887 quoted a recent news item from the Texarkana Times announcing a contract to build an extension of the SLA&T west to Fort Worth. The construction would be completed in less than a year.

Increased competition from the Cotton Belt may not have been Gould's biggest problem; he had several others. James S. "Jim" Hogg was elected Texas Attorney General in 1886 by campaigning on a promise to go after the railroads for various infractions. Among others, both the Katy and I&GN became targets of lawsuits alleging price-fixing, poor service and poor infrastructure, each a violation of their state railroad charters. Hogg also sued the Katy claiming that its 1881 purchase of the East Line & Red River (EL&RR) Railroad (from Jefferson to Greenville, extended to McKinney by Gould) was unlawful because the Katy was an out-of-state railroad, headquartered in Kansas. Gould was already on thin ice with Katy stockholders who had come to understand that the lease to MP was siphoning Katy profits for Gould's benefit. Despite his best efforts, the stockholders eventually succeeded in summoning a quorum in May, 1888 where they fired Gould for malfeasance due to the MP lease. New Katy management promptly sought bankruptcy protection and asked the court to dissolve the lease.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled that an 1870 Texas law authorizing the Katy to connect with the H&TC in Texas over the (planned) Red River bridge was not a Texas railroad charter, rendering unlawful the Katy's ownership of the I&GN, the EL&RR, and all of its construction under the MP lease. It was left to the Legislature to sort out the mess by issuing a new charter to dictate which rail lines the Katy would be allowed to own. Hogg was adamantly opposed to having Texas' largest railroad owned by an out-of-state company, and he had significant influence in the matter because he had been elected Governor in 1890 (on a platform advocating creation of a Railroad Commission of Texas, "RCT", which was accomplished in 1891.) The law Hogg signed in October, 1891 granted a Texas railroad charter to a new wholly-owned subsidiary of the Katy to be headquartered at Denison that would own virtually all of the lines the Katy had built or acquired in Texas except the I&GN and the EL&RR. The Katy had no choice but to sell the I&GN to Gould, who continued as President of both the I&GN and the T&P. The EL&RR remained in bankruptcy pending organization of a new ownership group.

As Gould began navigating the legal and financial storm being stirred up by Hogg, vigorous competition by the Cotton Belt on its new branch lines to Fort Worth and Sherman had impacted revenue to both parties. Gould had discerned that the Cotton Belt was in a financial squeeze, so in 1888 he negotiated a secret arrangement with Fordyce to cooperate on traffic through Texarkana. Gould then began to accumulate financial leverage over the Cotton Belt through loans and stock purchases, positioning him to guide its inevitable reorganization. As Fordyce had predicted to the bankruptcy judge, the Cotton Belt was unable to stay profitable, and both SLA&T companies went into receivership in May, 1889. Fordyce was again named Receiver. After 18 months of reorganization, yet another new company was chartered. Gould preferred to call it simply the Cotton Belt Railroad, but St. Louis Southwestern (SSW) Railway was chosen instead. It was incorporated as two legal entities -- one in Texas and one in Missouri -- in January, 1891, with Fordyce again named President. Jay Gould's son Edwin was named Vice President, an indication of the sizable ownership position of the Gould family.

Jay Gould's death in New York City in December, 1892 was big news all over the U.S. and certainly in Texarkana. His elder son George took over the family business and replaced Jay as Preisdent of the I&GN and the T&P. George's younger brother Edwin remained Vice President of the Cotton Belt. Texarkana Daily Democrat December 2 (left) and 3 (right), 1892.

In 1885, the newly chartered Texarkana & Northern Railroad built ten miles of track north from Texarkana to the Red River for logging purposes. In 1889, the name was changed to the Texarkana & Fort Smith (T&FS) Railway with plans to extend the line north to Fort Smith. With only limited northward construction accomplished, the T&FS was acquired in 1892 by the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf (KCP&G) Railroad to become part of a main line between Kansas City and the Gulf. The KCP&G was the brainchild of Arthur Stilwell, a New Yorker who had settled in Kansas City in 1886. The KCP&G planned to build due south from Kansas City through Pittsburg (Kansas), Fort Smith and Texarkana to reach an unspecified deep water port on the Gulf (which became the eponymous town of Port Arthur.) T&FS construction south from Texarkana was initiated under an amended charter in 1893, and portions of it were built in Louisiana under a different charter. The main line from Kansas City through Fort Smith, Texarkana, Shreveport, DeQuincy and Beaumont was completed to Port Arthur in late 1897.

