[1] When the company learned that the 3-foot gauge Texas and St. Louis Railway was going to be built through Brinkley (it actually arrived in 1883), Gunn & Black formally incorporated their Cotton Plant Railroad on April 16, 1881, and a few months later converted their line to the narrower gauge of the other carrier to facilitate interchange.
[3] B&B completed construction to Cotton Plant and beyond, extending through towns such as Coats (later known as Wiville), Colona, Riverside, Tupelo, Auvergne, and Newport to Jacksonport, reaching the latter in November 1886.
[6] Separately, a railroad called the Augusta and Southeastern Railway entered the picture when it built its own rail line in the area.
[11][12] In adding the 6-mile Coats/Wiville-to-Gregory segment, the railway reached its maximum length at 62 miles of single-track, standard-gauge steam railroad line.
[3] It could even have expanded further, having obtained Congressional approval in 1888 to build a bridge over the Black River, which it would have needed to construct the approximately 25 miles of track to connect Jacksonport to the railway’s original target of Batesville.