Based in Rogers, Arkansas, the Kansas City & Memphis Railroad was organized in 1910 and initially absorbed the three-year-old Arkansas & Oklahoma Western Railroad line from Rogers to Siloam Springs.
The KC&M then built a line south through Cave Springs, Elm Springs, Tontitown, Steele, Litteral and Mount Comfort before reaching the southwest part of Fayetteville in August 1912.
Its route, intended to provide shipping options for fruit growers in the region, mostly duplicated existing services already provided by the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway just to the east.
That expansion doomed the “Fruit Belt Line,” as the new railroad became known colloquially, when Frisco prevented connections to its south Fayetteville branch.
Freight and passenger service on the KC&M line to Fayetteville ended in March 1918, and the rest of the line closed in 1919.