GEORGIA DOT RESEARCH PROJECT 13-03 FINAL REPORT HISTORIC RAILROADS OF GEORGIA: A HISTORIC CONTEXT STUDY AND EVALUATION OF GEORGIA'S HISTORIC RAILROADS OFFICE OF PERFORMANCE-BASED MANAGEMENT AND RESEARCH 15 KENNEDY DRIVE FOREST PARK, GA 30297 TECHNICAL REPORT DOCUMENTATION PAGE 1. Report No.: 2. Government Accession No.: 3. Recipient's Catalog No.: FHWA-GA-19-1303 N/A N/A 4. Title and Subtitle: 5. Report Date: Historic Railroads of Georgia: A Historic Context Study and November 2018 Evaluation of Georgia's Historic Railroads 6. Performing Organization Code: N/A 7. Author(s): 8. Performing Organization Report No.: Matt McDaniel, Steve Storey, David Ray, Regina Schuster, Tisa 13-03 Stultz, Britt Hennessey--Calyx Engineers; Erin Murphy, George Rounds, Chris Mroczka--VHB; Patricia Stallings, Mike Reynolds--Brockington & Associates 9. Performing Organization Name and Address: 10. Work Unit No.: CALYX Engineers N/A 1255 Canton Street, Suite G 11. Contract or Grant No.: Roswell, GA 30075 PI#0012667 678-461-3511 mmcdaniel@CALYXengineers.com 12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address: 13. Type of Report and Period Covered: Georgia Department of Transportation Final: November 2013 Office of Performance-based November 2018 Management and Research 14. Sponsoring Agency Code: 15 Kennedy Drive N/A Forest Park, GA 30397 15. Supplementary Notes: Prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration. 16. Abstract: Georgia's Railroads This context outlines the state's rail history and places its basic physical infrastructure within the context of National Register of Historic Places eligibility, critical for GDOT's compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (36 CFR 800). As such, this document includes a narrative history of rail development in Georgia, a visual glossary, National Register evaluation guidelines, a proposed methodology for using this documentation for GDOT Section 106 compliance, and an annotated bibliography that addresses sources used and available for more information. The long, linear rail alignments are narrow yet massive monuments to Georgia's engineering heritage. The historic and present-day impact and significance of rail on Georgia's development is inarguable. What follows is the wending and winding story of railroading in Georgia, from its earliest beginnings to the present day. Georgia's rail story is profoundly and richly complex. Simply put, there is no simple or straightforward way to tell this wide-ranging story. As will be seen, this complexity illustrates the almost giddy optimism and rush of investment during the rail boom, as lines were rapidly built to almost all corners of the state, and also the slow disentanglement and disinvestment during the rail bust years, as lines withered and died, and consolidation absorbed the remaining viable lines. New transportation modes, namely the automobile and jetliners, played the greatest role concerning the latter. Georgia's railroading story continues today, as rail lines continue to go dormant and are removed, and many formerly rail-originated and rail-dependent towns find themselves with no rail connections at all. 17. Keywords: 18. Distribution Statement: Rail, historical, National Register of No Restriction Historical Places, Railroads, Development, Practices, Methods, Preservation 19. Security Classification 20. Security Classification (of this 21. No. of Pages: 22. Price: (of this report): page): Unclassified Unclassified 257 Free Form DOT 1700.7 (8-72) Reproduction of completed page authorized GDOT Research Project No. 13-03 Final Report HISTORIC RAILROADS OF GEORGIA: A HISTORIC CONTEXT STUDY AND EVALUATION OF GEORGIA'S HISTORIC RAILROADS By Calyx Engineers Matt McDaniel, Senior Architectural Historian Steven Storey, Historian David Ray, Historian Regina Schuster, NEPA Planner Tisa Stultz, Historian Sara Gannon, Senior Graphic Designer Britt Hennessey, Environmental Planning Services Group Manager VHB Erin Murphy, Environmental Service Manager George Rounds, Historian Mike Reynolds, Historian Brockington & Associates Patricia Stallings, Senior Historian Mike Reynolds, Senior Historian Calyx Engineers and Consultants, Inc. (formally Mulky, Inc.) Contract with Georgia Department of Transportation In cooperation with U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration November 2018 The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Georgia Department of Transportation or the Federal Highway Administration. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. ii Symbol in ft yd mi in2 ft2 yd2 ac mi2 fl oz gal ft3 yd3 oz lb T oF fc fl lbf lbf/in2 SI* (MODERN METRIC) CONVERSION FACTORS APPROXIMATE CONVERSIONS TO SI UNITS When You Know Multiply By To Find inches feet yards miles square inches square feet square yard acres square miles fluid ounces gallons cubic feet cubic yards LENGTH 25.4 millimeters 0.305 meters 0.914 meters 1.61 kilometers AREA 645.2 square millimeters 0.093 square meters 0.836 square meters 0.405 hectares 2.59 square kilometers VOLUME 29.57 milliliters 3.785 liters 0.028 cubic meters 0.765 cubic meters NOTE: volumes greater than 1000 L shall be shown in m3 ounces pounds short tons (2000 lb) Fahrenheit MASS 28.35 grams 0.454 kilograms 0.907 megagrams (or "metric ton") TEMPERATURE (exact degrees) 5 (F-32)/9 Celsius or (F-32)/1.8 ILLUMINATION foot-candles foot-Lamberts 10.76 3.426 lux candela/m2 FORCE and PRESSURE or STRESS poundforce 4.45 newtons poundforce per square inch 6.89 kilopascals Symbol mm m m km mm2 m2 m2 ha km2 mL L m3 m3 g kg Mg (or "t") oC lx cd/m2 N kPa Symbol mm m m km mm2 m2 m2 ha km2 mL L m3 m3 g kg Mg (or "t") oC lx cd/m2 N kPa APPROXIMATE CONVERSIONS FROM SI UNITS When You Know Multiply By To Find millimeters meters meters kilometers LENGTH 0.039 3.28 1.09 0.621 inches feet yards miles square millimeters square meters square meters hectares square kilometers AREA 0.0016 10.764 1.195 2.47 0.386 square inches square feet square yards acres square miles milliliters liters cubic meters cubic meters VOLUME 0.034 0.264 35.314 1.307 fluid ounces gallons cubic feet cubic yards MASS grams 0.035 ounces kilograms 2.202 pounds megagrams (or "metric ton") 1.103 short tons (2000 lb) TEMPERATURE (exact degrees) Celsius 1.8C+32 Fahrenheit ILLUMINATION lux candela/m2 0.0929 0.2919 foot-candles foot-Lamberts newtons kilopascals FORCE and PRESSURE or STRESS 0.225 poundforce 0.145 poundforce per square inch Symbol in ft yd mi in2 ft2 yd2 ac mi2 fl oz gal ft3 yd3 oz lb T oF fc fl lbf lbf/in2 *SI is the symbol for the International System of Units. Appropriate rounding should be made to comply with Section 4 of ASTM E380. (Revised March 2003) * SI is the symbol for the International System of Units. Appropriate rounding should be made to comply with Section 4 of ASTM E380. (Revised March 2003) iii Georgia's Railroads, 1833-2015 Historic Context and Statewide Survey Executive Summary The Georgia Department of Transportation prepared Georgia's Historic Railroads, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey to outline the state's rail history and place its basic physical infrastructure within the context of National Register of Historic Places eligibility, critical for GDOT's compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (36 CFR 800). As such, this document includes a narrative history of rail development in Georgia, a visual glossary, National Register evaluation guidelines, a proposed methodology for using this documentation for GDOT Section 106 compliance, and an annotated bibliography that addresses sources used and available for more information. Although this documentation may be helpful for non-GDOT entities to consider National Register eligibility for railroads and/ or their component parts, formal determinations of eligibility for potential National Register nomination and listing should be coordinated with and evaluated by the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (georgiashpo.org). Prepared By CALYX Engineers + Consultants Steve Storey, David Ray, Matt McDaniel, Regina Schuster, and Tish Stultz Graphic Design: Sara Gannon VHB Erin Murphy, George Rounds, and Chris Mroczka Brockington & Associates Patricia Stallings and Mike Reynolds 2018 Georgia Department of Transportation One Georgia Center 600 West Peachtree NW Atlanta, Georgia 30308 www.dot.ga.gov Table of Contents I. PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS II. GEORGIA'S RAILROADS: 1833-2015 page. 1-165 III. VISUAL GLOSSARY page. 166-184 IV. NATIONAL REGISTER REGISTRATION GUIDELINES page. 185-210 V. PRACTICAL METHODOLOGY FOR SECTION 106 APPLICATION page. 211-228 VI. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY page. 229-245 APPENDIX A: ATLANTA, BIRMINGHAM & COAST APPENDIX B: ATLANTA & WEST POINT APPENDIX C: ATLANTIC COAST LINE APPENDIX D: CENTRAL OF GEORGIA APPENDIX E: GEORGIA RAILROAD APPENDIX F: GEORGIA & FLORIDA Table of Contents APPENDIX G: GEORGIA SOUTHERN & FLORIDA APPENDIX H: LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE APPENDIX I: SEABOARD AIR LINE APPENDIX J: SOUTHERN RAILWAY APPENDIX K: SHORT LINES APPENDIX L: INDUSTRIAL LINES Preface and Acknowledgments PREFACE It is difficult to overstate the importance of railroads in Georgia's history and development. From coastal ports to inland farms, from small towns to the state capital, a staggering number of places throughout the state simply would not exist were it not for Georgia's vast network of rails. In one way or another, the "iron road" has touched the lives of all Georgians and has influenced everything from the way goods are manufactured and transported to enforcement of the color line during the Jim Crow era. Many people have a personal connection to railroads, as well the memory of a first train ride as a child, perhaps, or the soothing sound of a far-off whistle. This publication offers both a chronological narrative of railroad development in Georgia and a holistic view of how railroads have shaped the state. It is both a technical document for cultural resources professionals in particular, practitioners of Section 106 compliance work as well as a general point of reference for anyone interested in Georgia's railroad history. The robust final product is the result of years of exhaustive research and field investigation. Working with the dedicated professionals who surveyed the state to document the variety of railroad infrastructure, and put such care into evaluating these distinctive resources, has been a singular pleasure. Special thanks are due to Steve Storey, who has been tirelessly compiling information on Georgia's railroads for nearly two decades on his web site, RailGa.com. Whatever your reason for picking up this document as a professional, a student, or a lover of history it is my deep hope that you will enjoy your journey, and my sincere belief that you will not be disappointed. Amber Rhea Senior Historian Georgia Department of Transportation ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The consultant project team would like to thank our partners at GDOT, including project managers Derek Anderson, Charles Lawrence, and particularly Amber Rhea, who provided expert guidance, support, and reviews as we moved together through this massive effort. Sandy Lawrence, Terri Lotti, and Heather Mustonen also provided invaluable assistance through thoughtful reviews coupled with an appreciation for the tangled web that is rail history and its documentation and evaluation. This effort was further improved by critical reviews from Georgia Historic Preservation Division staff, including Jennifer Dixon, Stephanie Cherry-Farmer, Olivia Head, Stacy Rieke, and Jennifer Bedell. Numerous people across Georgia helped us during field surveys and research, and we greatly appreciate their assistance. In no small measure, this big effort could not have been successfully completed without the prior efforts and research of Steve Storey, and by his substantial involvement in the present effort. Any cultural resources professional who has worked in Georgia and encountered a historic railroad is familiar with his comprehensive RailGa.com website. This study has become, in part, a means to permanently preserve Steve's research. We are all grateful for his past and present work and its profound importance for understanding the story of Georgia's sprawling rail network. His fingerprints are all over this documentation. Matt McDaniel Consultant Project Manager CALYX Engineers + Consultants GEORGIA'S RAILROADS: 1833 TO 2015 1 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey GEORGIA RAILROADS 1833-2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 | Introduction and Overview | page 3-7 Towns Named for Railroad Leaders Connecting the Towns CHAPTER 2 | The Iron Road Emerges: The 1830s | page 8-12 Steamboats CHAPTER 3 | Georgia's First Railroads: 1834-1854 | page 13-22 Map: Georgia's First Railroads Washington CHAPTER 4 | Antebellum Expansion: 1855-1860 | page 23-28 End of the Line Georgia's Railroads in 1860 Attitudes Toward the Railroad in Antebellum Georgia CHAPTER 5 | War Comes to Georgia: 1861-1865 | page 29-35 Map: Georgia's Railroads, 1861 Sherman's Supply Line: The Railroad CHAPTER 6 | Rebuilding: 1866-1872 | page 36-42 Map: Narrow-Gauge Railroads CHAPTER 7 | The Recovery Stumbles: 1873-1877 | page 43-45 The Depot CHAPTER 8 | Town Connections: 1878-1881 | page 46-50 The Railroad Commission of Georgia CHAPTER 14 | Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line: 1900 | page 85-87 Place Names and The Railroads CHAPTER 15 | Expansion in the New Century: 1901-1907 | page 88-99 Incline Railways CHAPTER 16 | Trains to Everywhere: 1908-1915 | page 100-109 Map: Georgia's Railroads, 1908 The Railroads and Agricultural Education Rail Yards CHAPTER 17 | Railroads at their Zenith: 1916-1920 | page 110-122 World War I and Government Control Shippers Improving the Lines CHAPTER 18 | A Snapshot of Georgia's Railroads in 1920 | page 123-125 Railroad Nicknames CHAPTER 19 | Rubber Challenges Steel: the 1920s | page 126-129 Highways and Railroads CHAPTER 20 | Economic Collapse: The 1930s | page 130-131 CHAPTER 21 | Recovery and War: the 1940s | page 132-135 Military Bases And The Railroads CHAPTER 22 | Losing Steam: the 1950s | page 136-139 Railroad Spurs for Electric Power Plants CHAPTER 9 | Steps towards Larger Systems: 1882-1883 | page 51-55 Logging Railroads And Trams Promoting Tourism CHAPTER 10 | Mid-1880s Growth: 1884-1888 | page 56-62 Map: Georgia's Railroads, 1888 CHAPTER 11 | New Links to the Neighbors: 1889-1892 | page 63-71 The Queen & Crescent Resort Rails and Tourist Tracks Railroads at Georgia's Borders CHAPTER 12 | An Economic Depression Hits the Railroads: 1893-1896 | page 72-78 Railroad Marketing Names Brunswick and Darien as Port and Rail Terminals CHAPTER 13 | Railroads Rebound: 1897-1900 | page 79-84 Map: Georgia's Railroads, 1898 Segregation The Atlanta Beltline Railroads CHAPTER 23 | The Many Become the Few: the 1960s | page 140-141 CHAPTER 24 | The End (Almost) of the Passenger Train: the 1970s | page 142-143 CHAPTER 25 | Rethinking Regulation: the 1980s | page 144-146 Track Removals CHAPTER 26 | Smaller but Stronger: the 1990s | page 147-149 CHAPTER 27 | Georgia's Railroads in the Twenty-first Century | page 150-154 Monuments Rail-Related Resources Listed in the National Register of Historic Places CHAPTER 28 | A Final Word | page 155-157 ENDNOTES | page 158-165 2 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW The breadth and scope of railroading's impact on Georgia's development was of immense magnitude. The state's urban giant, Atlanta, along with its sprawling metropolis, is alone testimony to this fact--that city's genesis was a rail junction. The transition from dependence on slow and unpredictable wagon and maritime traffic to rail transport was the primary engine behind the geographic shift of political and economic importance from the state's coastal region to the Piedmont. The speed and efficiency of rail greatly accelerated the scale of the state's interior development and exploitation. Indeed, the transportation revolution that was rail development originated, affected, or was associated with numerous important historic developments and trends in Georgia history. African-American slaves built the earliest lines--and by hand. Sparsely settled areas grew as the rail lines penetrated the state's interior and offered their advantages. Scores of new communities would soon spring up along the rails, and investment often followed, as industry sited factories along rail alignments. Connecting to the state's growing rail grid were purpose-specific shortlines that led to and through great forests, into the mountains, and elsewhere, to extract Georgia's wealth of natural and mineral resources. Along their routes, railroads also collected the state's rich harvest of agricultural products, such as cotton, corn, peanuts, peaches, and onions. Railroads dispersed Georgia products throughout the region and the country, and, in turn, imported products from without. Thus, through the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, the rail lines were the state's primary commercial conduit. The importance of rail traffic and routes was punctuated during the Civil War, as great armies followed and fought for control of the state's railroads. The impact of rail development on Georgia's physical environment was and remains practically immeasurable. The steel rails ultimately and quite literally crisscrossed the state, traversing flat lands or cutting their way through rugged terrain, and active lines and defunct railbeds are prominent features in the state's landscape to this day. So-called "rail towns" are common in Georgia, and these communities often developed facing or otherwise physically incorporating the railroad. Where rail arrived in already established towns, the community soon physically assimilated it. Communities that could not attract rail investment often stagnated, shrank, or, in many cases, disappeared altogether. Depots, the vast majority of which were simple buildings intended to keep passengers and freight dry, would become and, where they survive, remain architectural icons in their communities. The long, linear rail alignments, sometimes fully intact and operational, sometimes abandoned and grown-over humps stretching for miles, are narrow yet massive monuments to Georgia's engineering heritage. Taken in full, both in its broadest outlines and in detail, the historic and presentday impact and significance of rail on Georgia's development is inarguable. What follows is the wending and winding story of railroading in Georgia, from its earliest beginnings to the present day, and, along the way, illustrates the themes and associations acknowledged above. The corresponding implications for National Register eligibility and Section 106 purposes are described more specifically in Chapter IV, National Register Guidelines and Chapter V, Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application. Georgia's rail story is profoundly and richly complex, with many beginnings, endings, absorptions, and combinations, and also much overlap, redundancy, and even confusion. Simply put, there is no simple or straightforward way to tell this wide-ranging story. As will be seen, this complexity illustrates the almost giddy optimism and rush of investment during the rail boom, as lines were rapidly built to almost all corners of the state, and also the slow disentanglement and disinvestment during the rail bust years, as lines withered and died, and consolidation absorbed the remaining viable lines. New transportation modes, namely the automobile and jetliners, played the greatest role concerning the latter. Georgia's railroading story continues today, as rail lines continue to go dormant and are removed, and many formerly rail-originated and raildependent towns now find themselves with no rail connections at all. A note about the text The following narrative on Georgia's rail development is organized primarily chronologically, albeit with inevitable twists and turns due to the subject's complexity. Numerous sidebars are used to provide more detail on specific topics and themes in hopes of not disrupting the chronological flow of the main text. 3 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey License must be requested from the reader regarding railroad names and the use of corresponding acronyms. Likewise for purposes of flow and readability, acronyms for line names are informally defined, and names, abbreviations, and acronyms are thereafter used selectively and interchangeably, as is common in rail literature. The exclusive use of either full names or acronyms is generally deemed too confusing and clumsy. For technical purposes, however, these railroad systems and lines are assigned specific and rigid codes in the remainder of this study (see Chapter IV, National Register Guidelines). Historical Overview Perhaps surprisingly, the story of Georgia's railroads begins in South Carolina, at the now-dead village of Hamburg, just across the Savannah River from Augusta. Here a new railroad, then the longest in the world, opened in 1833. Its other end was in Charleston, an Atlantic seaport about a hundred miles up the coast from Savannah, then Georgia's pre-eminent city. From Savannah, steamboats traveled up the Savannah River as far as Augusta, where rapids just north of the city prevented further passage. While the steamboats carried various finished goods upstream, it was their return to the coast that was of most interest to Savannah's businessmen, for the vessels returned with the products of the upcountry, cotton in particular, the foundation of the city's economy. To maintain the river highway, Georgia had been negotiating with South Carolina for its assistance in funding navigational improvements. Suddenly, in 1827, these discussions were abandoned. South Carolina had begun work on an alternative, a cross-state railroad, designed to benefit its own port city of Charleston rather than that of its competitor.1 For Savannahians, the threat of the new railroad was clear: it would divert trade to Charleston and bring Savannah's economy to a standstill, or worse. Savannah responded quickly, and before the end of the year the city had begun organizing its own railroad to the cotton belt. Chartered on December 20, 1833, the Central Rail Road & Canal Company set out to build a rail line, or a system of rails and canals, to Macon, a trading city located at the head of navigation of the Ocmulgee River. The canal option was soon abandoned as it was becoming increasingly clear that the rapid development of railroad technology was making canals obsolete. Two years later, to help raise capital for the venture, the company was given banking powers and renamed the Central Rail Road & Banking Company of Georgia. As Savannah's venture was in progress, railroads were gaining favor in Piedmont towns such as Athens, Eatonton, and Augusta. Because cotton had to be hauled from plantations to river shipping points over the region's primitive roads, moving the fiber to market was time-consuming, especially in wet weather, which often left the wagons mired in muddy ruts. Seeking a