How it started
Origins
The initial push to construct the JLC&E came from timber owners and land speculators in northeast Arkansas, all of whom saw the availability of railroad transportation as a necessary ingredient to harvesting timber. The group procured a charter from the Arkansas state legislature in 1897 to construct a railroad in Craighead and Mississippi Counties and began construction soon after. The largest hurdle was constructing bridges in the "sunken lands" east of Jonesboro, but the company was able to run its first train from Nettleton (now a suburb of Jonesboro) to Lake City in November of that year.
By the time the railroad line was extended to Blytheville in the summer of 1901, several large sawmills were either in operation or being built along the tracks. In early 1911, the JLC&E was purchased by Robert E. Lee Wilson, a prominent landowner who resided in Wilson, Arkansas.
Wilson Northern Railway
Separately, R.E. Wilson interests incorporated the Wilson Northern Railway (“WNR”) on December 28, 1904 under laws of Arkansas. On January 2, 1905, the WNR purchased an existing 10-mile private logging rail line, constructed as early as 1884, that was owned by Wilson. That line extended northward from a sawmill also controlled by Wilson interests at a location now known as Wilson, Arkansas, to Keiser, Arkansas. It then had constructed on its behalf an additional 7 miles of track from Keiser to Ross, Arkansas, where it had a connection with the JLC&E. The WNR also purchased lands for a proposed extension from Wilson, Arkansas to a point known as Bridge Junction, Arkansas; but, the extension was never built. On February 5, 1912, the JLC&E absorbed the WNR by purchase.
Chickasawba Railroad Company
From Wikipedia’s article on Jonesboro, Lake City and Eastern Railroad, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2