The Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway was the Texas subsidiary of the Kansas City Southern Railway, operating railroad lines in the states of Arkansas and Texas, with headquarters at Texarkana, Texas.
On June 18, 1885, the Texarkana and Northern Railway, organized by William. L. Whitaker, a lumberman and railroad contractor in Texarkana, was chartered by the state of Texas, and built a ten-mile line from Texarkana north to Whitaker's timber lands along the Red River. On July 9, 1889, the charter was amended, changing the name to Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway, and granting authority to extend the line all the way to Fort Smith, Arkansas.
By 1892, when the T&FS had built another 16 miles north from the Red River to Wilton, Arkansas, the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad gained control of the railway and set about using the T&FS as the Texas link in its planned route between Kansas City and the Gulf of Mexico. At that time, Article X of the Texas Constitution required all railroads operating in the state to be headquartered in Texas. Subsequently, the Texarkana and Fort Smith Railway was leased to the Kansas City Southern in 1934 and merged on December 31, 1943.