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Entry Category: Land - Starting with A

Amtrak

Amtrak, with a name derived from the words “America” and “track,” is a partially government-funded American passenger rail service. Its parent enterprise is the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. Amtrak was created in 1970 to provide medium- and long-distance intercity service through the consolidation of existing U.S. passenger rail companies. Sharing track with freight trains, Amtrak officially took over most U.S. interstate passenger rail service on May 1, 1971. However, Amtrak’s regular passenger rail service did not begin to serve Arkansas until 1974, when service on the Inter-American train was extended northward from Fort Worth, Texas, to St. Louis, Missouri. Amtrak is the most recent phase in America’s passenger railroad history, in which Arkansas has played a significant part. From the …

Arkansas and Oklahoma Western Railroad

The Arkansas and Oklahoma Western Railroad (A&OW), based in Rogers (Benton County), was incorporated on June 25, 1907, with capital stock of $3,000,000. The standard gauge railroad, previously named the Rogers Southwestern, had twenty-one miles of track built between Rogers and Springtown (Benton County) by the Rogers Southwestern Railroad. The change in the corporate name reflected an intention to build to Siloam Springs (Benton County), as a connection to the Kansas City Southern Railway, and Pryor Creek, Oklahoma, as a connection to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway. The A&OW also announced plans for a thirty-mile extension from Rogers to the health resort of Eureka Springs (Carroll County). The A&OW, assuming it had been built as planned, would have been …

Arkansas Department of Transportation

The Arkansas Department of Transportation oversees the planning, maintenance, and policing of state roads and highways. Act 302 of 1913 established the State Highway Commission and renamed the Department of State Lands as the Department of State Lands, Highways and Improvements. However, there remained no designated highway system in the state. In 1921, a federal law required states to designate a system of state highways, to be managed by a state highway department. In 1923, a few months following the closure of the Department of State Lands, Highways and Improvements due to the Arkansas General Assembly’s failure to appropriate money for the agency, the governor called a special session of the legislature to deal with the resulting problems, eventually signing …

Arkansas Highway 1

Stretching from the Missouri border in the north to McGehee (Desha County), Arkansas Highway 1 spans almost 160 miles in the eastern part of the state. Part of the original state highway system, the roadway continues to be an important route in the Delta. The highway originated from a number of local roads constructed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A 1916 state road map includes several sections of the future highway, but most of the route does not yet appear. With the establishment of the state highway system in 1923, much of the route appeared on the official map. Improvements to the road over the decades brought Arkansas Highway 1 to modern standards while continuing to follow much …

Arkansas Highway 57 Bridge

The Arkansas Highway 57 Bridge crosses railroad tracks in Stephens (Ouachita County). Constructed in 1928, the bridge is a Warren pony truss with a pedestrian walkway located on the outside of the superstructure. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 28, 2005. Once used for vehicular traffic, it later became a pedestrian bridge. Stephens was founded as a stop on the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railway. The St. Louis Southwestern Railway, also known as the Cotton Belt, took control of the line after 1882. With a 160-acre plot to construct a settlement, the owners of the rail line convinced several business owners in nearby Richland (Ouachita County) to move to the new settlement in …

Arkansas Highway 7

Stretching almost the entirety of the state from south to north, Arkansas Highway 7 crosses eleven counties and measures more than 208 miles. The highway begins at the Arkansas border with Louisiana near the settlement of Lockhart. It is a continuation of Louisiana State Highway 558. The two-lane road crosses into Union County and merges with U.S. Highway 167 south of El Dorado (Union County). The two roads form a concurrency bypass to the northern edge of the city where Highway 7 continues in a northwestern direction to Smackover (Union County). A multi-lane roadway for this portion, the highway crosses into Ouachita County near Louann (Ouachita County) before it enters Camden (Ouachita County). At the interchange with U.S. Highway 79, …

Arkansas Highway Commission

In the early part of the twentieth century, Arkansas’s roads were not designed for the arrival of the automobile. The state’s roads were rough and dusty in dry weather, and were impassable during the rainy season. There was no statewide authority to plan or direct road construction in Arkansas, so road construction was handled at the local level, with county courts in charge of road planning and construction. Most roads were built to serve specific neighborhoods or even individuals, and a connected statewide system of roads was far from a reality. These issues came to a head in 1913 in the Thirty-ninth Arkansas General Assembly, which created the State Highway Commission by Act 302 in response to these transportation issues. …

Arkansas Highway Police

The Arkansas Highway Police is the oldest statewide law enforcement agency in Arkansas and serves as the law enforcement branch of the Arkansas Department of Transportation. The duties of the agency have changed over time, but the emphasis remains on protection of the state’s highway and transportation system. The Highway Police is overseen by an agency director with the rank of chief. The chief serves at the pleasure of the director of the Arkansas Department of Transportation. The Highway Police’s main headquarters are located in Little Rock (Pulaski County) next to the central office of the Department of Transportation. The Highway Police is divided into five districts, each of which is commanded by an officer with the rank of captain. …

Arkansas Railroad Museum

The Arkansas Railroad Museum in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) grew out of an effort by the Cotton Belt Historical Society to preserve the last steam-powered locomotive built in Arkansas. It has since expanded to include other artifacts of Arkansas’s railroad heritage. The Cotton Belt Rail Historical Society, Inc., was organized on October 18, 1983, primarily for the purpose of saving the Cotton Belt steam locomotive SSW 819, a 4-8-4 Northern-type steam locomotive that was the last steam-powered locomotive constructed in Arkansas. The locomotive had been retired and donated to the City of Pine Bluff in 1955, when machines of its type were being replaced by diesel-burning locomotives. It was placed in a city park, later called the Martin Luther King …

Arkansas Western Railroad

Beginning in 1896, the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad (later the Kansas City Southern) arrived in Heavener, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Three years later, the Arkansas Western Railroad Company was incorporated in Arkansas in order to build a thirty-two-mile extension into Arkansas from Heavener to Waldron (Scott County). On October 1, 1901, an engine arrived in Waldron pulling fourteen carloads of steel rails that would finish the track. In 1904, the Kansas City Southern (KCS) organized the Arkansas Western Railway Company, and the Arkansas Western Railroad became a KCS subsidiary. Advertisements soon began running in local newspapers with a “Through Train” schedule. Beginning on July 24, 1904, passengers were able to board a train in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) …