solution, several regional leaders pushed for state legislative action to assist "internal improvements" that would keep commerce flowing. In an act passed on December 27, 1831, the General Assembly responded and authorized a railroad or turnpike from Augusta to Eatonton. That effort brought no actual construction, allowing South Carolina to leap ahead of Georgia as a railroad leader. Two years later, on December 21, 1833, a new charter for the Georgia Railroad was secured, and Georgia began to regain the initiative. Surveying for a line between Athens and Augusta began the next year and construction started in 1835. Savannah merchants and Piedmont planters supported transportation improvements as a means to protect their local interests, but a few Georgians looked to a greater goal: tapping the commerce of the rapidly developing lands beyond the Appalachians. While a few products moved between Georgia and the west by horse and wagon, that method was slow and expensive. Because few rivers in northern Georgia allowed navigation, most of the western trade moved by boat on the Ohio, Tennessee, and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, which in consequence became the South's largest city. Also of no benefit to Georgia, much of the western trade was beginning to flow eastward to the port cities of the Northeast, especially after the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825.2 A Georgia trunk-line railroad to the West had been proposed by Governor Wilson Lumpkin during his 1831-35 term in office. Because the costs would be high and private capital for such an undertaking would be difficult to assemble, he argued that it should be constructed and owned by state government. Privately owned railroads could then be built to the trunk line as local resources might permit.3 In 1836, the General Assembly approved Lumpkin's concept and authorized a state-owned, state-managed railroad 4 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey TOWNS NAMED FOR RAILROAD LEADERS Below are some Georgia towns that were named for railroad officials, investors, or promoters. Austell. Alfred Austell was an Atlanta banker and railroad advocate. Buford. Algernon Sidney Buford was president of the Atlanta & Richmond Air-Line Railway and the Richmond & Danville Railroad. Dearing. William Dearing was a director of the Georgia Railroad. Gordon. William Washington Gordon was the first president of the Central Railroad. Grantville. Lemuel P. Grant was superintendent of the Atlanta & West Point Railroad. Griffin. Lewis Lawrence Griffin was president of the Monroe Railroad, built from Macon to Griffin in the 1830s and early 1840s. Hazlehurst. George H. Hazlehurst was the civil engineer who surveyed the Macon & Brunswick Railroad. Kingston. John Pendleton King was a director of the Rome Railroad, which branched off the Western & Atlantic at Kingston. Norcross. Jonathan Norcross, a pioneering Atlanta merchant, led an effort to build the Georgia Air Line, which later opened as the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line. Thomson. John Edgar Thomson was chief engineer of the Georgia Railroad. Wadley. William M. Wadley was president of the Central Railroad & Banking Company of Georgia. Winder. John H. Winder was superintendent of the Georgia Carolina & Northern Railway (later Seaboard Air Line Railway). The town was previously named Jug Tavern. v to be built from the Chattahoochee River to the Tennessee River. To be called the Western & Atlantic Railroad (W&A), it would, in its essentials, be the trunk line that Wilson envisioned. The 137-mile railroad, constructed between 1841 and 1850, became the keystone for north Georgia's rail network, and its southern terminus became the focal point for many subsequent rail construction projects. The first privately owned railroad to reach that terminus, now known as Atlanta, was the Georgia Railroad, in 1845. It was followed by the Macon & Western in 1846 and the Atlanta & LaGrange in 1854. While this was going on in north Georgia, three railroads were beginning to work their way across the southern part of the state: the Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad, chartered by Savannah investors in 1847; the Brunswick & Florida Railroad, organized by that city's businessmen in 1835; and the Southwestern Railroad, chartered in 1845 and backed by the owners of the Central Railroad. All three were aiming for connections with the navigable lower stretches of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers. Facing the most difficult challenge was the Savannah, Albany & Gulf, for it had to cross the entire lower Coastal Plain, a sparsely populated region that would provide little revenue along the 200-mile route to the Flint River. Although its route was slightly shorter, the Brunswick & Florida had the same problem. The Southwestern had the advantage of starting at Macon, close to the center of the state. By 1861, it had constructed branching lines to Fort Valley, Columbus, Americus, Eufaula, Fort Gaines, and Albany. By the beginning of the Civil War, Georgia had the most extensive rail system in the Deep South, trailing only Virginia among all Southern states. The state had more than doubled its trackage during the 1850s, adding 761 miles to the 643 miles existing in 1850. The 117 percent increase meant that Georgia was building more rapidly than many of the Middle Atlantic and New England states.4 Despite the state's antebellum construction accomplishments, several projects failed to reach fruition, among them the Ocmulgee & Flint Railroad, which would have connected those two rivers below Macon, the Georgia Western, which would have run from Atlanta directly west to Alabama, and the Georgia Air Line, which would have connected Atlanta to the upper piedmont of the Carolinas. A major impediment was insufficient private capital, and the reason for the deficiency was that the South had poured much of its capital investment into land and slaves. Slavery, it turned out, would soon take the state into a devastating war. 5 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey It was in the Civil War that railroads first became vitally important in military operations. The rails not only moved troops and equipment to battle zones, they also hauled raw materials to armament factories and transported food and supplies to forts, encampments, and training grounds. They evacuated the wounded, and they hauled prisoners to holding pens such as those at Andersonville and Camp Lawton. After Union troops invaded Georgia, the railroads soon became the scene of battle. The Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was fought over control of the Western & Atlantic. The Battle of Griswoldville was fought at the Central Railroad east of Macon. The Battle of Atlanta, depicted in the gigantic painting at Atlanta's Cyclorama, took place astride the Georgia Railroad. Because railroads so often served as supply lines and as routes for rapid troop movements, they were frequent military targets. In the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Sherman pushed south along a corridor formed by the Western & Atlantic. After his troops captured Atlanta, the W&A served as his supply line until November, when he began his March to the Sea. Sherman then directed his men to wreck the railroads as they moved towards Savannah--to pull up the rails, heat them over bonfires, and twist them so that they could not be re-laid. His intent was to cripple the Confederacy's ability to support its forces in the field and its people at home. Many miles of the Georgia Railroad east of Atlanta were demolished, along with the Central of Georgia south of Macon and portions of the Eatonton and Waynesboro branch lines. Near Savannah, Union soldiers destroyed miles of the Savannah, Albany & Gulf and the Charleston & Savannah. In the years after the war, the railroads were repaired, some more quickly than others, and some of the construction work that had been delayed by the conflict was restarted. Several new lines were begun, although political turmoil and an economic panic in 1873 brought a new set of troubles for railroad builders and investors. Because so much Southern capital had been lost in the war, much of the needed investment would have to come from Northern businessmen. As a result, control of the state's railroads began a gradual shift from South to North. As the postwar rail system grew, railroads became increasingly important to daily life. Many Georgians moved from subsistence farming to integration into a wider national economy, and the railroads transported the goods that they produced and consumed. The expanding network linked the state's factories, farms, sawmills, mines, and other enterprises to markets both inside and outside of the state. Trains brought goods from other states and carried millions of passengers on long and short trips. Dozens of new lines appeared, especially in south Georgia, which had attracted little interest among farmers and investors in antebellum times. Starting in the 1880s, that region's extensive pine forests drew lumber and turpentine industrialists who laid rails into long-bypassed places to get to the trees and convert them into money. After World War I, Georgia's rail mileage began a long decline, eventually dropping from a peak of around 7,600 miles in 1918 to today's 4,649 miles.5 Both large and small railroad companies abandoned tracks, and every region of the state saw significant losses. There were many reasons for the decline including overly optimistic expansion, financial problems caused by the Great Depression and other economic panics, losses of cotton shipments resulting from the impact of the boll weevil, and the decimation of the pine forests. Meanwhile, the highway network was expanding, local roads were improving, and automobiles and trucks were proliferating. Much of this new rubber-tired growth took business away from the railroads, making it increasingly difficult for them to recover from their many setbacks. Abandonment of unprofitable lines was one way for the railroads to restore financial health; another was to reduce passenger service. After a brief resurgence during World War II and the early postwar years, long-distance intercity service began to deteriorate. It declined through the 1950s and fell even more in the 1960s as jet plane service expanded. As automobile and air travel grew, railroads appealed to the Interstate Commerce Commission for permission to end passenger service. Finally, in the early 1970s, the railroads and the Federal government agreed on a comprehensive solution: a new Federal entity, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, also known as Amtrak, would take over most of the nation's passenger trains. Along with rail abandonment and cuts in passenger service, another method to regain financial strength was consolidation. Because government approval was required, consolidation often took years to reach completion. For example, Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line announced merger talks in 1958, but the actual consolidation did not take place until 1967, when the new Seaboard Coast Line began operation. 6 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey In 1980 the Staggers Rail Act helped to improve the railroads' financial situation but at the cost of a surge in track abandonment and the loss of thousands of railroad jobs. Consolidation continued, resulting in the loss of long-familiar names such as Atlanta & West Point, Seaboard, Louisville & Nashville, and Georgia Railroad. By the mid-1980s the number of major railroads in Georgia was down to two: CSX and Norfolk Southern. Today, those two companies own 78 percent of the state's current mileage. Feeding into their tracks are a few dozen widely scattered shortline railroads serving local shippers or providing port connections. Less visible are the three thousand miles of abandoned railway, a tiny part of which has been converted into local roads or bike-pedestrian trails. By far, most of these abandoned routes are marked only by isolated embankments, cuts into hillsides, and strips of trees. So, how did we arrive at the present situation? How did Georgia's railroads expand their reach for nearly a century and then slip into a mileage decline that has lasted even longer? Where and when were railroads built, and where and when were they abandoned? Who built them and why? Who abandoned them and why? Many of the answers will be found in the following pages. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc CONNECTING THE TOWNS Georgia's early railroads were built with certain goals in mind-- hauling cotton to market, tapping the Western trade, connecting navigable waterways, preserving certain mercantile interests, and so on--but at a somewhat lower level of concern was the question of which towns would be connected along the way. Towns could generate revenues, more so than thinly settled areas, which was important if the railroad was to pay for its construction costs, and equally important, the residents of these places were potential purchasers of railroad stock shares. But even though zig-zagging to connect every existing town might have made sense from a revenue standpoint (more towns meant more revenues), in the long term such a policy would incur burdensome maintenance and operating costs by requiring more track miles to maintain and requiring trains to operate over longer distances. In cases where getting into a town required additional bridges, cuts, fills, or steep grades, some railroad companies chose to avoid those costs by locating the tracks close to but not inside the town. It was better to let the townspeople come to the railroad, the thinking went, than to spend a lot of money putting the tracks at their doorsteps. This was most likely a factor in the Georgia Railroad's decision to skirt the edges of Covington and Decatur. As for towns that lay several miles from a mainline, there was always the option of constructing a branch line. A few towns did obtain branches early in the railroad era, among them Warrenton and Washington on the Georgia Railroad, and Eatonton and Milledgeville on the Central. v 7 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 2 THE IRON ROAD EMERGES: THE 1830S At the beginning were the skeptics. Not certain that railroads were the answer to transportation woes, many Georgians favored alternatives such as canals, turnpikes, and plank roads. (Plank roads used wooden planks over muddy sections so that wagons would not get bogged down.) This ambivalence was often reflected in rail company charters that authorized the building of railroads or canals, railroads or turnpikes, or some other combination of transport modes.6 Early roads and turnpikes. Most early roads and trails were primitive affairs roughly constructed and minimally maintained by local residents who only needed to travel relatively short distances, for example from a plantation to a riverboat landing. The low-lying stretches of these roads often became quagmires in rainy weather, while hillside sections sometimes deteriorated into deeply rutted courses that destroyed wagon wheels and axles. A few roads extended from one state or region to another, but these were hardly amenable to fast transit. One such route was the Unicoi Turnpike, built between 1813 and 1816 in northern Georgia and east Tennessee. It ran from the Tugaloo River on the Georgia-South Carolina border to the Nacoochee Valley and Unicoi Gap, continuing on to present-day Hiawassee, Georgia, Hayesville, North Carolina, and Tellico Plains, Tennessee.7 Preceding the Unicoi Turnpike was the Federal Road, built from Jackson County across the Cherokee lands to Tennessee; it was cut through the forests after the Cherokee Nation granted right of passage in 1805. The road served as an important route for three decades, eventually being replaced by newer roads and the Western & Atlantic Railroad.8 In the Piedmont, the Seven Islands Road was one of several stagecoach roads, and south Georgia had, among other routes, the Coffee Road and the Lower Creek Trading Path. Canals. In the early 1800s, the success of New York's Erie Canal lead led to various canal proposals in Georgia, but few were actually built. The 16mile Savannah and Ogeechee Canal was opened between those two rivers in 1829, but the planned second phase extending to the Altamaha River failed to materialize. Excavation for the Brunswick-Altamaha Canal began in 1836, but work was suspended in 1838 and not restarted until 1852 or shortly before. The canal finally opened on June 1, 1854, but it soon needed repairs and was abandoned in 1860. More successful was the still-intact Augusta Canal opened in 1847; it provided local transportation as well as drinking water and power for local mills. 9 Difficult and laborious to construct and maintain, canals required favorable topography and adequate water in the right places. A canal's dams and locks artificially created areas of low-speed current, and too little or too much water could bring already slow-moving canal traffic to a halt. Droughts often reduced canal water to levels insufficient for operation of the boats, while flooding damaged the locks, the banks, and the mule paths. Georgia's canals did, however, have one advantage over their Northern counterparts in that they remained largely ice-free in winter. Rivers. Most rivers in the Southeast were navigable only on their lower reaches, and even these sections might be interrupted by shoals, sandbars, and "snags." These navigational hazards caused a considerable loss of boats and cargos, as well as a number of lives. Two of the more troublesome places were on the Tennessee River, an important trade route for northwestern Georgia. One was at "The Suck," a few miles downstream from Chattanooga, and the other was at Alabama's Muscle Shoals. In Georgia, river transport by steamboat was largely limited to the Coastal Plain and a small section of the northwestern part of the state. Prior to the arrival of steamboats, unpowered flatboats were used. A variety known as "Oconee boxes" carried bagged cotton piled as high as fourteen feet to Darien's deepwater port on the Altamaha River.10 These primitive craft traveled downstream only; at journey's end the boats were disassembled and sold for lumber. Keelboats, also called poleboats, were more narrow and steerable than the crude flatboats and could travel upstream, albeit slowly.11 A type known as Petersburg boats were used on the Savannah River above Augusta. Steamboats came to Georgia a decade after Robert Fulton's pioneering Hudson River vessel. Dublin, on the Oconee River, and Hawkinsville, on the Ocmulgee, were reached by the boats between 1819 and 1829.12 The two rivers come together in the mid-Coastal Plain to form the Altamaha River, and this overall river system allowed steamboats to travel upstream from Darien at the Altamaha's mouth as far as Macon on the Ocmulgee 8 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey STEAMBOATS "As a commercial place, Macon has many advantages: it is in the heart of a thickly settled and fertile country, and on a navigable river. Though steamboats have been up, the produce and merchandise are transported on flat-bottomed boats. Thirty or forty boats are owned here, and they carry at a time from 400 to 700 bags of cotton, and return with 70 and 80 tons." Adiel Sherwood1 As Sherwood's 1860 comments suggest, the Ocmulgee River at Macon was navigable, but it was more suitable for flatboats than steamboats. Four decades later, the situation had changed little, as evidenced by a 1903 Hawkinsville newspaper article noting that a new steamer, the J. C. Maloy, had traveled to Macon "to test the navigability of the stream." The Ocmulgee provided better conditions about 45 miles downriver at Hawkinsville. Riverboats made the town a leading inland port, one important enough that the Macon & Brunswick Railroad built a branch line to Hawkinsville well before its mainline was completed to Brunswick. The new river connection, opened in November 1865, allowed traffic to flow between Macon and the coast while the Central Railroad was still rebuilding its war-wrecked line.2 Other railroads made various attempts to connect with Ocmulgee steamboats, among them the Atlanta & Hawkinsville Railroad Company, organized in 1886 by an Atlanta investment group whose members believed that Atlanta needed a locally controlled rail outlet to the sea. Had it been constructed as planned, it would have created a fairly direct rail/steamboat route from Atlanta to the Atlantic, but the effort foundered soon after it began. In some cases, railroad companies purchased steamboats as a means to extend their systems without having to construct new tracks. Shortly after the Civil War, the Central bought a number of steamboats that operated on the Chattahoochee River, with which it connected at Columbus and Eufaula.3 In 1891 the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery operated five boats on the Ocmulgee and Altamaha rivers. These connected with the railroad at Abbeville, and called on Darien, Brunswick, and Savannah. While steamboats complemented the railroads in some places, in others they competed for traffic. Historian George W. Hilton noted that during the 1870s steamboats were competitive with railroads where horse- drayage to the navigable river was less than thirty miles.4 Steamboats at Columbus (Florida Memory) Because local farmers and businessmen saw the boats as a way to keep a lid on railroad shipping rates, they encouraged their use and pressured government authorities to keep navigation channels clear of obstructions such as sandbars and "snags." Even so, steamboat traffic depended heavily on river levels, which were often lowered by drought, hurting the boats' ability to consistently compete with the railroads. Steamboats also suffered from hazards such as exploding boilers. The steamboat S. M. Manning, for example, exploded on the lower Ocmulgee in 1860, killing thirteen.5 According to historian Seymour Dunbar, "The countless accidents to riverboats caused many people to avoid them altogether."6 Of course, this is not to say that railroads did not have their own share of boiler explosions, among other deadly mishaps. Steamboat lines tended to be small-scale operations, with most owners having only a few boats. No huge steamboat systems evolved, as was the case with the railroads.7 Eventually the competition from rails and roads became too much for the steamboats, and they were gone by the 1930s. v ________________________________________________________ 1 Adiel Sherwood, Gazetteer of Georgia, 4th ed., 1860. 2 Mark V. Wetherington, The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia 1860-1910, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994, p.54. 3 Lynn Willoughby, Flowing Through Time: A History of the Lower Chattahoochee River, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1999, p.134. 4 George W. Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990, p.39. 5 Mark V. Wetherington, Plain Folks Fight; The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005, p.183. 6 Seymour Dunbar, A History of Travel in America, vol. 3, 1915, p.1098. 