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The story
The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, commonly called the Frisco, was incorporated in Missouri on September 7, 1876. It was formed from the Missouri Division and Central Division of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. This land grant line was one of two railroads (the other being the M-K-T) authorized by the federal government to build across Indian Territory.
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad (known simply as the Santa Fe), interested in the A&P right of way across the Mojave Desert to California, took the road over but went bankrupt in 1893. The receivers retained the western right of way but divested the ATSF of the St. Louis–San Francisco mileage on the Great Plains. After bankruptcy, the Frisco emerged as the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad, incorporated on June 29, 1896. It later also declared bankruptcy.
In 1903, Frisco executives engaged in negotiations to purchase large tracts of land in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana "up to the Orleans Parish line" as part of plans of "gigantic scope" to further the expansion of the company's rail lines and operations facilities across the state. As part of this plan, the executives proposed relocation of the residents of the historically Black community of Fazendeville to the much smaller, neighboring village of Versailles, which was described as a "settlement consist[ing] merely of a row of very small properties along a public road running at right angles from the river to the railroad track"; however, many of Fazendeville's residents resisted and then ultimately refused the railway's financial offers. According to one of the newspapers which reported on those plans, "The Frisco road cannot obtain title to the National Cemetery, but is after all the rest of the river front, and wants to cross the present public road practically at grade in many public places."
In 1901, the Frisco took control of the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway, which it operated as an independent subsidiary, and constructed several extensions of the latter. However, after the Frisco entered bankruptcy in 1913, it made no further extensions of the FW&RG, which in most years failed to make a net profit. In 1937 the Frisco sold the FW&RG to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway for $1.5 million, giving the latter an entry into Fort Worth from the west.
On August 24, 1916, the Frisco was reorganized as the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, though the line never went west of Texas, terminating more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from San Francisco.
The St. Louis–San Francisco Railway had two main lines: St. Louis–Tulsa–Oklahoma City-Floydada, Texas, and Kansas City–Memphis–Birmingham. The junction of the two lines was in Springfield, Missouri, home to the company's main shop facility. The corporate headquarters was at 906 Olive Street, St. Louis. Other lines included:
Springfield–Kansas City (via Clinton, Missouri)
Monett, Missouri (Pierce City)–Wichita, Kansas
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Monett, Missouri–Hugo, Oklahoma–Paris, Texas
St. Louis–River Junction, Arkansas (Memphis, Tennessee)
Tulsa, Oklahoma–Dallas, Texas
Tulsa, Oklahoma–Avard, Oklahoma
Lakeside, Oklahoma–Hugo, Oklahoma–Hope, Arkansas
Amory, Mississippi-Pensacola, Florida
Frisco attorney John T. Woodruff secured 320 acres and over $1,000,000 to expand the railroad's operations in Springfield, Missouri, establishing a base of operations. There were three separate back shop facilities in and around the city: North Side, which handled light locomotive repairs; South Side, inherited from the Kansas City, Fort Scott and Memphis, for heavy locomotive repairs and overhauls; and West Side, which were the primary car shops for the railroad. In 1912 a new facility was built in Memphis, Tennessee to handle the eastern section of the system, consisting of a yard, roundhouse terminal, and car shops. At Kansas City, Missouri was another substantial back shop site, consisting of a roundhouse terminal and several shop buildings served by a transfer table.
From March 1917 through January 1959, the Frisco, in a joint venture with the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad, operated the Texas Special. This luxurious train, a streamliner from 1947, ran from St. Louis to Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio.
The Frisco merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad on November 21, 1980.
The city of Frisco, Texas, was named after the railroad and uses the former railroad's logo as its own logo. The logo is modeled after a stretched-out raccoon skin (giving rise to Frisco High School's mascot, the Fighting Raccoons).
From Wikipedia’s article on St. Louis–San Francisco Railway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4