In 1899, Stilwell lost financial control of the KCP&G; it went into receivership and he was booted off the management team. The court appointed Sam Fordyce to be Receiver for the KCP&G and he resigned as President of the Cotton Belt (replaced by Edwin Gould.) When the receivership terminated, the Kansas City Southern (KCS) Railway was chartered in Missouri in 1900 to acquire KCP&G assets out of foreclosure. Fordyce was named KCS President and the T&FS became KCS' Texas-based subsidiary that owned the tracks in Texas. In 1933, KCS petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) for permission to dissolve the T&FS and merge its assets directly into KCS. The State of Texas opposed the petition because KCS was not headquartered in Texas as required by state law. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1934 which ruled that the Transportation Act of 1920 gave the ICC authority to override protectionist railroad laws and regulations enacted by states. KCS waited until 1943 to exercise its newly-granted prerogative of dissolving the T&FS.

The last railroad to build tracks in Texarkana was the Texarkana and Shreveport Railroad. Its initial construction was southeast out of Texarkana to a sawmill at Fouke, Arkansas c.1894, a distance of about fifteen miles. It was acquired by the Texarkana, Shreveport & Natchez (TS&N) Railway in 1899. The TS&N extended the tracks south, eventually passing through the Louisiana towns of Ida, Hosston and Gilliam on its way into Shreveport. On February 9, 1901, the TS&N was sold to the T&P. After decades of operation, the segment between Texarkana and Hosston was abandoned c.1966. Hosston retained tracks because it was the site of a refinery served by the T&P from Shreveport. The refinery closed in 1981 and the tracks between Hosston and Shreveport were abandoned soon thereafter.

Left: The date for this map was chosen so that KCS' acquisition of the former EL&RR tracks from Jefferson through Pittsburg to McKinney could be included. After the EL&RR receivership was resolved in 1893, it went through a series of owners and name changes. In 1900, the line was extended from Jefferson to Waskom, connecting there with tracks to Shreveport. In 1899, the Legislature made a deal with the Katy, allowing it to reacquire the tracks between McKinney and Waskom in exchange for building tracks from San Marcos to San Antonio. This was accomplished in 1901 and the line was part of the Katy for the next two decades. When the Katy emerged from receivership in 1923, the line was sold. It was owned by the Louisiana & Arkansas Railway before coming under KCS ownership in 1939. In 1956, KCS built a new main line to Shreveport from Karnak and abandoned the tracks from Karnak to Waskom. KCS continues to operate these tracks; in March, 2023, KCS merged with Canadian Pacific, forming CPKC. MP's former SLIM&S route ran northeast out of Texarkana to Little Rock and St. Louis. The Cotton Belt route to St. Louis went fifty miles east from Texarkana before turning northeast. It passed through Pine Bluff, forty miles southeast of Little Rock, where a major yard and shops were built. Farther north, a branch to Memphis became effectively a second main line. Southwest of Big Sandy, the Cotton Belt went to Tyler where it crossed I&GN tracks that ran between Troup and Mineola. Troup was on the I&GN main line southwest of Longview. Beyond Tyler, the Cotton Belt continued to Waco and Gatesville with a branch from Corsicana to Hillsboro. A major Cotton Belt branch out of Mt. Pleasant went 57 miles west to Commerce and split into separate branches to Sherman and Fort Worth. The Fort Worth branch also had a lengthy spur into downtown Dallas. The T&P had three lines out of Texarkana. The line to the west went to Paris, Sherman and Whitesboro, where it turned southwest to Fort Worth. The T&P's south line out of Texarkana went to Marshall and turned west through Longview and east to Shreveport. The former TS&N route went southeast out of Texarkana to Fouke and turned south to Hosston and Shreveport. It was fully abandoned by 1981. The T&P line west of New Boston has also been abandoned. Except for the KCS tracks to Waskom noted above, all other lines on this map remain active.