7 Louis C. Hunter, Steamboats on the Western Rivers, New York: Dover, 1949, p.307. 9 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey and Milledgeville on the Oconee. However, steamboat traffic in those two towns was quite limited due to unreliable navigability on the rivers' upper stretches; both were more likely to see flatboats and pole boats. The first railroads. Britain led the way for steam-powered, common-carrier (non-specialized) railroads.13 The nation had the advantages of relatively short distances to travel, readily available iron and coal, and an inventive and entrepreneurial culture that could develop the technology and make it cost-effective. Because Britain lacked the extensive forests of eastern America, its first railroads used iron rails on stone pilings rather than wood ties, and coal rather than wood was used to fire the locomotives.14 Rail cars in the United States were initially drawn by horses, but steam technology developed quickly, and its superiority over animal power soon became evident.15 The main advantage was speed. While a few questioned whether the human body could survive moving at twenty miles per hour, those who traveled on the early trains found that reaching a destination in hours instead of days was certainly to be appreciated. This was especially so in the vast landscape of America. In Georgia, the largest state east of the Mississippi, the advantages of railroad travel over turnpikes or canals quickly became clear. Railroad costs. Railroads were expensive affairs that required property to be purchased, grading to be completed, and structures such as bridges and culverts to be constructed. Necessary materials included wood for ties and iron for rails and car wheels. Freight and passenger cars were essential. In the early years, when horses were often substituted for steam engines, rails could be made solely of strong and durable wood, such as the heart pine that grew abundantly in Georgia. If a steam locomotive was used, straps of rolled iron were nailed to the wood rails.16 Historian Eric Rutkow noted the cost advantage of this technique: "This American style of strap rail construction reduced iron use from ninety-one tons per mile (the British average) to only twenty-five, dropping the cost per mile from $180,000 to between $20,000 and $30,000. By 1840, when the nation had more than three thousand miles of track, fully two-thirds of American railways used some variation of strap rails, with the underlying wood varying based on region and availability."17 Iron was expensive because the few iron forges in the U.S. tended to be primitive and limited in output, especially in the South. Iron was typically purchased in England, often with cotton involved in the exchange.18 Wooden rails consumed many trees, but the largest single use of timber was the crosstie. Rutkow says that it exceeded the combined total for rails, bridges, cars, telegraph poles and all of "the countless other aspects of train infrastructure."19 By the middle of the nineteenth century, the railroads had become the largest single consumer of wood in the country, driven by their need for crossties.20 Had the railroads' demand for wood continued at such a pace, the nation might have become a tree-less plain. Fortunately, as historian J. R. McNeill noted, "By 1920, creosote oil, a wood preservative derived from coal tar, coated half of American crossties, reducing the need for new ones."21 But the railroads continued to use great quantities of wood and only in recent decades have replacements such as concrete ties seen wide use. As McNeil observed, "The locomotive may have been called the iron horse, but the railroad was mainly a wooden system."22 Grading often incurred a large expense, especially in the northern half of the state. Cutting and filling and construction of berms was necessary in hilly terrain because trains could not climb slopes much greater than about five percent (a rise of five feet over a distance of 100 feet). Operating costs increased substantially with increase in slope, making it imperative to level out the railbeds as much as possible. As noted above, some American railroads began as horse-drawn operations in an effort to minimize expenses. Company directors hoped that the horses would allow the railroad to accumulate enough revenue to purchase steam engines.23 Such measures generally proved effective, and the plodding animals were eventually replaced everywhere by the faster iron horses. Another reason to put locomotives on the rails as soon as possible was geography: America is a big country, with great distances to cross. Horsepowered trains made sense for short trips, but they quickly lost appeal for travel over more than a few dozen miles. Costs rose with greater distances because more horses would need to be based at stations along the line and, of course, the railroad companies would have to pay for their food and care, along with their replacement when needed. 10 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Related to distance was standard of construction. Early American railroads were often flimsily built because underfunded rail companies could not afford to do otherwise. When compared to their counterparts in Britain, America's railroads were clearly inferior, but, of course, the British had the advantage of generally shorter distances between their cities. Britain also had investment capital advantages over the United States, again associated with relative land sizes. The island nation was compact and had long been developed. By contrast, the U. S. was many times larger, almost continental in scope, and had a long frontier that was absent in Britain. Its huge undeveloped land mass was simply too large for the capital supply available. For this reason, American railroad promoters struggled to raise capital from potential investors living in the cities and towns along their proposed line. In the South, with lower population densities than in the North, this was especially problematic; it indicates why dozens of early railroad charters never resulted in any actual construction. For the average railroad, about a third of the original total cost was spent in laying it out and grading it.24 This was an area that allowed some creativity in attracting investor participation, particularly in the South. Grading contractors could often be paid in railroad stock, thus avoiding cash outlays. Frequently the labor was provided by slaves, while the stock went to the planters who made them available for the grading work, usually after the cotton harvest. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 11 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 12 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Newnan, Coweta County CHAPTER 3 GEORGIA'S FIRST RAILROADS: 1834-1854 In December 1833, after several years of talk about potential railroads, the General Assembly granted charters to three railroad companies that actually succeeded in laying tracks and operating trains. These were the Georgia Railroad, the Central of Georgia Railroad, and the Monroe Railroad (renamed Macon & Western Railroad in 1845). Three years later, the legislators authorized another railroad, the Western & Atlantic, a state-owned line that would eventually connect the three and form the backbone of north Georgia's rail system. During the next two decades, more rail lines would be constructed, including the Millledgeville & Gordon, the Eatonton Branch Railroad, the Augusta & Waynesboro, the Muscogee, the Southwestern, the Atlanta & West Point, and the East Tennessee & Georgia. Before delving into the particulars of Georgia's earliest lines, however, attention should be given to a pioneering railroad in South Carolina. The South Carolina Railroad Even though the South Carolina Railroad (SCRR), also known as the Charleston & Hamburg Railroad, did not actually enter Georgia until 1853, it deserves first mention in any discussion of the Peach State's early railroads. The 136-mile line was the first railroad in the South, and, although not quite the first American common-carrier railway, it was upon completion the world's longest rail line under one ownership. It was particularly significant to Georgians because its western terminus lay directly across the Savannah River from Augusta, where it threatened established trade relationships. And, as noted earlier, its potential for diverting commerce from Savannah to Charleston prompted Savannahians to build their own railroad. Surveying for the SCRR began in 1828, and construction got underway on the outskirts of Charleston in 1830. The line reached Hamburg in 1833. Having succeeded in connecting the Atlantic Coast to the Piedmont cotton belt, South Carolinians soon began advocating a railroad to the transAppalachian west. The idea had been promoted in the summer of 1831 at two railroad conventions, one in Eatonton, Georgia, and another in Abingdon, Virginia. No construction resulted from these meetings, but a July 1836 convention in Knoxville, Tennessee led to the establishment of the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road, a South Carolina initiative which would compete with Georgia's developing plans for a similar transAppalachian route. The Georgia Railroad The 1830s brought the culmination of a long period in which Georgia settlers had pushed east to west, gradually displacing the state's original inhabitants, the Creek and Cherokee Indians. A series of treaties had ceded Indian territories to the state government, which distributed the lands to whites soon after each cession. In 1838-39, the last remaining land was seized from the Cherokees in the northwestern part of the state, after which they were expelled in the infamous Trail of Tears. Augusta, situated at the head of navigation on the Savannah River, was Georgia's principal inland trading center, but as the population moved west, other trading towns were established as well, most notably the river towns of Macon, Milledgeville, Columbus, and Rome. Along with these were growing county-seat towns such as Athens, Covington, Eatonton, and Greensboro. In the states north and west of Georgia, agriculture was steadily expanding, and farmers were seeking to improve connections to eastern markets. Exports from Tennessee, for example, had to travel down the TennesseeOhio-Mississippi river system to New Orleans for transshipment to the Atlantic. Observing this inefficient pattern, merchants in Georgia began to talk of opportunities to "capture the trade" of the West. The question was how: turnpike, canal, or railroad? Among the earliest proposals was the Augusta & Eatonton Turnpike & Railroad Company, chartered in December 1831. It was authorized by the General Assembly to build a railroad or a turnpike from Augusta to Eatonton and westward to the Chattahoochee River, along with branches to other Piedmont towns. However, no actual construction followed. During the summer of 1833, meetings were held in Athens and Augusta to consider building a railroad between the two cities. That effort was ultimately more successful, and on December 21, 1833 the General Assembly incorporated the Georgia Railroad Company and authorized it to construct a railroad or turnpike from Augusta to Athens with branches 13 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey GEORGIA'S FIRST RAILROADS 14 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey to Eatonton and Madison. The act also authorized the company to extend its lines beyond those places, and it repealed the earlier Augusta-Eatonton railroad act.25 The impetus for the Georgia Railroad came primarily from Athens. Created as a college town, it had become an industrial center as well, and it needed better transportation. Because the city's river, the North Oconee, was not navigable by steamboats, a railroad became an obvious solution. After receiving their charter, the railroad's promoters met on March 10, 1834 at the Athens home of James Camak, where they elected a president and twelve directors of the Georgia Railroad Company.26 Later that year, the company hired a chief engineer, John Edgar Thomson, a Pennsylvanian who had worked on the surveys for the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, as well as the Camden & Amboy.27 For an assistant, Thomson chose Richard Peters, a Philadelphia civil engineer who had worked with him on the latter project.28 After a delay caused by the late delivery of surveying equipment, as well as a period of bad weather, the survey for the Georgia Railroad began late in the year. Construction began in 1835 with a 30-mile section from Augusta.29 As a means to boost capital investment for the line, the company secured a charter amendment that gave it banking powers. Approved by the General Assembly in December 1835, the legislation also changed the name of the enterprise to Georgia Railroad & Banking Company. In late 1836, the legislature authorized the construction of the Western & Atlantic to run between the Chattahoochee and Tennessee rivers. At the same time, it chartered the Middle Branch Railroad to build from the Georgia Railroad at Madison to the southern end of the W&A. The following year, the Middle Branch charter was repealed, and the Georgia Railroad was authorized to build to the W&A instead.30 The Georgia Railroad's tracks reached Greensboro in 1839, and that same year a 3.5-mile branch to Warrenton was completed from the mainline at Camak.31 In 1841, the tracks were completed all of the way from Augusta to Athens. Although Athens finally had its long-sought rail link, it was losing its leading position in the railroad company's affairs due to Augusta investors buying additional stock.32 Even worse for Athens in the long run was the new focus on extending the rails west to meet the W&A. By 1842, trains were running from Union Point to Madison, and during 1845 the tracks were completed to Covington and Decatur. In September 1845, they reached Marthasville, soon to be renamed Atlanta. Within a few years, the Augusta-Atlanta line would become the mainline, and Athens would be left at the end of a branch. For John Edgar Thomson, the entry into Atlanta must have been particularly satisfying; he had completed the longest railroad under one management in the nation. He served as chief engineer for the Georgia Railroad until 1847 when he resigned to take the same position with the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1852, he became president of that company, then the largest corporation in the world.33 Richard Peters, who had located most of the line, became superintendent of the railroad in 1837.34 He left Augusta for Atlanta in 1845, where he became a Ficklin depot, Wilkes County Washington, Wilkes County WASHINGTON Washington, established during the Revolution, is one of the oldest towns in the region served by the Georgia Railroad. If the railroad had been built on a direct AthensAugusta route as originally projected, Washington would have been on the mainline, but as it turned out the railroad was constructed well to the south, leaving Washington without a rail connection. This deficiency was corrected in 1852, when the 17-mile Washington Branch was completed. It joined the main line at Barnett, 10 miles west of Camak. v 15 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey prominent real estate broker as well as the city's largest landowner.35 In 1871, Peters and George Adair, a former Georgia Railroad conductor, opened the first streetcar line in Atlanta.36 At the eastern end of the railroad, Augusta gained another direct rail link in 1853 when the South Carolina Railroad completed its bridge across the Savannah River. The Augusta terminus gave the SCRR's stockholders a strong boost in dividends, but Hamburg's businessmen suffered a substantial decline in trade. Historian Tom Downey described the results: "In 1853, its final year as the SCRR's western terminus, the town of Hamburg collected more than 140,000 bales of cotton at its railroad depot. Four years later, after the SCRR had perfected its connections with the Georgia Railroad, cotton receipts at Hamburg plummeted to 18,533 bales, while the new Augusta depots collected no fewer than 108,358 bales. Hamburg's pending demise was unmistakable, leading a steady stream of factors and merchants to either fail or abandon the town for greener pastures."37 The Central Rail Road of Georgia The Central was initially chartered in late 1833 as the Central Rail Road & Canal Company of Georgia, reflecting the early uncertainty over the future of railroad technology. A prevailing lack of interest in buying the company's stock led to a December 1835 charter amendment that gave it banking powers and changed its name to Central Rail Road & Banking Company of Georgia.38 Construction began at Savannah around the same time. The other end of the line was to be at Macon, a city of 3,000 people located at the head of navigation on the Ocmulgee River.39 The economic center of a rapidly growing area, Macon had been established after the 1821 Creek cession as a "trading" town.40 From there, roads radiated to cotton plantations and small settlements scattered across the lower Piedmont. The city was also just starting to build its own line, the Monroe Railroad, to nearby Forsyth. So that it would be closer to the cotton belt and the older well-established counties along the Savannah River, the Central took a rather indirect route between Savannah and Macon, one that trended strongly to the north. A straight course would have required a long passage through the pine barrens, a thinly settled region that generally lacked the large cotton plantations found in the Piedmont. Even so, the chosen route passed through few existing towns. It did, however, pass close to Sandersville, Louisville, and Milledgeville which could be easily connected by branch lines. Because of its indirect route, the Central approached Macon from the northeast. The tracks reached the eastern bank of the Ocmulgee River by 1843. In 1851, a railroad bridge was erected across the river allowing the Central's trains to enter Macon. The Western & Atlantic Railroad Although the Western & Atlantic was not the first railroad in Georgia, it was certainly one of the most significant because it established the framework for the state's railroad system. Once a location for its southern terminus was chosen, other railroads built to it, and upon its completion, it formed the final link in the first southern rail route from the Atlantic Ocean to western rivers. One could travel by train from Charleston or Savannah all the way to Chattanooga. From there, travelers could travel by steamboat on the Tennessee River, or after 1854, could continue by train to Nashville. The history of the Western & Atlantic dates back to July 1836, when representatives from nine Southern states, including Georgia, met in Knoxville, Tennessee, at what was billed as the Great Southern Railroad Convention. The 380 delegates focused on possible rail corridors across the Appalachians that might connect the Atlantic Coast to the rapidly growing West. Two alternatives attracted the most attention: an eastern route by way of Asheville and the French Broad River in North Carolina, and a western route through Georgia's Rabun Gap to the valley of the Little Tennessee River.41 The former was supported by South Carolina, while Georgia unsurprisingly preferred the latter. Meanwhile, the Georgia Railroad was considering a similar transAppalachian line, having been authorized in its charter to extend its tracks from Athens to the Tennessee River. In the summer of 1836, John Edgar Thomson ran a trial location survey for what would be a 211-mile line. He concluded that it could be built for $1.8 million.42 Shortly afterwards he completed a similar survey for an extension from Athens to eastern Tennessee's planned Hiwassee Railroad. His estimate for that undertaking was over three million dollars. But, as historian James A. Ward noted, 16 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey "These were ambitious dreams for a corporation that had yet to turn a wheel in revenue service."43 In November 1836, a state railroad convention in Macon brought together 116 participants from thirty-eight Georgia counties. The group proposed, with Thomson in agreement, a route well to the west of Rabun Gap, one that would extend from the Chattahoochee River at some point in the upper Piedmont to the Tennessee River at Ross's Landing (Chattanooga).44 The following month, the Georgia legislature endorsed this route and authorized construction of a state-owned railroad, the Western & Atlantic. The W&A was surveyed in 1837 by chief engineer Stephen Harriman Long, former chief engineer of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. For the railroad's southern end, Long and his assistants examined several possibilities along the Chattahoochee between Campbell (now south Fulton) and Hall counties and eventually chose Montgomery's Ferry in DeKalb County.45 Further investigation determined that the topography near the river was unsuitable for connecting railroads, so the terminus was moved to a ridgetop a few miles to the southeast. It was here, in an area of quiet countryside, woodlands, and a few farms that Terminus--the future Atlanta--was established.46 Although the W&A lay well to the west of the Blue Ridge mountains, there were still a number of long, steep ridges lying astride the route. Most were circumvented or penetrated by way of natural gaps, and only one ridge had to be tunneled. In any case, the railroad had to weave its way through a complex landscape that made it, according to John W. Lewis, one of its superintendents, "the crookedest road under the sun."47 From Terminus, the tracks descended to the Chattahoochee and, after crossing the river near the former Indian village of Standing Peachtree, began a long, curving climb through present-day Vinings to high ground. A few miles farther was Marietta, laid out in 1833 and incorporated the following year. The seat of Cobb County, it was in 1840 home to some 7,500 people. Just north of town, the rails passed along the foot of Kennesaw Mountain, later to be the scene of a ferocious Civil War battle for control of the rail line. Continuing northwest into Cass County (now Bartow County), the railroad encountered a cluster of ridges and hills known as the Allatoona Mountains, where it was necessary to excavate a deep cut through a ridge. Another bloody Civil War battle would be fought here. A few miles beyond Allatoona, the tracks crossed the Etowah River before passing through Cartersville, then a small settlement. Farther north, the tracks missed Cassville, the county seat, by a couple of miles, a situation that would later lead to the move of the county government to Cartersville.48 About 80 miles north of Terminus was Oothcaloga Station, later renamed Calhoun, and then Resaca, where the tracks crossed the Oostanaula River. Sixteen miles past Resaca was Cross Plains (now Dalton). Beyond was Chetoogeta Mountain, where a 1,477-foot tunnel was completed in 1849-50. A few miles farther, Taylor Ridge was penetrated at Ringgold Gap; on its west side the