Fayette Junction is the name of a small railroad switchyard on the south side of Fayetteville where the mainline of the Frisco Railway was intersected by the Fayetteville and Little Rock R.R., better known as the St. Paul Branch, which went east from Fayetteville deep into Madison County.
Fayette Junction, looking north along the mainline of the Frisco. The track leading to left is the former St. Paul Branch. Barely visible on the horizon to the right are the tops of Old Main’s towers.
The main line of Frisco runs north-south parallel to Razorback Road. The St. Paul Branch went almost due east. Remnants of the junction still exist at the corner of Cato Springs Road and Vale Avenue, although the spur line to St. Paul has been long gone.
The location spurred manufacturing development in the surrounding area, particularly wood-related endeavors because trees felled and hauled to Fayetteville from the White River valley came through Fayette Junction.
Wouldn’t it be great if Washington County and Madison county were to work together to acquire the right-of-way to the old rail line, and turn it into a hike-and-bike trail?
I’ve thought many times that the old St. Paul Branch would be a great bicycle path and could also extend south to Cass and Turner Bend if the bed of the old Black Mountain and Eastern were also used.
Nearly all the right-of-way is in private hands now and would take awhile to acquire.
The Ozark and Cherokee Central roadbed west through Farmington, Prairie Grove, Lincoln and on to Tahlequah would be another great one.
Do you know if there was a depot located in this yard..??? Did passengers get off the Frisco train to board a train on the Ozark & Cherokee Central line..??? I’m trying to “picture” how all this worked…
Thanks..!!!
Aimee
I don’t believe there was a depot in the Fayette Junction yard, or at least not a passenger depot. It was primarily a switching yard that allowed trains to move from mainline to the St. Paul Branch and back.
The Ozark and Cherokee Central had a depot near where the Farmers’ Coop is today on Martin Luther King Boulevard, just west of School Avenue. I’m not sure about the logistics of moving passengers from the Frisco trains to the O&CC, but I have heard that dinkeys were used for local transportation on the track between the Dickson Street depot, the O&CC depot and as far west as the fairgrounds when they were at MLK and Razorback Road. Their use would make the most sense for transferring passengers as well.