The railroads established two interlocking towers in Texarkana. The first of these was Tower 28, commissioned by RCT on October 20, 1903 hosting a 20-function mechanical plant built by Union Switch & Signal Co. Tower 28 controlled the crossing of the T&FS and the T&P about two and a half miles south of downtown Texarkana on property of the International Creosoting & Construction Co., a railroad tie manufacturing facility. At Tower 28, the T&FS line from Texarkana to Shreveport crossed two parallel T&P tracks. One was the primary yard track; the other was the main line between Texarkana and Marshall.

Above: Tower 28 is visible sitting beside the intersection of rail lines on the right side of this undated photo. The panorama was probably taken from the top of the water tower visible in Barriger's photo at top of page. The creosoting facility eventually became owned by the Kerr-McGee Corporation. It was at one time (and might still be) listed as a Superfund cleanup site due to decades of improper storage and disposal of creosoting chemicals. Click the image twice for the fullly enlarged version of the photo. (Kerr-McGee Co. photo, Myron Malone collection)

Left: The right side of the enlarged version of the above photo looks south down the KCS tracks that ran along the east side of Tower 28. The tower is visible between two T&P tracks -- the main line on the south (distant) side of the tower and a yard track along the north side of the tower. North of the tower, the yard track branched into multiple tracks serving different parts of the factory. South of the tower, the yard track accessed multiple storage sidings. The two-story building in the foreground looks very much like a residence, and there could also have been guest quaters and office space. Geneology records list a young woman, Geneva Stuart, who is reported to have lived on the grounds of the facility for three years beginning shortly after her marriage in 1910.

Left: This simulated 3-D view produced by Google Maps from recent satellite imagery is similar to the photo above. It shows the CPKC tracks going south across the former T&P line, now owned by Union Pacific (UP). To the left of the crossing, the tan cabin with the darker roof housed the original automatic interlocking, but it has likely been replaced by the newer gray cabinet sitting beside it.

The tie plant is now dismantled but it is unclear whether the Superfund mitigation has been completed.

Tower 28 is visible in 1935 historic aerial imagery, but not in 1948 imagery. A March 26, 1944 T&P Employee Timetable lists the crossing with an automatic interlocker. The disposition and date of Tower 28's demise is undetermined. Myron Malone took these photos of the crossing c.2005. Left: Looking south on the KCS main line, the concrete bunker to the left is the automatic interlocker cabin that replaced Tower 28's plant. The interlocker's override controls are mounted in the smaller box near the tracks. The old lead into the tie plant is in the foreground and the UP main line is behind the cabin. The Highway 151 overpass is barely visible in the distance. Right: The site of Tower 28 is where the short sections of rail lay next to the weeds, but there is no evidence of its foundation.

A comprehensive table of active interlockers published by RCT at the end of 1903 (and annually thereafter through the end of 1930) listed Tower 28's location as Sulphur. This was probably a reference to the community of Sulphur, a small station on the T&P located approximately five miles south of Tower 28, but the reason for this geographic misidentification is unknown. The location persisted as Sulphur until the table dated October 31, 1906 changed the location to South of Texarkana. This table included traffic information showing Tower 28 had experienced 27 average daily movements past the tower during the twelve months ending June 30, 1906. The table published October 31, 1916 changed Tower 28's function count to 24. This table was also the first to identify the railroad responsible for operating each tower; for Tower 28, it was the T&P. Ten years later, the table dated December 31, 1926 revised the location to Texarkana, 2 miles west. This was probably a reference to the T&P timetable for which "west" on this line was geographically south to Marshall and then west to El Paso. A year later, the table again changed the location, this time to West of Texarkana. This location persisted through the final table dated December 30, 1930, still showing a total of 24 functions and the T&P with operational responsibility. For a building that never moved, Tower 28 had a lot of locations!

Above: This index to the 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance map set of Texarkana has been annotated to show the location of the interlocking towers and to highlight the complicated topology of the railroads through the city. Although the map identifies KCS as the owner of the main north / south line, it technically belonged to the T&FS in 1909. Texarkana Union Station (yellow rectangle) was (and remains) located along Front St., straddling the state line. Other than the T&P tracks to Fouke abandoned in the mid 1960s, all of these tracks remain in service. The T&P's northern line out of Texarkana is mostly abandoned, but the tracks are still in use between Texarkana and New Boston to serve a nearby U.S. Army Depot and a commercial lumber yard. The tracks west of New Boston were abandoned in 1996.