town of Ringgold would be established in 1846. After crossing into Tennessee, the tracks passed around the northern end of Missionary Ridge and approached Chattanooga from the northeast. As the W&A neared completion, a second railroad was approaching Chattanooga from the west. The Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, built between 1848 and 1854, had to overcome a rugged landscape that that included the Cumberland Plateau, a high barrier far too extensive to bypass. The solution was found at a gap near Cowan, Tennessee, where a 2,228-foot tunnel was built in 1848-1852. This route forced the railroad to go about 10 miles southeast into Alabama and then turn northeast to go back to Tennessee. Along the way, the railroad occasionally dipped from Tennessee into Georgia before entering Chattanooga. Besides the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, a second important river connection for the W&A was the rail link to the Coosa River at Rome, made by means of the Rome Railroad that ran west from the W&A at Kingston. Built in 1848-1849, the 18-mile line followed the north side of the Etowah River to Rome. The first official Georgia Railroad train reached Terminus on September 14, 1845, and the next day the first passenger train rolled in, bringing that railroad's president John P. King, chief engineer John Edgar Thomson, and superintendent Richard Peters, among other dignitaries.52 By then, the place was no longer called Terminus, having been renamed Marthasville in 1843 in honor of the youngest daughter of ex-governor and Western & Atlantic commissioner Wilson Lumpkin. It would soon change again. Believing that 17 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Marthasville was a suitable name for a crossroads village but not for the great city that he expected for the future, Peters asked Thomson to offer a more appropriate name. Thomson suggested a variation of the word Atlantic in the W&A's name, and the place became Atlanta.53 The W&A was opened to Resaca by April 1847 and to Dalton by the following July.54 North of Dalton progress was delayed by the need to dig the tunnel through Chetoogeta Mountain. Once the tunnel opened in May 1850, trains could travel the entire length of the railroad from Atlanta to Chattanooga.55 Of all the towns on the Western & Atlantic, Atlanta, which did not even exist when the railroad was begun, would prosper the most. Historian Roger Grant described the result: A writer for Harper's New Monthly Magazine succinctly explained how the city came into being: "The answer is one word--railways." Ultimately, thanks to the iron horse, Atlanta came to be one of the few great American cities not to be situated on a navigable waterway....By the 1880s the Georgia capital immodestly claimed to be the `Gate City of the South,' and it would never be seriously challenged for that distinction, not by Birmingham, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Mobile, Nashville, New Orleans, Richmond, or Tampa. The statistics, which reveal steady growth, are impressive: 9,554 residents on the eve of the Civil War, soaring to 65,553 by 1890 and reaching 154,839 in 1910.56 Besides its importance to the state rail network and to Atlanta, the W&A was significant in that it was directly built and operated by a state government, which was quite unusual. Georgia's leaders recognized that private capital was insufficient for such an undertaking. State government involvement allowed the W&A to shoot ahead of South Carolina's planned trans-Appalachian route, by then called the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road.57 As it turned out, the LC&C never progressed beyond Columbia, and the muchsought western rail link would be constructed in northwestern Georgia. The W&A also spurred development of northwest Georgia, where the Cherokees had been evicted only a few years before. Land-hungry Georgians poured in, leading the General Assembly to quickly divide the region into new counties. Along the W&A, Gordon County was established in 1850, with Calhoun as the county seat, and in 1853, Catoosa County was created with Ringgold, incorporated in 1847, as the county seat. However, one of the W&A's most significant roles was yet to come, in the form of conduit and target in the Civil War. The Monroe Railroad and the Macon & Western Chartered in December 1833, the same time as the Georgia Railroad and the Central Rail Road of Georgia, the Monroe Railroad began with the modest goal of connecting the Monroe County town of Forsyth to Macon. Its 25-mile line opened between those two places in December 1838. Its first locomotive, the Ocmulgee, had been brought upriver by steamboat a few months earlier.58 In 1836 the Monroe Railroad Company was given banking powers and permitted to extend its tracks north of Forsyth to meet the Western & Atlantic, which was authorized under other legislation in the same year.59 Unfortunately, the economic recession of 1837 so badly constrained the company's finances that it had to pay for grading with railroad shares. Because that arrangement was rejected by the iron mills, the railroad was forced to lay wooden rails in sections between Barnesville and Griffin and replace them with iron as it became available.61 The first trains reached Griffin in 1842. The town had been established two years earlier by railroad president Lewis Lawrence Griffin who anticipated that the place could become a rail junction. Griffin purchased 800 acres and laid out town lots which were sold to support his city-building enterprise. Even before completion, the railroad took part in an Augusta-Montgomery mixed rail and stagecoach route that provided 50-hour service between the two cities. From Augusta, travelers rode the Georgia Railroad to Madison, then took a stagecoach from there to Eatonton and Macon. At Macon, they transferred to the Monroe Railroad for passage to Barnesville, where they boarded a second stagecoach to continue west. After passing through Zebulon, Greenville, LaGrange, and West Point, the stagecoach reached the eastern end of the Montgomery Railroad, which at the time was somewhere in the vicinity of Franklin and Cusseta, Alabama. The final leg of the trip was by rail on the Montgomery Railroad, the third of the three uncompleted railroads.62 18 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple traveled on the railroad during this period and recounted his experience in his Southern Diary of 1843-44: We left Macon at 8 o'clock and I may safely say on the worst railroad ever invented. Our northern corduroys are safe compared to this. The passengers are amused on this road by running off the track, sending rails up through the bottom of the cars and other amusements of the kind calculated to make one's hair stand on end. We only ran off the track once and that was in running backwards. I never have seen so wretched management. At one of the stations in Forsyth, a town of 500 inhabitants, we were detained 25 minutes for the men to chop wood for the engine. This is the first railroad I have ever seen where the cars were stopped to cut fuel. We were only seven & a half hours running from Macon to Barnsville, a distance of forty miles--at the enormous rate of five miles per hour. Bah! stage coaches can well laugh at such railroads. We here left this railroad, a pest to all travelers but a greater curse to the poor farmers who took stock in this wretched concern, for they are still worse off inasmuch as it has ruined many of them and now they are still bound for the debts of the road. We were unfortunate in suffering a short time but we ought not to complain while those who built the road are so much worse off.63 The railroad was purchased in 1845 by Macon businessman Jerry Cowles, and soon afterwards Cowles sold it to a northern investment group headed by Daniel Tyler of Norwich, Connecticut.64 Tyler renamed the line the Macon & Western Railroad; its tracks reached Atlanta in 1846. The Milledgeville & Gordon Railroad and the Eatonton Branch The Milledgeville Turnpike & Railroad Company was incorporated in 1840 and renamed the Milledgeville & Gordon Railroad Company (M&G) in 1847. It made little progress until 1852 when the General Assembly authorized the state to purchase $20,000 of its capital stock. Among the conditions in the state act was a requirement the M&G "transport on their said road, free of charge, all freight destined for the use of the Lunatic Asylum and Penitentiary, and all articles manufactured in said Penitentiary, and transported to market elsewhere."73 The Central of Georgia also provided assistance by furnishing the line with plate rails for its tracks. Finally completed in 1853, the 17-mile line branched from the Central at Gordon, passed near the hamlets of Whiting and Midway, and entered Milledgeville six blocks west of the capitol. In the same year, the tracks connected with the Eatonton Branch Railroad, a 21-mile line to the Putnam County seat. Eatontonians had been attempting to attract a railroad since 1833 when several of the town's businessmen organized the Augusta & Eatonton Rail Road. After that initiative floundered, the town pushed for a link to the Georgia Railroad by way of a branch to Greensboro or Warrenton, but that also failed.74 In 1855, the Central acquired and absorbed the Milledgeville & Gordon and leased the Eatonton Branch.75 The Augusta & Waynesboro Railroad Incorporated December 31, 1838 and completed in 1854, the 53-mile Augusta & Waynesboro ran from Augusta to the Central Railroad at Millen. Named for the Central's superintendent, McPherson B. Millen, Millen was previously called Seventy-Nine for its rail distance from Savannah.76 Waynesboro was the only substantial town along the route; it had been established in the 1780s, not long after Burke County was formed as one of the state's eight original counties. The railroad's name changed to the Augusta & Savannah Railroad in 1856, but it never reached Savannah on its own. It was leased to the Central in 1862. The Muscogee Railroad Established as a trading town soon after the 1826 Creek cession, Columbus was laid out at the Coweta Falls on the Chattahoochee River, where ample water power supported factories and mills upstream and steamboats traveled downstream to the Gulf of Mexico. A network of wagon roads reached far into the cotton growing regions of western Georgia and eastern Alabama, as far north as Gwinnett County. In fact, cotton grown in Gwinnett was sold at Columbus in 1828.77 Efforts to connect Columbus to the rest of the state by rail began as early as December 1835, when a charter was obtained for the Chattahoochee Railroad Company. The following year the charter was amended to add banking powers and to change the name to the Chattahoochee Railroad 19 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey & Banking Company. The CR&BC then began making plans to build a rail line from Columbus through West Point to the southern terminus of the Western & Atlantic, which had been authorized at the same time.78 This was an ambitious enterprise, one that would need a considerable capital input. To provide a portion of the funds, the City of Columbus authorized $750,000 in bonds to be loaned to the CR&BC, and also subscribed for 2,000 shares of stock. But, because of doubts regarding the legality of the arrangement, it was never completed. The CR&BC failed in 1841.79 In 1845, Columbus citizens began another attempt at a rail link by securing a charter for the Muscogee Railroad. Rather than building to Atlanta as projected by the CR&BC, it looked east to Macon, or, alternatively, to a connection with the Macon & Western Railroad, which was then nearing completion between Macon and Atlanta. The Muscogee's charter did not specify a particular route, but the company's directors quickly focused on building through Talbotton and Thomaston to the M&W at Barnesville.80 To help in constructing the new Barnesville line, the directors appealed to the Macon & Western's owners, noting the benefits of having a feeder line. Although certain M&W officers showed interest at times, ultimately that company declined to provide assistance. Similar discussions took place with the Central in regard to a possible Central line from Macon to Columbus, but nothing came of that either. Finally, an agreement was formed in which the Muscogee would build a line east to Butler, where it would meet a new branch of the Southwestern Railroad running west from Fort Valley. Construction on the Muscogee Railroad began in 1847 and the connection at Butler was completed in 1853. The Southwestern Railroad Chartered December 27, 1845, the Southwestern Railroad was intended to link Macon to the navigable sections of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, thus providing a rail and steamboat route to the Gulf while also tapping the trade of southwest Georgia. Early on, it became associated with the Central Railroad & Banking Company, which provided financial assistance to the enterprise on several occasions. Construction began in 1848 but proceeded erratically because the company's stock offerings attracted few buyers. The tracks reached Fort Valley sometime around 1851 and Oglethorpe in 1851-52. After the connection was made with the Muscogee Railroad at Butler during the following year, the Southwestern's prospects for success improved substantially, and other towns began to show interest in the railroad. In 1853, the line was extended to Americus, whose citizens had invested $75,000 in the railroad. The Atlanta & West Point Railroad The rail line between Atlanta and Montgomery, Alabama, had its origins in two separate railroad-building initiatives, the first in Alabama and the second in Georgia. In Alabama, the Montgomery Railroad was envisioned as a way to tap the trade of western Georgia and to obtain rail access to the eastern seaboard and the upper Tennessee River valley.81 This would be accomplished by constructing a line from Montgomery to the Georgia Railroad at Covington or Decatur (Atlanta did not yet exist), or to some point on the Western & Atlantic. Grading on the Montgomery Railroad began in 1836, and the first train ran twelve miles to Franklin, Alabama, in 1840. After foreclosure in 1842, the line was sold and reorganized as the Montgomery & West Point Railroad. The M&WP reached Auburn, Alabama, in 1847 and West Point, Georgia, in April 1851. A 29-mile branch running from the mainline at Opelika to the Chattahoochee River opposite Columbus was added in 1854. The following year the river was bridged, giving Columbus its second rail line and a direct connection to the west.82 In Georgia, the Atlanta & West Point Railroad began as the Atlanta & LaGrange Railroad, chartered in 1847. It was conceived as a link from LaGrange and Newnan to Atlanta, either directly or through a connection with the Macon & Western. Construction began in 1849. Late that year the company secured a charter amendment permitting it to extend the line to West Point, where it met the M&WP coming up from Montgomery. For the northern end of the Atlanta & LaGrange, a location on the Macon & Western about six miles south of Atlanta was chosen; it became known as East Point. From there, trackage rights on the M&W allowed A&L trains to enter Atlanta.83 In 1851 the A&L began service between East Point and Palmetto, and the following year construction crews reached Hogansville. In early 1853 they 20 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Industry Yard, East Point, Fulton County 21 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey entered LaGrange, and in May 1854 they completed the line to West Point. Later, in 1857, the company was renamed Atlanta & West Point Rail Road. The original Atlanta & LaGrange was closely associated with the Georgia Railroad, sharing the same president, John Pendleton King. It was surveyed by Lemuel P. Grant, who had done similar work for the Georgia Railroad.85 The A&L was Atlanta's fourth railroad, giving the city a rail connection to Montgomery to go along with its earlier connections to Augusta, Macon, and Chattanooga. The East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad The first attempt at building a rail link between east Tennessee and north Georgia was made by the Hiwassee Railroad, which began construction near Athens, Tennessee, in 1837.89 Its owners planned to link up with the Georgia Railroad or the Western & Atlantic, whichever came closest. Unfortunately for the Hiwassee, however, the Georgia Railroad's directors dropped plans for a northern extension, while progress on the W&A was slowed by the financial panic of 1837. Without a Georgia connection, the Hiwassee was a road to nowhere. It had completed a million-dollar effort of grading and bridge-building, but had little in the way of revenues to offset its heavy debt. Unable to survive while waiting for the W&A, the company entered bankruptcy in 1842. Despite the misstep, Tennesseeans kept pushing for a rail connection, and in 1848 they organized the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad to make another attempt. Benefiting from a much improved economy, the railroad opened between Dalton, Georgia, and Loudon, Tennessee, by August 1852, and by January 1855 it reached Knoxville.90 In 1858, a 29-mile connector line opened between Cleveland, Tennessee and Chattanooga, allowing trains to travel between Knoxville and the rest of Tennessee without having to go through Dalton. Important Beginnings Georgia's earliest railroad building would introduce several significant developmental trends and historic associations that would extend through the state's period of rail construction ending in the early twentieth century. New settlements would be planned or spring up along the new lines, one of which, Atlanta, was destined to become one of the country's great cities. The new railroad would forever alter the nature of transport and commerce in the state as well, as cash crops, namely cotton, and other goods would travel by rail instead of cumbersome boats and wagons. The state's thenburgeoning industrial centers, such as at Athens and Columbus, recognized the importance of and actively pursued rail connections. And, notably, Georgia's antebellum railroad system, which was on par with the country's leading rail-building states, was built by hand, and predominantly by African-American slaves. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 22 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 4 ANTEBELLUM EXPANSION: 1855-1860 By the mid-1850s, the core network of rail lines in north Georgia was in place and attention began to shift to the southern part of the state. Its low population density and general poverty had deterred railroad investment for years, but, eventually, businessmen began to see potential profits in the region, especially in its southwestern corner. The Brunswick & Florida Railroad Chartered in 1835 by planter and political leader Thomas Butler King and others, the Brunswick & Florida Railroad was planned as a rail link from Brunswick to Chattahoochee, Florida, where connections could be made with steamboats traveling on the Apalachicola River to the Gulf, on the Flint River to Bainbridge, and on the Chattahoochee River to Fort Gaines and Columbus.91 Other western end points such as Pensacola were proposed as well. Along with making the river connections, the railroad was also expected to tap the trade of southwest Georgia, especially that of the cotton plantations that had developed after the Creek Indians were pushed out in the 1820s. In its first few years, the B&F made little progress. The first stockholder meeting was held in Thomasville in 1839, and surveys were made the same year, but no construction followed because the economy had become unsettled after 1837.92 Finally, in 1855, two decades after the charter was received, the railroad was completed between Brunswick and the Satilla River, a distance of 20 miles. That was still 200 miles from Chattahoochee, so most of the railroad was yet to be built. Meanwhile, at Savannah, a competing railroad was taking shape. The Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad and Atlantic & Gulf Railroad In 1847, seeking to establish a rail connection between the Atlantic Coast and the Flint River, a group of Savannah businessmen obtained a charter for the Savannah & Albany Railroad. As in Brunswick, little was accomplished initially, but that did not stop the making of grand plans. By the early 1850s, the railroad's promoters were pushing for a 450-mile line from Savannah to Mobile with a 150-mile branch from the mainline at Albany through Eufaula to Montgomery. To fund the expanded project, the railroad company hoped to secure a land grant from Congress, as explained in an 1854 Senate Report: The Savannah and Albany railroad, proposed to be aided by the grant of alternate sections of land to the State of Alabama, provided in the bill under consideration, has been chartered by the States of Georgia and Alabama....The company has been organized in Georgia, with a subscription of one million, three hundred thousand dollars, and active preparations are being made to commence the work; but the company has no present prospect of procuring sufficient capital to extend the road to the public lands of Alabama, without the aid proposed by this bill-- the country through which it will pass being, comparatively, unsettled, destitute of capital, and valueless, on account of the great difficulty and expense of reaching a market with its productions.93 To further support their case, two Savannah & Albany officials, James P. Screven and Nelson Tift, mentioned that railroads were being surveyed from Mobile to New Orleans, and from the latter city westward, and that a common trunk railroad to San Diego was a possibility as well. Thus, they suggested, the Savannah & Albany might become part of a transcontinental route.94 The S&A never reached Alabama, but, in 1856, it did manage to open 68 miles of tracks between Savannah and Screven, in western Wayne County. By then it had been renamed the Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad. It was also in full competition with the Brunswick & Florida to open a railroad to the southwestern rivers. The SA&G had the advantage of a larger supply of investment capital, thanks to its base in Savannah, but the Brunswick & Florida's charter gave it control over the most favorable route. Much as it had done with the Western & Atlantic, the state government intervened and devised a plan to unify the two efforts. A new trunk line would be established, to which each of the competing railroads would build. The state would invest $1 million to go along with investments by Savannah, Thomasville, and the SA&G.95 The result, chartered in 1856, was the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad, known unofficially as the "Main Trunk Railroad." By 1859, the Brunswick & Florida had been completed from Brunswick to the Atlantic & Gulf at McDonald.96 Around this time, a northern branch was also 23 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey being built from Schlatterville, about twelve miles east of McDonald. Aimed northwest towards Albany, it crossed the A&G at