Home |  Publications|  Encyclopedia |  Texas, Oklahoma and Eastern Railroad

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

TEXAS, OKLAHOMA AND EASTERN RAILROAD.

The short line Texas, Oklahoma and Eastern Railroad (TO&E) was incorporated in 1910 by the Dierks Lumber and Coal Company, headquartered in Kansas City and owned by the brothers Hans and H. L. Dierks. Their company owned vast logging operations, sawmills, and related industries in the area around the town of De Queen, Arkansas, which had been started after the main line of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf (Kansas City Southern) had been constructed through the area. To connect their hardwood empire with the world the Dierks brothers chartered a railroad of their own, the De Queen and Eastern, in 1903. When they extended their operations west of De Queen and into eastern Oklahoma, they incorporated a new railroad in 1910, under the laws of the new state of Oklahoma: the Texas, Oklahoma and Eastern Railroad. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of their De Queen and Eastern.

The TO&E began construction at its western end of the Frisco main line at Valliant (east of Hugo) and reached Broken Bow in 1911. The stretch from there to De Queen was only opened in 1921, altogether some fifty miles long. Although an industrial line in the first place, the company was a common carrier and did operate regular passenger trains for a long time. In 1996 the TO&E was dissolved and incorporated into the parent De Queen and Eastern. One other line of the Dierks empire in Oklahoma was the Oklahoma and Rich Mountain Railroad, which in 1926 opened a seventeen-mile line from Page, on the Kansas City Southern main line, southwest to Pine Valley. In 1942, after the timber in the area was exhausted, the line was abandoned.

Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr.

Browse By Topic

Transportation

Learn More

Preston George and Sylvan R. Wood, The Railroads of Oklahoma, Bulletin No. 60, The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, Inc. (Boston, Mass.: The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, Inc., 1943).

Donovan L. Hofsommer, ed., Railroads in Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society, 1977).

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Augustus J. Veenendaal, Jr., “Texas, Oklahoma and Eastern Railroad,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=TE024.

Published January 15, 2010
Last updated August 1, 2018

© Oklahoma Historical Society

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.