A shipment of cotton on the Dardanelle and Russellville Railroad, a 4.8-mile (7.7 km) shortline between North Dardanelle and Russellville, Arkansas in 1907. Photographer: Sherwood T. Grissom. Copyright recorded March 14, 1907 (H 91449)
The development of the D&R railroad was motivated by the desire for the development of Dardanelle and for better transportation of agricultural products—primarily cotton—from Dardanelle to the Little Rock and Fort Smith (LR&FS) Railway in Russellville. In an eight-month period in the early 1880s, 15,000 bales of cotton were shipped from Dardanelle. They were ferried across the river to North Dardanelle, hauled by wagon to Russellville, and then loaded on LR&FS freight cars. The road from North Dardanelle to Russellville was poor and frequently nearly impossible to travel. With the heavy wagon traffic over it, the road was cut into almost impassible gullies, freight teams suffered, it was destructive to wagons, fatiguing for teamsters, and expenses were high. On September 30, 1882, a meeting was held at the Yell County Courthouse to develop plans to connect the town to the Russellville depot. A three-man committee was established to raise financial support and to secure cooperation with the LR&FS Railway.
The line was initially chartered as the Dardanelle & Russellville Railway, and train operations began on August 15, 1883. After undergoing reorganization in 1900, operations continued as the Dardanelle & Russellville Railroad. When originally constructed, the railroad carried cotton and other agricultural products. The predominant traffic shifted to coal by 1900, thanks to extensive semi-anthracite coal production along the railroad. Coal production along the D&R ended in the mid-1950s when the last underground mines of McAlester Fuel Company were closed.