Tebeauville, a location that later became part of Waycross. By 1861, this branch had reached a few miles beyond Tebeauville to Waresboro, then the seat of Ware County. In theory, the Atlantic & Gulf extended from a connection with the Savannah, Albany & Gulf at Screven, but the SA&G continued to operate under its own name. It continued pushing the rails westward, reaching Blackshear END OF THE LINE As railroads were extended, many towns lost their advantages as terminals. One was Oglethorpe, the seat of Macon County. In his 1860 Gazetteer, Adiel Sherwood described the place a few years after the tracks were extended to Albany: Oglethorpe, a considerable town, though in a state of dilapidation. When S.W. Railroad reached this point, say in 1851, the people imagined it would never extend any further, and they began to build a permanent city--many of the buildings of brick, large, splendid, beautiful. Speculation in lots and dwellings was a profession, and everybody desired to be in Oglethorpe, as if bewitched by some unaccountable hallucination. Soon as the cars moved on to Americus, thence to Albany, the bubble burst, and now they are removing houses, and they are falling into decay. Cotton in thousands of bags was sold here.1 v 1 Adiel Sherwood, A Gazetteer of Georgia, 4th Ed., Atlanta: J. Richards, 1860, p. 93. Oglethorpe union depot, Macon County Wye track, Oglethorpe, Macon County in April 1859, Homerville six months later, and Valdosta in July 1860. The tracks were completed to Thomasville in 1861. Grading had begun between Thomasville and Bainbridge, but that work stopped as the Civil War erupted and military priorities came to the forefront. In April 1863, two years into the war, the SA&G and the A&G consolidated into a single company known as the Atlantic & Gulf. The Southwestern Railroad Extends its Reach While the Atlantic & Gulf was slowly progressing from the Atlantic Coast towards southwest Georgia, another rail line was approaching from the north. Chartered in 1852, the Georgia & Florida Railroad Company had been authorized by the General Assembly to build from Oglethorpe, or elsewhere on the Southwestern Railroad, to Albany and Thomasville. In addition, it was empowered to continue "to the Florida line in the direction of Tallahassee."97 By 1857, it had laid about 25 miles of tracks when it was purchased by the Southwestern Railroad. The Southwestern finished the work to Albany the same year, and in late 1859 consolidated the Georgia & Florida into its own operations.98 Thus, the Southwestern secured a link to the Flint River at Albany to go along with its line to the Chattahoochee River at Columbus, and it soon added another Chattahoochee branch. Built in 1859-60, it began at Smithville, about twelve miles south of Americus, and proceeded southwest to Dawson and then west to Cuthbert. A few miles west of Cuthbert the railroad split, with one branch running 20 miles to Fort Gaines and the other about 22 miles to Eufaula, Alabama. With a population around 3,400, Eufaula was a substantial place, much more so than Georgetown, a lesser settlement on the Georgia side of the river that was not incorporated until the rails came through.99 To enter Eufaula, the rails crossed the river on "a splendid covered bridge, eighty feet high and 900 feet in length, costing $100,000."100 All of these Southwestern Railroad lines fed back to Macon, giving that city's economy a boost and spurring its growth as a rail center. Macon no longer had to fear becoming just another stop on a Savannah-Atlanta railroad, and it did not have to rely on its barely navigable river. 24 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey A New Link to Charleston The Charleston & Savannah Railroad, chartered in 1854 and constructed between 1856 and 1860, connected Savannah to its old competitor. The 120-mile line was expected to become part of a seaboard route through the Carolinas and Georgia, which would help the Tidewater region compete with the rapidly growing upcountry and avoid potential economic and political disadvantages.101 Because so much of the terrain between the two cities was characterized by broad tidal rivers and extensive wetlands that would require expensive bridging, it was decided that the route should swing well away from the coast. Thus, trains from Savannah first traveled northwest before crossing the Savannah River about 15 miles upstream from the city. From there, the tracks trended away from the coast to Yemassee, South Carolina, where they turned back toward Charleston. Two New Shortlines Also initiating service during this period were two shortlines, one branching from the Macon & Western and the other from the Western & Atlantic. At 16 miles, the longer of the two was the Thomaston & Barnesville Railroad, chartered in 1839 but not opened until 1857. Barnesville had obtained rail service in 1840 when the Monroe Railroad, the predecessor of the Macon & Western, came through, but despite a protracted local effort, Thomaston had failed to attract the iron horse. The town had been established after the Creek cession of 1821, and it grew quickly, in part due to the water power available in its area. By 1829, according to historian David Paterson, Thomaston "could boast of at least twenty-nine houses (only those occupied by whites were counted), ten stores, four law offices, four doctors, six mechanics' shops, a brick courthouse, a jail, male and female academies, and a Methodist meeting house."102 But a railroad depot was much more elusive, and even after the trains arrived, the railroad struggled to pay off its lenders. After less than three years of operation, on May 1, 1860 the Thomaston & Barnesville was sold at sheriff 's auction and was soon thereafter reorganized as the Upson County Railroad. The second new rail line was the four-mile Etowah Railroad, built in 18581859. It ran from a junction with the Western & Atlantic near present- day Emerson to Etowah, a factory village built several years earlier by industrialist Mark Anthony Cooper. At the village, Cooper had established an iron furnace, a rolling mill, a nail factory, flour mills, and other facilities, and he wanted a railroad to link them to the W&A. Towards that end, he and his partners Moses Stroup and Leroy M. Wiley organized the Etowah Railroad Company, chartered in 1847 and authorized to construct a rail line from the W&A to Etowah and as far upriver as Canton and Dahlonega. After the project failed to attract private investment or state assistance, Cooper used $40,000 of his own funds to build the critical section to Etowah.103 Railroads in the Corners In the years leading up to the Civil War, each of Georgia's two northern corners was the scene of interstate railroad construction initiated by neighboring states. On the northeast, in Rabun County, was the Blue Ridge Railroad, chartered in 1852 and funded primarily by South Carolina and Charleston. It was expected to work its way through the Blue Ridge barrier by way of Rabun Gap, one of the lowest passes in the Appalachians. As planned, the 195-mile line would have run from Anderson, South Carolina, to Knoxville, Tennessee. Thirteen tunnels would be required, including a 1.2-mile bore through Stump House Mountain north of Walhalla, South Carolina. The Chattooga River would be bridged near Sandy Ford, and from there the rails would continue up Dicks Creek and Warwoman Valley, passing through two tunnels along the way. At Clayton the tracks would turn north and continue through Rabun Gap to the Little Tennessee River, which the railroad would follow through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Because the region's heavy rainfall would punish lightly constructed lines, the railroad's officers decided to build a high-quality railbed with stone culverts and retaining walls to help prevent washouts. A series of tunnels would allow the railroad to maintain an acceptable grade and a reasonably straight route through the jumble of hills and ridges. By 1860, much of the grading had been accomplished and progress had been made on the tunnels, but funding dried up and the work stopped. None of the Georgia section was completed, and in South Carolina the rails 25 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey only reached from Anderson to Walhalla. The following year, the Civil War diverted attention elsewhere, and all work on the line ended. In Georgia's northwestern corner was the Wills Valley Railroad, an Alabama enterprise intending to connect railroads in that state to those of Tennessee. In 1860, the company opened twelve miles of track running northeast from Trenton in Dade County to a connection with the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad at Wauhatchie, Tennessee, just across the state line. The railroad took its name from Wills Valley, a long hollow between Lookout and Sand mountains that permitted relatively easy travel; that is, as long as one did not plan to go in any direction other than northeast-southwest. Any other course required scaling the high rugged Cumberland Plateau cliffs that extended for dozens of miles on both sides, forming a barrier that stretched from Chattanooga to Gadsden, Alabama. A Growing Antebellum Network The early success of rail led to its further expansion and continued influence on Georgia's settlement patterns and urban development. As more cities, towns, and industrial concerns recognized rail's commercial usefulness and broader potential, more railroads were planned to connect cities and regions. On a lesser scale, too, industrialists recognized the potential opportunities of tying into the burgeoning rail network and planned shortline railroads to connect existing and planned factories. In fact, Georgia was a leading state in the early development of its rail network. Despite initial safety concerns and some early failures, it was clear by the mid-nineteenth century that rail was here to stay. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 26 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Chickamauga, Walker County GEORGIA'S RAILROADS IN 1860 In the 1860 edition of his Georgia gazetteer, Adiel Sherwood remarked on the progress of the state's railroads: Over 1,200 miles of railroad are now open; extensions are made every month. Soon Savannah will be in direct communication with Thomasville and the South-west. Soon Macon and Albany will be in connexion with Brunswick; another seaport will be accessible to the produce of the Empire State of the South, and all the Southern and South-western part greatly benefited. Macon, too, will soon be connected with Augusta direct. Griffin and Atlanta will be united with Jacksonville, Alabama.1 As it turned out, the Macon-Augusta direct connection would have to wait quite a bit longer than Sherwood expected; it would not be completed until 1873. Worse, the link from Griffin and Atlanta to Jacksonville, Alabama, would not happen at all. The railroad construction progress that Sherwood spoke of so optimistically would be halted by the Civil War, and the early postwar years would be dominated by the rebuilding of ruined lines. Nonetheless, at the beginning of the 1860s, the railroad scene looked promising, especially in Atlanta. Forty-four trains entered or left the city each day, and Atlanta's businessmen were promoting two more railroads, the Georgia Western to Alabama and the Georgia Air Line to the northeast. Atlanta, only a little over twenty years old, had become the third largest city in the state, behind Savannah and Augusta. Although it did not control a railroad as did those two older cities, Atlanta had grown quickly as a railroad hub, and its leaders expected rail traffic to continue to boost the local economy. The Georgia Western and the Georgia Air Line represented investments with a strong likelihood of good returns; however, the city lacked enough capital to build both. The proposed railroads competed against each other, and conflict over the two had prevented either one from being built.2 In any case, an optimistic outlook for railroad investments was understandable because Georgia's major railroad companies had, in spite of some periods of difficulty, achieved financial success. The Central of Georgia regularly paid dividends of at least eight to ten percent; the Atlanta & West Point paid eight percent interest after the line opened; the Georgia Railroad paid in dividends an amount equal to its entire capital plus 50 percent more; and the Southwestern paid good dividends from its beginning.3 Nationwide, railroads had achieved remarkable progress, increasing from 380 miles in 1833 to 2,800 in 1840, to 9,000 in 1850, and to more than 30,000 in 1860.4 Nearly a third of this mileage was in the South, and 1,404 miles of it was in Georgia.5 But these figures masked several problems among Southern railroads. As historian John Stover explained: The four major trunk lines of the North together possessed roughly as much rolling stock and motive power as could be found in all the states south of the Ohio....In general, the southern roads also had inferior equipment. This, plus lighter rail and lower volume of business, meant that southern trains as a rule were slower and offered poorer service than those of the North. In short, at the conclusion of the decade the southern railroads were not too well prepared to meet the tasks that lay ahead.6 v Atlanta Union Station, ca. 1860 1 Adiel Sherwood, A Gazetteer of Georgia, 4th ed. (Macon: S. Boykin, 1860), p. 3-4. 2 Shingleton, p. 75. 3 Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 27. 4 Association of American Railroads, Chronology of Railroading in America, April 2014. 5 Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 5, 6 Ibid., p. 14. 27 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey ATTITUDES TOWARD THE RAILROAD IN ANTEBELLUM GEORGIA Georgians were hardly of one mind concerning the railroads. Many of the planters, who dominated the Southern economy and thus its politics, saw the railroads as agents of industrialization, which in their view was a threat to slavery. They believed that an expansion of manufacturing in the South would bring in immigrants who had no stake in slavery and thus might support its abolition. Given the continuing hostility of the North to the South's "peculiar institution," they rejected any move that would encourage Southerners to be more like Northerners. On the other hand, many planters had a financial interest in the railroads because they leased their slaves to grading contractors in return for railroad stock. Similarly, some worried that trains would provide a means for slaves to escape, but they also needed to get their cotton to market, and the railroads were showing good results in that regard.110 Like the planters, merchants had mixed feelings towards the railroads. While most welcomed the arrival of the iron horse, some worried that railroads would divert existing trade, leaving them with deteriorating markets. In some cases the pessimists were right, especially where a new railroad was built near a town, causing business to relocate to a place along the tracks. Among numerous examples are Cassville, where the Western & Atlantic brought a shift of commerce to Cartersville, and Troupville, where the Atlantic & Gulf caused a movement to the new town of Valdosta. In terminal cities, merchants almost always favored the trains because they funneled trade and commerce to those places. The results were especially clear in Charleston and Savannah: by 1850, thirty-five percent of the country's entire cotton crop was hauled to and shipped from the two cities.111 Of course, planters and merchants were not the only people in the South. Most of the region's residents praised the railroads because they enabled faster personal travel, quicker delivery of the mail, and better access to the products of other places. Military leaders saw railroads as conducive to rapid troop deployment.112 Newspaper publishers appreciated the railroads because they sped up dissemination of the news. Timber cutters profited by providing the railroad companies with crossties and wood to fire the locomotives. Farmers benefited by replacing long and arduous wagon trips with shorter hauls to the nearest depot. Slaves, no doubt, had varying attitudes towards the railroads. Many slaves certainly had direct experience with railroads, building dozens and maintaining them afterwards. Slaves also worked on the trains, most often as firemen who did the hot, dirty work of tossing wood into the locomotive's firebox.113 Some were owned by railroad companies, rather than leased from planters or contractors, as was the usual procedure. For example, the Georgia Railroad owned at least 162 slaves.114 Like all Americans, enslaved or not, Southerners were amazed at the trains' speed, often as high as 25 to 30 miles an hour. Some questioned whether the human body could withstand such rapid conveyance, while others believed that traveling so much faster than the pace that humans had observed for millennia might invoke God's displeasure. Concerns about the new machines led a few towns to force the railroad to keep its distance, requiring it to stay on the outskirts or bypass the place altogether. Arriving in advance of the trains were tales about how locomotive smoke irritated lungs and damaged laundry and curtains, and how sparks from the engines set buildings and dry grasses afire. All of this was true, if often exaggerated. Also true was that some horses were frightened by the noisy locomotives with their churning drive mechanisms. Trains did, on occasion, kill livestock and pets, as claimed, and grade crossings were dangerous for the unwary. To minimize residents' complaints, some railroads stopped steam locomotives at the edge of town and replaced them with horses for the final leg of a trip.115 It should be noted, however, that drayage operators may have had a role in keeping some railroads on the outskirts because that gave them longer hauls which put more money in their pockets. In any case, the stories about railroads being denied entry into towns are often more legend than fact. Other factors such as topography, land acquisition costs, and difficulty in crossing certain properties played a bigger role. v 28 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 5 WAR COMES TO GEORGIA: 1861-1865 After South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860, Georgia also took up the question. Support for the Union tended to be strongest in two regions: the mountains and the wiregrass-piney woods of the Coastal Plain. Both areas had been largely untouched by the railroads, which had focused on the Piedmont, the fertile valleys of the northwest, and the plantation districts of the southwest, that is, those lands where cotton was king. No railroad, for example, existed in wiregrass Montgomery County. Its two representatives to the secession convention stood firmly against disunion.116 Ultimately though, the General Assembly voted in favor of Secession. The Confederate Rail System Georgia's rail network had developed such that there were two east-west rail corridors across central Georgia, one from Augusta to West Point, by way of Atlanta, and the other from Savannah to Columbus, by way of Macon. In south Georgia, a line from Savannah extended only as far west as Thomasville. The state's single north-south route ran between Chattanooga, Atlanta, Macon, and Albany. A few branches complemented these routes. As for adjacent states, Georgia maintained direct rail connections to Alabama, Tennessee, and South Carolina; only North Carolina and Florida were excluded. Most of these links were made at cities or towns, specifically Augusta, Chattanooga, Columbus, Savannah, and West Point, while the only rural crossing of the state line lay between Dalton and Cleveland, Tennessee. Late in the war, Florida became connected by way of a line running south from the Atlantic & Gulf at Lawton (now DuPont) to the Pensacola & Georgia Railroad at Live Oak, Florida. It was not completed, however, until March 4, 1865, much too late to help the war effort.117 Overall, the Confederate rail system was far from being an efficient network. The eleven individual states were haphazardly linked and especially deficient in east-west rail connections. For example, Georgia had its two east-west cross-state routes, but Alabama had only one, the Memphis & Charleston, and it was located so far north that it was practically a Tennessee railroad. The Alabama cities of Mobile, Montgomery, and Selma each had a railroad, but because none connected with the other, no continuous rail route crossed central or southern Alabama. Tennessee had a fairly extensive rail system, but it too had no direct east-west routes, and it was not connected to either of the Carolinas. In Florida, a railroad linked Jacksonville and Tallahassee, with a branch to the coast at St. Marks. Another line extended from Fernandina to Cedar Key. Neither connected with any lines in Georgia, at least not until late in the war. Florida's only rail connection to its fellow Confederate states was a railroad from Pensacola to Montgomery. The inferiority of the South's rail network is illustrated by the route that Jefferson Davis took to get to Montgomery for his inauguration as Confederate president. He began his trip in Jackson, Mississippi, some 250 miles west of Montgomery. The two towns, however, were not linked by rail, so he had to take a train north into Tennessee, east to Chattanooga, southeast to Atlanta, and southwest to Montgomery; the total travel amounted to 750 miles.118 In some parts of the Confederacy there were no direct rail connections within cities, a problem in that freight had to be unloaded and reloaded, increasing the chances of damage and loss. Similarly, passengers had to get off one train and board another to continue their journey. The faulty system came about because local business interests prevailed upon local governments to prohibit direct interchange; their argument was that their towns would become mere way stations rather than terminals. Typically, these were men whose livelihood depended on hauling goods and passengers from one railroad terminal to another, along with hoteliers and restaurateurs who enjoyed added income from delayed travelers.119 Another problem was lack of uniformity in track gauge. All of the railroads in Georgia and the majority of those in the South had been built at the five-foot gauge. In North Carolina and Virginia, however, most railroads used the standard gauge: 4 feet, 8 and one-half inches. That gauge was also used by the Montgomery & West Point. Once again, unloading and reloading was necessary where the gauges changed. 