Tower 42 was located a little more than a half mile southwest of Union Station. Though it sat adjacent to a crossing of the T&FS (KCS) and the Cotton Belt main lines, it also handled the T&P's crossings with these railroads and was manned by T&P personnel. RCT's comprehensive interlocker table dated October 31, 1904 lists Tower 42 hosting an electric interlocker built by Pneumatic Signal Co. (PSC) with 70 functions spread over 47 operational levers (among a total of 56 levers available.) The entry for Tower 42 in RCT's table is different from all other entries because it has two asterisks, one next to Texarkana in the "Location" column and one next to the date, July 7, 1904, in the column titled "Operation authorized by Commission". Though not specified directly in the table, these asterisks indicate that RCT's authorization for Tower 42 to operate was only temporary because the interlocking plant had failed inspection.

What happened? It appears that PSC's design for the Tower 42 interlocking plant was based on new technology that was still in development at the outset of the project. The plant for Tower 42 may have been the first to employ this technology, and the system encountered problems when installed. Some of these problems were design mistakes in the interlocking plant and others were the result of poor workmanship during installation. Wiring to signals and derails appears to have become a critical point of failure over relatively short periods of operation. T&P had been given the responsibility from RCT to erect the Tower 42 building and acquire the interlocking plant, and it had contracted with PSC for a turnkey system, including a requirement for PSC to operate the interlocker for the first sixty days. After the failed inspection, RCT allowed work arounds and procedural changes to be used so that the plant could operate to some extent until fixes were made, but the results were mixed and the record-keeping was very poor. Because the interlocking plant was operating on temporary authority from RCT and eventually failed inspection twice, T&P refused to pay the $16,650 contracted price to PSC.

PSC filed a lawsuit against T&P in a New York district court in the summer of 1907 to collect the debt, claiming that T&P had "accepted" the system because it was in use, albeit under temporary restricted authority. Numerous fixes had failed to mitigate the problems, and worse, many of them were improperly documented, or not documented at all. By the summer of 1907, RCT had ordered the interlocking plant condemned and replaced (going so far as to order that not one piece of it could be salvaged; everything had to go.) There was additional complexity to the litigation because in the middle of the Tower 42 project, PSC had merged with Taylor Signal Co. and Standard Railway Signal Co. in 1904 to form General Railway Signal (GRS) Co.

A jury trial was held, and the jury ruled for the Defendant, T&P. The verdict was appealed and there may have been additional trials due to remands by appellate courts. It appears that T&P ultimately won, although as late as January, 1911, the case was still under appeal and had produced a lengthy appellate transcript. [Editor: If someone can wade through 616 pages of legal jargon, please generate a synopsis and I'll add it to this page!] The transcript includes detailed testimony by RCT's engineer. Right: The December, 1908 issue of The Signal Engineer reported that a new Union Switch & Signal Co. plant for Tower 42 was to be installed by December 20. RCT's table dated October 31, 1909 was the first to have no asterisks on Tower 42's entry.

After Jay Gould's death, the Gould family remained in control of MP, I&GN and T&P. Jay's son George operated MP and the T&P successfully for many years, but had less success running the I&GN. A reputation for accidents, many of them attributed to poor track design on the new 1902 Houston - Fort Worth line, caused the I&GN to be under constant orders from RCT to correct problems and improve service. It entered receivership in February, 1908, and in June, 1911, the Gould family bought it out of bankruptcy and resumed control. The I&GN went back into bankruptcy in 1914, and at that point, the Gould family connection to the I&GN ended forever. It was not until July 28, 1922 that the I&GN emerged from bankruptcy as a newly reorganized and independent company under the name International - Great Northern Railroad (hence both I&GN and I-GN are used as abbreviations.)

