Arkansas & Louisiana Missouri

Company History: This line ran 54 miles from Monroe, Louisiana to Crosset, Arkansas. The big question with this line is, why is the "&" before "Louisiana" and not after? The A&LM was established in 1920 to take over the assets of the failed Arkansas & Louisiana Midland (a name which makes much more sense.) Presumably, they wanted a new name to separate themselves from the previous failed venture but didn't want to change the A&LM reporting marks (back then, ampersands could be used in official reporting marks.) So, Arkansas & Louisiana Missouri is what they came up with. Keep in mind that reporting marks were also used by agents, salesmen, and clerks on other railroads as well as traffic departments of shippers so changing them invariably caused some confusion, especially in the age before computers. Forest products giant Georgia-Pacific bought the A&LM in 1991 and changed the name to Arkansas Louisiana & Mississippi. Now that ampersands are no longer used in reporting marks, the new company is still ALM.

Successor/Parent History: Georgia-Pacific LLC is an American pulp and paper company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is one of the world's largest manufacturers and distributors of tissue, pulp, paper, toilet and paper towel dispensers, packaging, building products and related chemicals. As of Fall 2010, the company employed more than 40,000 people at more than 300 locations in North America, South America and Europe. It is an independently operated and managed company of Koch Industries.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.