Samuel Wesley "Colonel" Fordyce (February 7, 1840 – August 3, 1919) was a prominent railroad executive of the American South.

[2] At the age of twenty, after completing his studies, Fordyce returned home to work as a station agent on the Central Ohio Railroad.

In 1863, he was promoted to captain of Company H and soon after was made assistant inspector general of cavalry in the Army of the Cumberland.

He assisted Senator John A. Logan in introducing a bill to build an Army and Navy Hospital on government reservation land in Hot Springs.

Fordyce also helped to finance hotels, an opera house, water, gas and electric light works, street railcars, and other public enterprises.

The St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company was built under Fordyce's management, which he operated for sixteen years.

[2] Fordyce was also elected, by unanimous vote of all lines in the Southwestern Traffic Association, as chairman of its executive board.

[2] Fordyce was an active democrat, serving as delegate to conventions in Alabama during reconstruction, after the Civil War.

[2] Their son, John Rison Fordyce (1869-1939) was an engineer, inventor, amateur historian, and archaeologist, and a candidate for United States Congress.