Charles Peter "Pete" Couch (August 16, 1890 – June 5, 1955) succeeded his brother Harvey C. Couch as president of

Kansas City Southern Railway The Kansas City Southern Railway Company is an American Class I railroad. Founded in 1887, it operated in 10 Midwestern United States, Midwestern and Southeastern United States, Southeastern U.S. states: Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Ark ...

on August 11, 1939.

Biography

Pete Couch was born in Calhoun, a tiny community in south Arkansas' Columbia County. One of six children of Tom and Mamie Heard Couch, he was initially raised on a small

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

farm. His father was also an itinerant Methodist minister. When Pete was around age 3, his father's health deteriorated, and the family moved to nearby

Magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendr ...

, the seat of Columbia County. Pete Couch led a crew that raised utility poles for Harvey Couch's new telephone lines in northern Louisiana. Years later, Pete Couch was president of the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway, prior to becoming Kansas City Southern president.

References

1890 births 1955 deaths 20th-century American railroad executives Kansas City Southern Railway {{US-rail-bio-stub