MP underwent a financial reorganization in 1917 at which time the Gould era ended completely for both MP and the T&P. The railroads had worked closely together since the early 1880s, and in 1918, MP began to purchase T&P stock on the market with an eye toward eventually acquiring a controlling interest. In 1924, MP tried to buy the newly independent I-GN as a means of reentering the Texas market but the ICC refused to approve the sale. The purchase was restructured to include additional railroads, and on January 1, 1925, MP was able to buy the I-GN and several others operating in Texas and Louisiana. By 1930, MP owned controlling interest in the T&P but it did not exercise executive control. In 1933, the Great Depression sent both MP and its I-GN subsidiary into receivership. The receiverships ended in 1956, resulting in the I-GN becoming fully integrated into the reorganized MP.

In 1976, MP finally merged the T&P, having acquired most of T&P's stock by then. In 1982, MP was acquired by UP but continued to operate as an independent subsidiary. In 1988, UP acquired the Katy and merged it into MP, recombining the railroads a hundred years after MP's lease of the Katy had been broken by the Texas Supreme Court. A few years later, UP acquired and merged Southern Pacific (SP), another large western railroad that had operated the H&TC and many others in Texas. SP had controlled the Cotton Belt since 1932, seven years after Edwin Gould had retired as President. The Cotton Belt had continued as an independent subsidiary until it was merged into SP in 1992. In the late 1990s, UP fully merged SP and MP, and began operating solely under the UP name. Today, the routes through Texarkana developed by MP, the T&P and the Cotton Belt are owned and operated by UP.

Far Left: Sunshine illuminates the east face of Tower 42. Left: the south side of Tower 42, with KCS tracks to the left both photos taken October 8, 1992 by Myron Malone.

Left:  A Cotton Belt intermodal train crosses the diamond and blocks the KCS main line adjacent to Tower 42. The train is facing due west but by timetable, it is traveling south. Right: A Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad locomotive unit leads a Tyler-bound intermodal train past the tower on SP's former Cotton Belt tracks. both photo taken by Myrone Malone on October 11, 1992

Right: This interior photograph of Tower 42 was taken in 1988 by Paul Farfrak. Nothing much would have changed by the time the tower was taken out of service in the early 1990's. The levers and interlocking machine along the right edge of the photo were removed from the tower by a local Texarkana historical group just before the tower's demolition.

Above: This image taken by John W. Barriger III has been annotated to mark the track topology. Assuming it was taken several seconds after Barriger's photo of Tower 42 at top of page (instead of perhaps a different trip) Barriger's train has indeed taken the Cotton Belt passenger lead toward Union Station as previously speculated. He is facing generally southwest from the rear of his business car which moments before passed the north side of the Cotton Belt Yard Office. The Cotton Belt main line is barely visible passing along the far side of the office. To Barriger's left, the T&P main line curves to cross the Cotton Belt and proceed south to Marshall, passing Tower 28 in about two miles. Immediately beyond the diamond, T&P's branch to Fouke departs the main track and proceeds southeast. This track acted as the north lead of a wye track. The south lead (red arrow) is barely visible having come off of the T&P main line about 500 yards farther south. The two leads connect off the image to the left. (photo, John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, hat tip Tony Wilson)
 

Above: This Google Street View from August, 2022 was taken facing west toward Mt. Pleasant from the S. State Line Ave. overpass above UP's former Cotton Belt route. At the quadruple diamond, the two tracks cross UP's former T&P line to Marshall (left, south) and Union Station (right, north). The ex-Cotton Belt lead to Union Station is visible as the northwest quadrant connector. Beyond Union Station, UP's former MP yard is very active and the line continues to Little Rock. Going east in the foreground, the tracks beneath the camera diverge because they form the north (right) and south (left) track boundaries of UP's former Cotton Belt yard, which has mostly been disassembled in favor of the ex-MP yard. Beyond the yard, the tracks eventually merge into a single line on the east side of Texarkana and continue to Pine Bluff on the Cotton Belt right-of-way. On the near side of the white-roofed building, the KCS tracks run north / south, crossing the former Cotton Belt tracks. The adjacent white cabin, partly shaded, sits where Tower 42 was located.

Below: Texarkana Union Station remains standing but is in need of significant repair and restoration. (Michael Barera photo, 2016)
               

 
Last Revised: 4/19/2025 JGK - Contact the Texas Interlocking Towers Page.