29 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1861 30 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey SHERMAN'S SUPPLY LINE: THE RAILROAD Mention Sherman and railroads at the same time and most people will think of the wrecked tracks, twisted rails, ruined bridges, and charred depots of the March to the Sea. Before that affair, however, Sherman had a vastly different relationship with the rails. In his memoirs, he told of the crucial role of the railroad in his capture of Atlanta: The Atlanta campaign would simply have been impossible without the use of the railroads from Louisville to Nashville--185 miles--from Nashville to Chattanooga--151 miles--and from Chattanooga to Atlanta--137 miles. Every mile of this "single track" was so delicate, that one man could in a minute have broken or moved a rail, but our trains usually carried along the tools and means to repair such a break. We had, however, to maintain strong guards and garrisons at each important bridge or trestle--the destruction of which would have necessitated time for rebuilding... Our trains from Nashville forward were operated under military rules, and ran about ten miles an hour in gangs of four trains of ten cars each. Four such groups of trains daily made 160 cars, of ten tons each, carrying 1,600 tons, which exceeded the absolute necessity of the army, and allowed for the accidents that were common and inevitable. But, as I have recorded, that single stem of railroad, 473 miles long, supplied an army of 100,000 men and 35,000 animals for the period of 196 days, viz., from May 1 to Ruins of Georgia Railroad roundhouse, Altanta, 1864 (Library of Congress) November 12, 1864. To have delivered regularly that amount of food and forage by ordinary wagons would have required 36,800 wagons of six mules each, allowing each wagon to have hauled two tons twenty miles each day, a simple impossibility in roads such as then existed in that region of country. Therefore, I reiterate that the Atlanta campaign was an impossibility without these railroads; and only then, because we had the men and means to maintain and defend them, in addition to what were necessary to overcome the enemy. v From: Conclusion--Military Lessons of the War, in Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, by William T. Sherman, 2nd ed., Vol. 2, New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1889. Along with inconsistent track gauges, the South had a shortage of iron for rails, largely because it depended on iron producers located beyond its borders. Because the Southern economy had been dominated by planters and merchants, the region had developed far less heavy industry than the North. The South was also at a disadvantage in that its rail system was half the size of the North's.120 It had fewer options when a part of the network came under stress, and, given that most of the war was fought on Southern soil, there was no lack of stress. Lastly, the Confederate rail network was not under the control of the Confederate government. Under the principle of States' Rights, each state retained authority over the railroads within its borders, and state officers often resisted Confederate government "interference." Union forces, in contrast, operated under a strong central government that took a different view. Historian Christian Wolmar explains: Lincoln had, right from the start of the war, proclaimed that the railroads must obey government orders. Now, with the war raging, he realized that it was essential to enshrine this in law. A series of congressional acts in early 1862 allowed the federal government to take possession of a range of important railroad and telegraph lines...and placed railroad employees under strict military control. The United States Military Railroads was formally created to operate lines under direct government control.121 31 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Chattahoochee River, West Point, Troup County 32 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey By the middle of the war, in both the North and the South, the rails were performing a vital role in hauling raw materials to armament factories, carrying supplies to the troops, and often moving the troops themselves from one battle front to another. A notable example of a major troop movement took place in 1863 when the railroads transferred General James Longstreet's men from Virginia to Chickamauga in an operation described by Confederate staff officer G. Moxley Sorrell: "Never before were so many troops moved over such worn-out railways, none first-class from the beginning. Never before were such crazy cars--passenger, baggage, mail, coal, box, platform, all and every sort wobbling on the jumping strap iron-- used for hauling good soldiers."122 Because of its iron shortage, the Confederacy was forced to take up the rails on less-important lines and move them to where they were most needed. Usually the iron went to other railroads, but some was diverted to the navy for use on ironclads. Among the unfortunate donors was the Brunswick & Florida. It had lost its seaport terminal after Brunswick was abandoned in early 1862, and its area of operation was far from the battle lines and of minor value in supplying food and supplies for the army. In 1863 the Confederate government seized its 60 miles of completed tracks and removed the rails. The Atlanta Campaign By the third year of the war, Georgia had largely escaped damage from invading armies, but that was soon to change. In May 1864, Union forces under the command of General William T. Sherman began an offensive campaign on Atlanta, the rail hub of the deep South and one of the leading manufacturing and supply centers of the Confederacy. The troops followed the Western & Atlantic Railroad from Chattanooga, diverting away from the railroad in flanking movements when advantageous. A series of battles along the rail corridor failed to stop Sherman's southward progress. During the Battle of Resaca, the two sides fought over the W&A's Oostanaula River bridge, two years earlier a target of Andrews' Raiders who tried to burn it but failed because its timbers had been soaked from rain.123 At the Etowah River, a skirmish took place on May 20th as the Confederates retreated across the river to Allatoona and burned the railroad bridge behind them. Shortly afterwards, Union troops marched up Mark Cooper's Etowah Railroad and destroyed his complex of factories and mills. At Kennesaw Mountain, close by the railroad at Marietta, a battle on June 27, 1864, failed to dislodge Confederate defenders. Once again, Sherman diverted his forces to bypass the obstruction, forcing the Confederates to move south to stay in front of him. By early July, they had retreated to the south side of the Chattahoochee River, burning the railroad bridge behind them.124 At Atlanta, four railroads led into the city: the Western & Atlantic from the north, the Georgia Railroad from the east, and the Macon & Western and the Atlanta & West Point from the south. Sherman, already in possession of the W&A, targeted the other three rail lines. Next to fall was the Georgia Railroad, which Union troops cut on July 18th at Stone Mountain.125 Union forces then pushed west along the railroad towards Atlanta, forcing a major battle on July 22nd. This clash became known as the Battle of Atlanta, commemorated by the great painting at the Atlanta Cyclorama, in which the railroad figures prominently.126 On August 5th and 6th, Union troops attacked at Utoy Creek, attempting to reach the Macon & Western near East Point so that they could cut Atlanta's supply line from the south. Unable to overcome the dug-in Confederates while taking unacceptable losses in a fierce battle, the Union commander withdrew his forces.127 A week later, General Joseph Wheeler's Confederate cavalry attempted to disrupt Sherman's supply line, the Western & Atlantic, at Dalton. After fighting into the night with Union defenders, Wheeler withdrew. By late August, many Union troops had moved south of Atlanta, again threatening the railroads. At Jonesboro on the Macon & Western, a battle on September 1st forced a Confederate retreat, sealing the fate of Atlanta. As rebel forces evacuated the city, they destroyed seven locomotives and 81 cars of ammunition to keep them out of the hands of Union troops. Lost in the ensuing explosions was the Atlanta Rolling Mill, which had been a critical supplier of iron rails for the Confederacy. Historian Franklin Garrett described the scene: As the flames reached each car, it exploded with a terrific din. Five hours were occupied in this work of demolition, which also included the rolling mill. Flames shot to a tremendous height and the exploding missiles scattered their red-hot fragments right and left. The earth trembled... Hundreds of people flocked to high places and watched with breathless excitement the volcanic scene on the Georgia Railroad.128 33 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Atlanta surrendered the next day. The Union's capture of the city severely limited the Confederacy's logistical options because it cut off one of the two east-west rail routes across Georgia (the other being through Macon), and it blocked the only route that ran north-south. Atlanta's fall also greatly boosted Lincoln's prospects for reelection. Sherman remained in Atlanta through September and October. On October 5th, Confederate troops tried to cut his railroad supply line by attacking Union forces guarding Allatoona Pass, where the Western & Atlantic penetrated a ridge by way of a 175-foot deep gorge, cut by hand through solid rock.129 After failing to overcome the Union defenders, the Confederates retreated. Such attacks on the railroads took place throughout the war, causing considerable damage as each side descended on the tracks and equipment, wrecking them to prevent their use by their opponents. Often, though, track repairs were made quickly and the lines were returned to service within days. This was especially the case after cavalry attacks; the horsemen rarely took the time to thoroughly rip up tracks, instead focusing on setting fire to depots and rail cars.130 The March to the Sea Sherman left Atlanta on November 15th, 1864. As he departed the city, he ordered his troops to destroy its remaining railroad facilities and to do as much damage to the tracks as possible to delay Southern troop and material movements and otherwise make it more difficult for the Confederacy to continue the war. Said Sherman: "I attached much importance to this destruction of the railroad ... gave it my own personal attention, and made reiterated orders to others on the subject."131 The Union army advanced in two wings, one eastward along the Georgia Railroad and the other southward along the Macon & Western. The latter force soon turned away from the M&W and marched east to Stockbridge and McDonough. Meanwhile, the left wing destroyed the Georgia Railroad as they went, taking up the rails, heating them over bonfires, and twisting them into shapes that became known as Sherman's neckties. They destroyed water and fuel stations, depots, and any other facility that could be of use to the rebel railroaders.132 At the Oconee River, they turned south towards the state capital at Milledgeville. Although the right wing advanced toward Macon and inflicted some rail damage along the way, it ultimately passed to the north. Once on the east side of Macon, troops began ripping up the tracks of the Central Railroad and destroying factories and mills, some of them at Griswoldville, where a battle was fought on November 22nd.133 Sherman's strategy was to threaten both Macon and Augusta, forcing the authorities to keep troops in each city. His primary target, though, was Savannah, where three railroads--the Central, the Savannah, Albany & Gulf, and the Charleston & Savannah--came together at yet another important transportation artery, the Savannah River. After winning a decisive battle at Fort McAllister on December 13th and laying siege to the city, he captured it a week later. On December 22nd, Sherman presented Savannah to Lincoln as a Christmas gift. As for Sherman's goal of destroying the railroads, it had been broadly successful. On the Central's mainline, the damage began just east of Macon and continued to the crossing of the Little Ogeechee River, about forty miles northwest of Savannah. Six miles of the Central's Eatonton-Milledgeville branch were also destroyed. On the Georgia Railroad, the destruction stretched from Atlanta to the Oconee River near Greensboro. On the Augusta & Savannah, some 24 miles were wrecked. Near Savannah, troops destroyed over 40 miles of the Savannah, Albany & Gulf.134 A number of railroad bridges were destroyed. Among them was the Georgia Railroad's structure over the Oconee, described as a "fine piece of engineering, some 400 yards long and rising 60 feet above the water."135 But Confederate defenders managed to save the Savannah, Albany & Gulf 's Altamaha River bridge at Doctortown, near Jesup, in a mid-December battle. They had earlier been successful in defending the Central's Oconee River bridge. From Savannah, Sherman's army marched into South Carolina, taking its path of destruction to "the seat of secession." Once again the troops put their rail-twisting and bridge-burning skills to work, this time on the Charleston & Savannah Railroad. They then turned north to Columbia and by early March were in North Carolina. In April, Confederate forces surrendered and the war was over. 34 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Some years after the war, Sherman visited Atlanta and was asked by Atlanta Constitution owner Evan P. Howell why he chose Atlanta as a military objective. "Atlanta was like my hand," the general explained. "The palm was the city or hub. The fingers were its spokes--in this case the railroads. I knew that if I could destroy those railroads, the last link of the Confederacy would be broken."136 Rail as Military Objective Georgia's antebellum rail network played a crucial military role in the Civil War. Early in the war, the state's railroads transported supplies, equipment, and soldiers, primarily northward to areas of active operations. Despite political and technological impediments, the Confederacy's railroads were its lifelines. When Georgia itself became an active military theater, these same railroads at once became primary objectives; both armies maneuvered to sever each other's rail connections and thus its lines of communication and supply. These troop movements resulted in several battles and numerous actions to seize or destroy the rails. Following Sherman's success at Atlanta, the Union general's strategy of destroying Georgia's-- and the Confederacy's--ability to conduct the war through destruction of infrastructure, and specifically rail capacity, undoubtedly contributed to the Union victory and the fall of the Confederacy. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 35 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 6 REBUILDING: 1866-1872 To mend their shattered economy, Georgians needed the railroads to resume their roles as arteries of commerce and communication. But before that could be accomplished, it was necessary to repair the widespread damage inflicted during the war. Many locomotives and rail cars had been destroyed or damaged, depots and bridges had been burned, and miles of track lay in ruins. The Central's mainline between Macon and Savannah suffered the worst; it would not be back into full operation until June 12, 1866, over a year after the end of the war.137 Although the railroads in south Georgia had avoided most of the fighting, long stretches of tracks had been taken up by Confederate military authorities for re-use on critical supply lines. Moreover, construction on several lines had been halted by the war, leaving them unfinished and deteriorating. The situation was worsened by the state's shortage of investment capital. Confederate currency was worthless, and because so much money had been sunk into land and slavery, the loss of the latter wiped out many fortunes. Before the war, Georgia's 462,000 slaves were valued at $450 to $500 million; after the war, that value was zero.138 Many planters who had invested in railroads before the war no longer had the wherewithal to do so. Those railroad companies that owned slaves lost their shameful investments as well. One such company was the Central, as noted matter-of-factly by rail historian Richard Prince: "The emancipation of Negro slaves accounted for a $220,100.00 item written off on the liability side of the ledger books of the company for loss in ownership of its Negro labor force."139 Another prominent Georgia enterprise, the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company, had owned at least 162 slaves. No ledger-book entry for that loss was recorded. Not only had Georgia based its economy on slaves and land, it also had neglected industrial development, causing little wealth to be accumulated in that sector. Most of the cotton produced in the state was shipped to Northern or foreign markets, and of the few factories that did convert cotton into cloth, several had been destroyed. Many of the factories that produced war material had been wrecked, either by Union troops or, as exemplified at the Atlanta Rolling Mill, by the Confederates fleeing ahead of them. Industrial capital that might have gone to rebuilding the railroads was needed to rebuild the factories instead. For these reasons, Georgia's railroad owners had to go to Northern and European investors for capital, and to secure these investments, stateendorsed railroad bonds became a necessity for many lines. Beginning in 1867, however, state government was in the hands of Republicans, some of whose leaders were from the North, and whose base included former slaves. Republicans were, of course, the party of Lincoln, the party of Abolition, the party that wrote the Reconstruction rules that so infuriated most white Southerners. Thus, the railroads became embroiled in politics, and they could not avoid conflicts between the Republicans and the unreconstructed rebels who would use politics as the continuation of war. Railroad building and rebuilding also had to go on in a time marked by widespread violence against the newly freed African Americans, especially those who rejected a return to the cotton fields under the masters' terms and those who attempted to exercise their rights as citizens. Everyone knew that railroads were essential to the rebuilding of the state, but not everyone agreed that railroads should be set apart from the racial politics of the day. Hannibal Kimball During the Reconstruction years, the name most associated with railroad investment was Atlanta businessman Hannibal Kimball, who had come to the city from New England as the Southern representative for the Pullman Company, the builder of railroad sleeping cars that later dominated the industry. His personal charm, reputation as a businessman and administrator, as well as his connections with Northern investors made him welcome in the rebuilding city. Although a Republican, he kept his politics out of his business affairs as much as possible. Among his railroad activities was the Brunswick & Albany Railroad, organized in 1869 to rebuild the former Brunswick & Florida Railroad, which had been dismantled by Confederate authorities during the war to resupply more militarily important railways elsewhere. Kimball assumed control in late 1870. 36 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey NARROW-GAUGE RAILROADS 37 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey In north Georgia, Kimball became interested in the Cartersville & Van Wert Railroad, chartered in 1866, and planned as a 45-mile connection between the Western & Atlantic at Cartersville and the future Selma, Rome & Dalton at Prior, near the Georgia and Alabama border.140 Iron and slate deposits along its route promised substantial freight revenues for the company. After several years of futile attempts to raise capital for the railroad, state government stepped in and, in March 1869, authorized bonds for the project, which were to be given to the directors at $12,000 per mile, subject to certain construction goals being met.141 Soon afterwards, construction began between Cartersville and Euharlee Creek, but the June 1870 failure of a subcontractor caused work to halt. Other problems arose, such as disagreements over who should hold the bonds and when subcontractors and iron rail suppliers should be paid.142 Nonetheless, fourteen miles of track between Cartersville and Taylorsville were completed in 1870. In October of the same year, the Cartersville & Van Wert was renamed the Cherokee Railroad. In 1871, the Cherokee Railroad extended the tracks nine miles from Taylorsville to Rockmart using the three-foot gauge rather than the five-foot gauge used earlier. This change was probably due to the influence of Edward Hulbert, a director of the Cherokee Railroad and a leading advocate of narrow-gauge construction, then new to the United States. Hulbert had adopted the doctrine of Robert F. Fairlie, a London engineer who promoted narrow-gauge railways as a less-expensive alternative to the various broader gauges. The tracks between Taylorsville and Rockmart marked the first use of a narrow gauge in Georgia and the second in the South (after the Tuskegee Railroad of Alabama). They also apparently preceded the better-known narrow-gauge of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in Colorado.143 While the Cherokee Railroad was laying its narrow-gauge tracks, Kimball was finding it increasingly difficult to meet his financial obligations. He had undertaken too many expensive projects, and his credit standing with his Northern bankers was declining. His close association with Republican Governor Rufus Bullock had opened him up to intense attacks from Democrats, particularly the old slaveholding planter aristocracy that had been forced from power during Reconstruction. "Leading conservatives such as Robert Toombs and Alexander Stephens," wrote one historian, "also distrusted the transplanted northerner's motives. In several letters to Stephens, Toombs vowed to bring about Kimball and Bullock's downfall."144 South Georgia Besides Kimball's Brunswick & Albany, other south Georgia railroads were busy laying tracks. In 1867 the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad extended its line from Thomasville to Bainbridge, finally reaching the Flint River. Bainbridge, a few miles upstream from the Flint's junction with the Chattahoochee, had been established in 1824 as the seat of Decatur County. From the town, riverboats could travel down the Apalachicola River to the Gulf, as well as upstream to various cotton shipping points along the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers. At Thomasville, the South Georgia & Florida Railroad had begun building a line running from the Atlantic & Gulf north to Albany. After completing 24 miles of tracks between Thomasville and Pelham, it was purchased in 1869 by the A&G. In 1870, its tracks were completed to Albany, giving that city its second railroad, the Southwestern being the first. Another postwar Atlantic & Gulf connection was the Macon & Brunswick Railroad. It had been promoted in the legislature before the war and was enthusiastically received by Macon merchants, who felt that the Central of Georgia needed competition. Support also came from Brunswick businessmen, who hoped to capture some of the upstate cotton trade.145 Forty miles of tracks from Macon to Cochran, along with a 10-mile branch to Hawkinsville, were completed by November 1865.146 However, it would