Arkansas & Texas Railway, from 1886 to 1889. He served as receiver from 1889 to 1890 and president from 1890 to 1898 of the newly titled St. Louis Southwestern Railway Company. In 1899, Fordyce was appointed receiver of the Kansas City, Pittsburgh & Gulf Railway and became its president a year later, when it was renamed the Kansas City Southern Railway. In 1900 and 1901, he helped built the Little Rock, Hot Springs & Western Railway. It is estimated that Fordyce has contributed to the building and financing of at least ten thousand miles of railway. His contributions to the railroad include the following lines: St. Louis-San Francisco system; Missouri, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad; the Illinois, Indiana & Minnesota Railroad; the Apalachicola Northern in Florida; the St. Louis; Guthrie & El Reno Railroad in Oklahoma; the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway in Texas; and the Fort Worth and Denver Railway. Aside from his work in the transportation industry, Fordyce held a number of other prominent positions including director and organizer of the St. Louis Union Trust Company, director of the Laclede Light & Power Company, director of the Jefferson Hotel Company, vice president of the Arlington and New York Hotel Companies, president of the Hot Springs Water, Gas, and Electric Light Companies, president of the Hot Springs Electric Street Railway Company, director of the Illinois, Indiana & Minnesota Railroad, director of the Apalachicola & Northern, director of the Kansas City Southern, director of the Little Rock & Hot Springs Western, chairman of the executive committee of the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico, and director in the American Rio Grande Land & Irrigation Company of Texas, the largest irrigating canal system in the United States. Fordyce was also elected, by unanimous vote of all lines in the Southwestern Traffic Association, as chairman of its executive board. The association represented almost all traffic from the Atlantic west to the Mississippi, to California, and to old Mexico. Political career Fordyce was an active democrat, serving as delegate to conventions in Alabama during reconstruction, after the Civil War. He was a member of the state committee in 1874 when an entirely democratic ticket was elected. In 1880, Fordyce was a delegate to the state gubernatorial convention in Arkansas. He was also a delegate to the state judicial convention in 1884, member of the democratic national committee of Arkansas from 1884 to 1888, delegate