The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the merger of the Kansas City Southern and the Louisiana & Arkansas railroads last May, made possible an integrated mid-continent system extending from Kansas City to Shreveport, La., and Port Arthur, Texas.
Less than a month later Arkansas Public Utilitycoon Harvey Crowley Couch, second largest stockholder in Kansas City Southern (largest: Amsterdam Trust Office, The Netherlands), became its president. Between expanding his inland public-utility empire and working for the New Deal as director of RFC (1932-34), Ozarker Couch had also obtained control of Louisiana & Arkansas. Of that road his younger brother (by 13 years) Charles...
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