not be until 1870 that the M&B opened a connection with the Atlantic & Gulf at Jesup and not until 1872 that it opened to Brunswick.147 Up the coast from Brunswick, the Charleston & Savannah Railroad was reorganized in 1866 and renamed the Savannah & Charleston Railroad. It was in such poor condition, though, that it did not reopen for traffic until 1869-70. Meanwhile at Augusta, a third rail link between Georgia and South Carolina was under construction. Called the Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta Railroad, it entered the city in 1870 on a new covered bridge about a block upstream from the South Carolina Railroad's river crossing.148 Augusta now had four railroads: the Georgia, the Central, the South Carolina, and the new CC&A. 38 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 39 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Chula, Tift County The ETV&G In 1869, the East Tennessee & Georgia merged with the East Tennessee & Virginia to form the East Tennessee, Virginia, & Georgia Railroad, establishing a single-owner route from Bristol, Virginia, to the Western & Atlantic at Dalton. The following year, another railroad arrived at Dalton under the name Selma, Rome & Dalton Railroad. Chartered in 1848 as the Alabama & Tennessee River Railroad, the SR&D was planned as a Selma to Gadsden line, but by the close of the war the north end had only reached Blue Mountain, near Anniston, Alabama. After the anticipated connection at Gadsden failed to materialize, the company's directors decided to extend the line 101 miles through Rome to the Western & Atlantic. After entering receivership in 1874, the SR&D was sold and reorganized as the Georgia Southern Railroad, and in 1881 the Georgia Southern was sold to the ETV&G, which had owned much of its stock. Alabama and Tennessee connections The years 1869 and 1870 saw other important developments along the Alabama border. A bridge constructed in 1869 over the Chattahoochee River at Columbus gave that city a direct rail connection to Alabama's Mobile & Girard Railroad.149 Upstream at West Point, the Montgomery & West Point Railroad, which had bridged the river in 1855, merged with the Western Railroad of Alabama in 1870. At the far northern end of the Georgia-Alabama border, the Wills Valley Railroad merged in 1868 with the North East & South West Alabama Railroad to form the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad. In 1871, its tracks were extended southwest from Trenton into Alabama as part of a 293-mile line from Chattanooga to Meridian, Mississippi. At its northern end in Georgia and Alabama, the A&C coursed through the scenic valley between Lookout and Sand mountains, two plateaus forming an 80-mile-long double wall that discouraged any thought of building an east-west railroad through the area. The barrier tended to funnel rail traffic to Chattanooga, thus strengthening that city's status as a major rail hub. Another railroad entering Chattanooga from the west was the Nashville & Chattanooga. In 1872, it merged with the Nashville & Northwestern, and the following year the combined railroad was renamed the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis. Meanwhile, a future Chattanooga rail connection was developing far to the south. Known as the Savannah, Griffin & North Alabama Railroad, it had been chartered in 1854 but had been delayed by financial problems and the war. A summary of the railroad's status in or around 1863 was provided by Hill & Swayze's Confederate States Rail-Road & Steam-Boat Guide: This company was organized October 6th, 1859, with a capital of over $700,000. The principal grading, from Griffin to the Chattahoochee river, in Coweta county, has been completed, and the company is now in good condition, being free from debt. And although the progress in building was temporarily suspended, on account of the war, still they are ready to resume whenever a favorable time arrives. This road makes important connections, as will be seen by reference to a map. Starting at Griffin, Ga., via Newnan, to Decatur, Ala., reducing the distance from Memphis to Savannah about 100 miles, and to Charleston, 75 miles. It penetrates a populous and fertile section of country, hitherto undeveloped. Principal office at Griffin, Ga.150 After the war, the SG&NA's bonds were endorsed by the State of Georgia at the rate of $12,000 per mile, which was enough to start the laying of tracks.151 The railroad opened from Griffin to Newnan in 1870, and to Carrollton in 1872. By this time, the SG&NA had become a subsidiary of the Macon & Western, while the M&W itself had become a target of the Central and the Macon & Brunswick, both of which intended to lease or acquire it. A court battle ended in favor of the Central, and in 1872 the M&W was merged into the Central and the SG&NA went with it. The SG&NA originally planned to build its line to the Tennessee River at Decatur or Guntersville. The intended northern terminus was later changed to Gadsden, but that goal also remained unachieved. Carrollton would remain the end of the line, and the town would have no other railroad until 1888 when the Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus arrived. Activity in Georgia's Piedmont The Central of Georgia controlled another railroad eighteen miles south of 40 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Griffin. Built in 1856 as the Thomaston & Barnesville, the sixteen-mile line had been reorganized as the Upson County Railroad in 1860. It had suffered significant damage to equipment and stations during the war and had to suspend service in early 1866 due to unsafe conditions caused by its rotten crossties. With the devaluation of Confederate currency, the company had no funds to repair its tracks. To make matters worse, the lack of rail service was causing the countryside along the line to become depopulated, thereby reducing potential revenues that would be needed to resuscitate the railroad. Finally, after initially offering no help, the Macon & Western came to the rescue. It leased the UCRR, and between Augusta and December 1870, it rebuilt the line at a cost of $19,000. Thus, after nearly five years of inactivity, the railroad resumed operations.152 In 1872, Macon gained a new line with the completion of the Macon & Augusta Railroad. It had been chartered in 1859, a couple of years before the war, but a decade later only about thirty miles had been built. After contractor Grant, Alexander & Company leased the state penitentiary in 1869 and put its prisoners to work on the tracks, the project was pushed to a conclusion. The railroad ran 74 miles northeast from Macon to Warrenton, where it connected with the four-mile Warrenton-Camak branch of the Georgia Railroad. The Georgia Railroad & Banking Company, which had leased the M&A in 1867, absorbed it into its own operations in 1878.153 The Macon & Augusta gave Milledgeville a second railroad to go along with its Central branch line that ran south to Gordon. Less fortunate was the six-decade-old town of Clinton, then the seat of Jones County, which was bypassed by the new line. Once one of Georgia's largest towns, Clinton would also be left off the route of a later railroad, the Covington & Macon, leading to the community's decline and the moving of the county seat to nearby Gray in 1905. The most significant railroad to open during the period was the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line, promoted before the war as the Georgia Air Line. Running from Atlanta to Charlotte, North Carolina, it became a key part of a newly developed trunk line between New York and New Orleans. The first 53 miles from Atlanta were finished by 1871, and in 1872 the Richmond & Danville, an expanding Virginia railroad company, extended its credit to guarantee the last stages of construction, taking the line to completion in September 1873. In October 1874, an A&RAL timetable listed only four Georgia towns: Atlanta, Norcross, Gainesville, and Toccoa. Buford, incorporated in 1872 shortly after the railroad came through, may not have grown enough to merit inclusion, but the town did show up on a July 1882 timetable, along with Doraville, Duluth, Suwanee, Flowery Branch, Lula, and Mount Airy. Also included were Roswell Junction and Rabun Gap Junction; the former became Chamblee and the latter became Cornelia. To return to Hannibal Kimball and Governor Bullock, discussed earlier in this chapter, Kimball declared bankruptcy in November 1871, and Bullock had resigned the previous month. After the Democrats regained control of the state, the trumped-up charges against the "carpetbaggers" Kimball and Bullock faded away, and both men returned to prominence in Atlanta's business and civic affairs. Kimball ran for mayor in 1880, and in a heavy turnout lost by only 54 votes.154 Bullock was active with the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce beginning in 1883 and served as its president from 1890 to 1893.155 The Growth Trend Resumed Following the general pause in rail planning and construction during the Civil War, and despite its destructive effects, Georgia fairly rapidly resumed rail development. Additional lines connected the state's urban centers, and new trunk lines continued to stimulate growth and create new communities. Georgia's rail network was maturing from a few critical routes and junctions to a larger network of regional links and hub cities. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 41 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Chickamauga Coke Ovens, Walker County 42 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 7 THE RECOVERY STUMBLES: 1873-1877 "[Atlanta] was the quintessential upcountry boom city, serving as a gathering point for cotton grown in Georgia's Piedmont and a distribution center for Northern goods. Here a visitor in 1870 found `more of the life and stir of business than in all of the other southern cities, which I have seen, put together.'" Eric Foner156 In the late 1860s and early 1870s, Atlanta was in a strong position for an economic boom. It had put up new buildings to replace those destroyed by Union troops; it had replaced Milledgeville as state capital; and it had restarted railroad projects that had been delayed by the war. Equally important, it had energetic businessmen such as Hannibal Kimball who looked to the future rather than to a romanticized past. The planter aristocracy had regained control of the General Assembly and the governor's office, but it had lost its stranglehold on the state's economy. Atlanta's entrepreneurs, aided by the railroads, would be the leaders of the new economy. By 1870, Georgians had rebuilt nearly all of their war-damaged railroads. Mark Cooper's little Etowah Railroad at Allatoona would not return, nor would the Brunswick & Florida's line from Schlatterville to Glenmore, but these were minor losses. No further work on the Blue Ridge Railroad took place after the war; nonetheless that unfortunate line, had it been completed, would have benefited South Carolina more than Georgia. Meanwhile, most of the antebellum rail projects that had been halted by the conflict were restarted: Macon to Augusta, Macon to Brunswick, Thomasville to Bainbridge, and Griffin to Carrollton, to mention a few. But alas, a quick halt to track work came after the Panic of 1873. The triggering event was the September 18, 1873 failure of Jay Cooke and Company, an investment bank that was overly reliant on railroad ventures. In the aftermath, one quarter of the nation's railroads slid into bankruptcy. South Georgia was particularly hard hit with receivership claiming four of its major railroads: the Atlantic & Gulf, the Brunswick & Albany, the Macon & Brunswick, and the Savannah & Charleston. Only the Central and the Southwestern escaped.157 The South, which after the war began trailing other regions in rail expansion, would fall further behind. John Stover noted the impact: "In 1861 the Confederacy possessed nearly a third of the total rail network of the nation. At the end of the war her portion was little more than a quarter of the total, and before 1873 it had dropped to a fifth. In 1880 the 14,811 miles in the southern states constituted less than 16 percent of the national total. The lag in new construction was greatest in the middle and late 1870's. In the years from 1873 to 1879 the southern lines built only 1,356 miles of new tracks. During these years the South was constructing only 8 percent of the total new construction for the entire nation."158 One of the railroads that did make it through the troubled period was the Northeastern Railroad of Georgia, running from Athens to the new Atlanta & Richmond Air Line at Lula. Chartered in 1870 and opened in 1876, the Northeastern gave Athens its long-sought rail link to the north. An earlier group under the name North-Eastern Rail Road Company had received a charter in 1854 with the goal of forming a link with the Blue Ridge Railroad, but no construction had resulted from that effort.159 Since 1841, Athens' only option for rail service had been the Georgia Railroad, and Athenians believed that the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company had shortchanged their city for decades.160 In west Georgia, the economic downturn brought construction of the narrow-gauge North & South Railroad of Georgia to a crawl. Chartered in 1870, the North & South was to stretch from Columbus to LaGrange, Carrollton, and Rome, providing better access to markets in the region. Around 1873, the company opened tracks running north from Columbus to Kingsboro, about three miles beyond Cataula, and by 1875 the line was extended another three miles to Hamilton. This represented only 24 miles of completed tracks in five years (along with some 20 miles that had been graded between Rome and Carrollton). After failing to meet an interest payment, the railroad was sold and reorganized in 1879 as the Columbus & Rome. Running northeast from Columbus was the 28-mile line to Opelika, which opened in the mid-1850s as a branch of the Montgomery & West Point Railroad. Impaired by heavy debt and a frail local economy, the M&WP had been forced to seek outside funding, which it received in 1870 from 43 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey William Wadley, president of the Central Railroad of Georgia. Wadley's assistance allowed the M&WP to complete its trackage from Montgomery to Selma, construction of which had been started by the affiliated Western Rail Road Company of Alabama. On September 1, 1870, that company and the M&WP were consolidated under the Western Rail Road Company of Alabama's corporate name.161 In 1875, the Central Railroad of Georgia and the Georgia Railroad jointly purchased the WR of A, which continued to operate under its own name. The Columbus-Opelika branch would later be sold to the Central and would become part of its line to Birmingham. Another rail company serving Columbus was the Southwestern. Leased by the Central in 1869, it continued to extend its reach into (appropriately) the southwestern part of the state by building a 36-mile line from Albany to Arlington. Opened in 1873, this was part of a planned extension to Blakely. In 1875, the Southwestern also acquired a line to Perry when it took over the twelve-mile Fort Valley & Hawkinsville Railroad. Perry, the county seat of Houston County, had been established not long after the 1821 Creek cession, but had been bypassed by the railroads during its first half-century of existence. In eastern Georgia, a new rail line from Augusta to the coast was completed in 1873. Named the Port Royal Railroad, it ran 112 miles to Port Royal, near Beaufort, South Carolina, where new harbor facilities were to be developed. It had been financially assisted by Northern capitalists, as well as the Georgia Railroad, which expected to benefit from an outlet to the sea that was not controlled by its competitors. However, the railroad soon encountered difficulty in paying its debts, and it was placed in receivership in May 1875. After being sold in 1878, it was renamed the Port Royal & Augusta Railway.162 Sixty miles southwest of Augusta, the three-mile Sandersville & Tennille Railroad opened in 1876. Sandersville, the seat of Washington County, had been established in the 1790s, but the Central had passed it by, perhaps for topographic reasons. Several corporate changes were made during the period. In 1877, the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad was purchased by the British investment group Emile Erlanger & Company and renamed the Alabama Great Southern Railroad. In the same year, the Memphis & Charleston Railroad was leased to the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia. The AGS and the M&C were two of the three railroads--the other was the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis--that approached Chattanooga from the west. In December 1876, the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line Railway was sold under foreclosure and reorganized the following year as the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Railway. The financial depression had pushed the company into what John F. Stover called "the familiar sequence of default, receivership, and foreclosure."163 Undoubtedly, the financial troubles of the mid-to-late 1870s had depleted the fortunes of some railroad investors, but that did not keep Georgia from adding 844 miles of new line in the decade after the Civil War. Among Southern states, its total of 2,264 miles as of 1875 placed it well ahead of second-place Virginia's 1,638 miles.164 Against a National Trend Despite the Panic of 1873 that devastated many railroad interests, Georgia continued to grow its rail network. Still more communities were connected and the commercial benefits of rail were opened up to more locations and more people. By 1875, Georgia had built the most extensive rail network in the South. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 44 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey THE DEPOT In 1916, the nation's railroads owned 85,000 passenger or combination passenger and freight depots, and about 80,000 of these were smaller depots costing less than $25,000 to build.1 The most common type of depot was a long building with a freight room at one end, passenger waiting rooms at the other end, and a depot agent's office in between. Known as combination depots, these structures allowed the agent to handle freight and passenger duties within a single building. On both the track side and the street side of the freight room were large sliding doors that facilitated the movement of goods between railcar and wagon or truck. In south Georgia, a covered open-air freight platform was often attached to the freight room. While the combination depot was ubiquitous, a few towns had separate freight and passenger buildings, often because a newer passenger facility had been built to replace the cramped waiting rooms in the earlier building. An example can be seen at Forsyth, where the 1899 passenger depot stands near the antebellum combination depot. Beginning in the 1890s, Georgia required that the races be separated in depots and passenger cars. The result was the depot with two waiting rooms, one for each race. (Some depots maintained the singleroom arrangement, using railings for separation.) By the time that the Federal courts found this injustice to be unconstitutional, most of the state's depots had closed. Larger towns with more than one railroad often had two or more depots. In some places such as at Dublin and LaGrange these were adjacent to each other, but quite often--such as at Atlanta, Gainesville, and Savannah--they were blocks apart. Major cities could boast of a union depot that handled the passenger business of several railroads. Depots in big towns also offered more in the way of creature comforts, as indicated by historian Eugene Alvarez in his description of Macon's antebellum station: "The Macon depot was a two-story affair built on Fourth Street. Its spacious dimensions measured 370 feet long and 100 feet wide. Comfort and welfare of the passengers were assured by providing a 'ladies' and gentlemen's waiting room,' washrooms, baggage rooms and storage facilities. Besides rooms for porters, the station was equipped with ticket offices, a large dining saloon, a kitchen and a bar. The terminal was lighted by gas and qualified as one of the better stations in the Deep South." 2 Macon went on to erect a much more impressive facility. Opened in 1916, it served 6 different railroads, and during the mid-1920s it handled as many as a hundred arrivals and departures per day. The building still stands today, although it has not functioned as a railroad station in decades. Depots in small towns began closing in the 1950s, and even earlier in the case of the smallest places. The railroads had been centralizing service and accounting functions in ways that made the depot agents expendable. Sometimes depots were given a reprieve by being "dualized," which meant that an agent worked at one depot in the morning and another in the afternoon. An example was in Greensboro, which was dualized with Madison in 1971.3 Many depots were torn down while others were sold, often with the requirement that they be moved away from the tracks. Fortunately, dozens have survived and some of these are now in use as community centers, restaurants, and museums. v __________________________________________________________ 1 Vintage Rails, Jan/Feb 1999, p. 32. 2 Eugene Alvarez, Travel on Southern Antebellum Railroads 1828-1860, University of Alabama Press, 1974, p. 108-09. 3 Robert H. Hanson, Safety-Courtesy-Service; History of the Georgia Railroad, Johnson City, TN: Overmountain Press, 1996, p. 196. Former Georgia Railroad auditor Robert Hanson tells of the closing of several depots including Stone Mountain (1955), Buckhead (1956), Sharon (1957), Mayfield (1958), and Crawfordville (1973). Commenting on a 1953 photo of the depot at Swords, the author notes that it had been closed long before that date. 45 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 8 TOWN CONNECTIONS: 1878-1881 Georgia could be proud of adding rail mileage during such a difficult economy, but many towns remained without rail service. By this time, a town without a rail link was a town destined to struggle economically. Several communities had already faded away, and even those with a courthouse as an economic anchor were threatened--county voters throughout Georgia had shown a willingness to move county seats to locations on railroads. Some of the railroad-less towns were fairly close to an existing rail line, for example Louisville, Monroe, Roswell, and Lawrenceville were each only ten miles away. Others had more distance to cover, but by the early 1880s many of these places were being linked by new lines, long and short. One of the longer railroads was the 51-mile Elberton Air Line, which opened in late 1878. Its three-foot gauge tracks ran from the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line at Toccoa to Elberton, the seat of Elbert County. Although a longestablished town, Elberton was located somewhat out of the way, forcing it to wait for decades to get a railroad. The EAL was controlled by the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Railway. Shortly after the Elberton Air Line opened, a group of Hartwell businessmen incorporated the Hartwell Railroad, which built a 10-mile line from the Hart County seat to the EAL at Bowersville. It opened in October 1879. Like the EAL, the Hartwell Railroad was a three-foot gauge line and was also controlled by the Atlanta & Charlotte. Around the same time, the Gainesville & Dahlonega Railroad began construction between those two northeastern Georgia towns. Dahlonega had been established in 1833 during Georgia's gold rush, replacing Auraria as the seat of Lumpkin County. Gainesville, chartered in 1821, was located on the relatively new Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line. The G&D was planned as a 26mile, three-foot gauge line. In 1878, construction began at Gainesville and continued fifteen miles to Chestatee, but by 1882 only four miles of tracks between Gainesville and the Chattahoochee River had been completed when the enterprise failed. Later efforts to restart the project were ineffective.165 About 40 miles to the west, another line--the Marietta & North Georgia Railroad--was advancing slowly into the Blue Ridge foothills with somewhat more success. Earlier attempts to build on its route had been started by the Ellijay Railroad (1855) and the Marietta, Canton & Ellijay Railroad (1859), but their efforts had come to naught. In 1870, William Phillips of Marietta, a former Confederate general and a close friend of Civil War governor Joseph E. Brown, recast the project as a narrow-gauge line and was able to start construction in 1874. Finally, with the aid of state convict labor, the railroad was completed to Canton in 1879.166 Narrow gauge was also employed by the Cherokee Iron Company on its thirteen-mile Rockmart-Cedartown line, built in 1879. Successor to the Cherokee Railroad, which in 1871 had laid nine miles of narrow-gauge tracks between Taylorsville and Rockmart, Cherokee Iron planned to extend the line to coalfields in St. Clair County, Alabama.167 While all of this was going on, the Georgia Southern Railroad, which lay a few miles north of the Cherokee, was coming under the control of the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia. The ETV&G had been buying up Georgia Southern's stock, and, in 1881, purchased it outright and absorbed it into its own operations. The Georgia Southern had been organized in March 1875 to take over the Selma, Rome & Dalton's tracks within Georgia after the failing SR&D was ordered by the courts to be sold. It was a natural fit for the ETV&G because both railroads connected at Dalton and both ran in an overall northeast-southwest direction. THE RAILROAD COMMISSION OF GEORGIA Georgians held a number of grievances against the railroads, but none were quite as impassioned as their complaints over discriminatory freight rates. As an example, railroads typically favored long-distance shipments over short hauls by charging a lower price per mile for the long hauls. This was particularly resented by farmers, who saw their profits being eaten up by high shipping costs. The issue lead the State to establish a new regulatory body: the Railroad Commission of Georgia. Formed in 1879, it preceded federal regulation of the railroads under the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.v 46 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey One other corporate change should be mentioned: In 1881, the Louisville & Nashville acquired a controlling interest in the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis. At the time, neither railroad company had any lines in Georgia, but both would later enter Atlanta and between them would have three lines in northwest Georgia. The Wadley Lease The late 1870s and early 1880s were a time of instability and uncertainty for many railroad companies in the South. Large systems such as the Richmond & Danville, the Louisville & Nashville, and the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia were buying stock control of smaller lines and disrupting established connections for other lines. Medium-sized operations that lost connections had to replace them either by constructing new tracks to friendly railroads or by acquiring other railroads and getting so big that they could not be easily swallowed up. It was in this environment that the directors of the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company decided to lease their railroad properties and concentrate their energies on banking.168 In 1881, company representatives met with the board of directors of the Central Railroad & Banking Company to discuss a possible lease. After considering the proposal, the Central's directors declined to make the lease, and the meeting broke up. William M. Wadley, the Central's president, had strongly advocated a lease and was exasperated by his board's decision. According to a story told by Mary G. Cumming, he left the meeting accompanied by the lawyers for the two railroads. "[As] they walked along, Mr. Wadley finally exclaimed with a mouth-filling oath that he would lease the Georgia Railroad himself."169 This he did, signing a personal lease in May 1881. The same month he assigned the 99-year lease jointly to the Central Railroad and the Louisville & Nashville. Along with the lease came the Georgia Railroad's interests in the Atlanta & West Point and the Western Railroad of Alabama. The Central in South Carolina The Augusta & Knoxville Railroad was chartered in 1877 by a group of investors from the counties of Richmond, Columbia, Lincoln, Elbert, Hart, Franklin, Habersham, and Rabun to construct a railroad from Augusta through those counties to Rabun Gap. In addition, the group planned to construct a branch line that would cross the Savannah River upstream from Augusta to connect with the Greenwood & Augusta Railroad then underway in South Carolina.170 Although the Rabun Gap route never became a reality, tracks were completed from Augusta running northwest for about fourteen miles through eastern Columbia County to a river crossing near Furys Ferry. From there the rails continued to McCormick and Greenwood, South Carolina. The new line opened in 1882, not long after the Central Railroad of Georgia gained control of the 112-mile Port Royal & Augusta, intending to keep it from capturing freight that otherwise would go on Central rails to Savannah. To further feed traffic to Savannah, the Central helped finance several railroads in upstate South Carolina and connected them to Augusta by arranging an 1883 lease of the Augusta & Knoxville to the Port Royal & Augusta. In 1886 the A&K and the upstate South Carolina lines were consolidated as the 225-mile Port Royal & Western Carolina Railway, a subsidiary of the Central.171 The Port Royal & Augusta remained in the Central's hands but was largely neglected, much to the annoyance of the South Carolinians who lived along its route. The Augusta & Knoxville/PR&WC gave Columbia County its second railroad, the other being the Georgia Railroad. It did nothing, however, for Appling, the county seat which lay some eleven miles west of the rail line, too far away to see any benefit. It was also over eight miles from the Georgia Railroad. Devoid of rail service, Appling remained a courthouse without a town. The Waycross Short Line In 1879, Henry Bradley Plant, a Connecticut Yankee who came to the South as the Adams Express Company's manager for the region, purchased the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad at a foreclosure sale and renamed it the Savannah, Florida, & Western Railway. With a 237-mile mainline from Savannah to Bainbridge and over a hundred miles of branches, it was the longest railroad in Georgia's Coastal Plain. In 1880, Plant bought the Savannah & Charleston Railroad, which had defaulted on a payment in 1873 and had entered receivership. He renamed it the Charleston & Savannah Railway. In the meantime, he had been organizing 47 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey and building the Waycross & Florida Railroad, running southeast from Waycross along the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp to the state line where it connected with his East Florida Railroad being built from Jacksonville. Once the two were completed in 1881, he absorbed them into the SF&W. The new 71-mile link, marketed as the Waycross Short Line, greatly reduced travel time along the Southern coast. It provided a cut-off of the older route that had required trains to travel 35 miles west from Waycross to DuPont, Georgia, and then turn south to Live Oak, Florida, before returning to the coast. Plant's acquisitions in Georgia and South Carolina and his new line to Florida put him in a strong position to dominate rail traffic along the south Atlantic seaboard. Five Shortlines Five new shortline railroads were built during the period; each connected a previously bypassed town: The Louisville & Wadley Railroad--Opened in 1879, the 10-mile L&W ran from Louisville, the seat of Jefferson County, to the Central Railroad at Wadley. The Walton Railroad--Built in 1880, the 10-mile Walton Railroad extended from Monroe, the Walton County seat, to the Georgia Railroad at Social Circle. The Georgia Railroad had helped finance its construction. The Lawrenceville Branch Railroad--Chartered in 1877 and completed in 1881, the three-foot gauge, 9.6-mile Lawrenceville Branch Railroad connected Lawrenceville, the seat of Gwinnett County, to the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line at Suwanee. It was the first railroad in Lawrenceville. The Roswell Railroad--Incorporated in 1879, it opened from the little mill town to the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line at Chamblee on September 1, 1881. The 10-mile feeder line was controlled by the A&RAL. The Talbotton Railroad--This seven-mile line ran from Talbotton to the Southwestern Railroad at Paschal. It opened in 1881. Paschal, previously known as Bostick, was a half-mile west of present-day Junction City. Talbotton was established after the 1826 Creek session as the seat of Talbot County. Another town acquiring its first railroad was Blakely, established in the 1820s as the seat of Early County. It was the beneficiary of a 13-mile extension of the Southwestern Railroad from Arlington in 1881. Lumber Lines Several lumber railroads began operations during the late 1870s and early 1880s. Among the more substantial enterprises were two in south Georgia and one in the northern part of the state: The Ocmulgee & Horse Creek Railroad--This lumber tram was constructed west of Lumber City in 1878. It began with seven miles of track and added approximately 11 miles the following year. The line stretched north from a sawmill located on the Ocmulgee River at Powell's Landing, a place that was renamed Dodge's Bluff after the mill was established. The O&HC was owned by the Georgia Land & Lumber Company.172 The Ocmulgee & Normandale Railroad--Also owned by the Georgia Land & Lumber Company, the standard-gauge Ocmulgee & Normandale was constructed in southern Dodge and western Telfair counties sometime before 1885. It ran about 30 miles from the river to the planned mill community of Normandale, a place with "a large sawmill, a turpentine still, machine shops, a commissary, a depot, a hotel, about one hundred look-alike houses for workers, and more substantial homes for managers."173 The Etowah & Deatons Railroad--This nine-mile north Georgia line served a northeastern Polk County sawmill that operated from around 1880 to 1884. The E&D connected with the East & West Railroad of Alabama at Deatons and with the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia at Seney. As northern capitalists bought up millions of acres of pine forest and industrialized logging took hold, more lumber railroads would soon follow these.174 Connections and Early Consolidation Continued growth in the late nineteenth century also continued the general trends associated with Georgia's rail growth, most notably an 48 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey impetus for local development and commercial improvements for local agriculture and industry. But, after all, rail is about connections, and these connections continued to grow. Bypassed towns either recognized the need for rail connectivity or aspired to it, or otherwise were to some extent left behind. Purpose-built shortlines--simply smaller connecting lines--were constructed for specific industrial pursuits and increasingly logging. This trend for shortline and spur connections has continued up to the present day. In the late nineteenth century, the overarching trend of rail competition and consolidation also came to the fore, as successfully growing systems strategically and sometimes aggressively acquired others lines and even other systems in bids to increase their networks and revenues. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 49 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 50 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Oakman, Gordon County CHAPTER 9 STEPS TOWARDS LARGER SYSTEMS: 1882-1883 In the mid-1880s, as Georgia's railroads reached the end of their first half century, they had much to celebrate. They had made the transportation of goods and passengers much faster than before, reducing travel time in many cases from days to hours. They moved freight at far lower cost than was possible by wagon. They had opened up many areas for agricultural and natural resource development, providing a livelihood for thousands of Georgians. But the rail network was far from efficient. Transfers of freight and passengers from one railroad to another were often a necessity. Some routes required transfers between trains and boats, and others required transfers between rail lines of different track gauge. In a few cities it was even necessary for passengers to take a cross-town omnibus ride between the individual stations of non-connecting railroads. Railroad owners had long been hesitant to fully link their lines with those of competitors. Each railroad had its "territory," to be defended against encroachment by others. While such monopolies were resented by shippers, there was little that they could do about it. The situation would gradually change, however, as certain influential railroad owners and investors sought to organize interstate rail systems. At first, cooperation among railroads was the favored approach. An early effort in this regard began in 1866-67 as the loosely organized Seaboard Inland Air Line. Using an innovation called a "through bill of lading," it allowed shipments to pass over several railroads with a minimum of delay.175 Another enterprise was the Green Line, a fast freight service established in 1868 that began with five Southern railroads led by the Louisville & Nashville. By 1873, it had expanded to 21 companies representing 3,317 miles of track.176 In addition, there was the Southern Railway and Steamship Association, a huge freight pool designed to put an end to rate wars and ruinous competition. The pool, according to historian C. Vann Woodward, "practiced its system of basing points, freight differentials, and apportionment of traffic and earnings unimpeded until 1887, after which the prohibitions of the Interstate Commerce Act began to interfere with the power of the Association."177 The Southern Railway Security Company, a syndicate formed in 1870, was intended to stabilize the Reconstruction-era railroad situation in the South, especially for the benefit of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Possibly the nation's first holding company, it represented a trend favoring consolidation over cooperation. Closely associated with the Richmond & Danville Railroad, the SRSC slowly disintegrated after 1874 when the Pennsylvania Railroad turned its attention away from the South. In 1880, the Pennsylvania sold its controlling interest in the Richmond & Danville to the Richmond & West Point Terminal Railway & Warehouse Company, a new organization that would intensify the consolidation trend and gather up many Georgia railroads in the process.178 The Richmond & Danville Railroad Under its charter, the Virginia-based Richmond & Danville Railroad could not lease or control any railroad that did not connect directly with it. To bypass this legal impediment, the railroad's officers created a holding company, the Richmond & West Point Terminal Railway & Warehouse Company. Established in Virginia in March 1880, it gave the Richmond & Danville the ability to expand its operations into the lower South.179 In 1881, the Richmond & Danville leased the Atlanta & Charlotte Air Line Railway, created in 1877 from the reorganization of the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line Railway. The same year, the Terminal Company gained control of the Northeastern Railroad, which ran from the Atlanta & Charlotte at Lula to Athens.180 In 1883, the Georgia Pacific Railway opened its 168-mile line from Atlanta to Birmingham. Controlled by the Richmond & Danville, the new railroad joined with the Atlanta & Charlotte Air-Line to form a major route across Georgia's upper Piedmont. At Atlanta's northern edge, Georgia Pacific built a 3.3-mile line running east from Howells on the Western & Atlantic to Belt Junction on the Atlanta & Charlotte; this became the first of several "belt" lines that would eventually encircle the city center. 51 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey LOGGING RAILROADS AND TRAMS A standard common-carrier railroad rarely scars the landscape as it passes through a rural area; it disturbs only its narrow right of way and leaves the land alongside its corridor largely untouched. That was not the case, however, for mining and logging railroads, especially those of the loggers. They brought devastation in their wake, especially after large-scale industrial logging appeared in Georgia's coastal plain and mountain regions beginning in the 1880s. Lightly built and designed to be taken up once a forest was cut over, logging railroads reached deep into areas as diverse as the Okefenokee Swamp and the high Appalachian forests. Loading timber, Waycross vicinity, Ware County Their trains hauled logs from the forest to a sawmill where they were cut into lumber that was then shipped out on common-carrier railroads. Motive power was often provided by small steam locomotives, some of which used gears rather than rods for propulsion. In north Georgia, logging lines extended from the Byrd-Matthews sawmills at Helen and Robertstown into forests along Dodd Creek, Dukes Creek, Smith Creek, and the upper Chattahoochee River. In operation from 1913 to 1915, these standard-gauge lines allowed the quick destruction of the ancient forests at Anna Ruby Falls, Raven Cliff Falls and in between. In 1915 the Morse Brothers Lumber Company purchased the Byrd-Matthews properties (including the Gainesville & Northwestern Railroad) and greatly expanded the loggers' reach by constructing 42-inch-gauge lines to Blood Mountain in northern Lumpkin County and to the upper Tallulah River at Tate City, in Towns County near the state line. The Tate City line was slightly over 50 miles long.1 To the west, in the Cohutta Mountains, the Conasauga Lumber Company pushed its standard-gauge logging railroad into the upper Conasauga River valley between 1907 and 1917. Its successors Tennga Lumber Company and Conasauga River Lumber Company carried on the work from 1917 until 1929.2 Beginning in 1928, the latter company extended its rails into the Jacks River valley where the mountainsides were logged until 1939.3 Most of the timber cut from the Conasauga and Jacks river region was hauled to a large sawmill at Conasauga, Tennessee, on the "New Line" of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad a few miles north of Tennga, Georgia. In the Okefenokee, the process was similar: a sawmill would be constructed on a nearby common-carrier railroad and logging lines would be extended from there into the forests. The best known of these lines was the Waycross & Southern Railroad, built in 1909 by the Hebard Cypress Company to link the northwestern corner of the swamp to the company's huge sawmill at Hebardville on the west side of Waycross. It became a common carrier not long after opening, but its primary purpose was logging. From its southern end at Hopkins, a network of "mudlines" was gradually built out into the swamp as far as Billys Island and Floyds Island. Often resting on pilings that ranged from 15 to 30 feet in length and that rose 3 to 6 feet above the water, these temporary lines provided access to steam-powered "skidders" that used cables to pull logs to waiting railcars.4 Other Okefenokee sawmills were built at places such as Council on the Georgia Southern & Florida and Braganza, Fort Mudge, Race Pond, and Uptonville on the Atlantic Coast Line. Several of these were fed by mudline networks similar to those of the Waycross & Southern.5 Most logging and lumber railroads were located in the Coastal Plain and Appalachian regions. Few were found in the Piedmont and the Valley and Ridge regions because their forests had been cleared for farms prior t_o_t_h_e_r_a_il_ro_a_d__e_r_a_. _v____________________ 1 Thomas Fetters, Logging Railroads of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, Vol. 2, Tallulah Falls, Anna Ruby Falls, and Jeffrey's Hell, Hillsboro, OR: TimberTimes, 2010, p. 33-41. 2 Ibid., p. 59-62, 68-70. 3 Ibid., p. 73. 4 C. T. Trowell and Lorraine Fussell, Exploring the Okefenokee; Railroads of the Okefenokee Realm, Douglas, GA: South Georgia College, 1998, p. 29; Megan Kate Nelson, Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009, p. 109. 5 Ibid., p. 37. 52 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey The East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia The ETV&G had been established by the 1869 consolidation of the East Tennessee & Georgia Railroad, running north from Dalton to Knoxville, and the East Tennessee & Virginia Railroad, running north from Knoxville to Bristol, on the Tennessee-Virginia border. Along with its Dalton-Bristol mainline, the ETV&G had a 27-mile branch line from Chattanooga to Cleveland, Tennessee. In 1880-81, the ETV&G purchased the Georgia Southern Railroad (the former Selma, Rome & Dalton), which gave it a line running southwest from Dalton through Rome to Selma, Alabama. In 1881, the ETV&G bought the Macon & Brunswick Railroad, a 174-mile line between those two cities. To connect the M&B to the rest of its system, the ETV&G built 158 miles of new tracks from Rome through Atlanta to Macon, completing the work in 1882. Rome thus became the junction of two major ETV&G lines, somewhat at the expense of Dalton, the previous end of the line. Another beneficiary of the ETV&G expansion was Atlanta, where the railroad built new repair and maintenance shops. The ETV&G also gave Atlanta a second railroad to Macon. At 88 miles, it was more direct than the Central's 103-mile route. The Plant System As previously noted, Henry Plant purchased the 350-mile Atlantic & Gulf in 1879 and renamed it the Savannah, Florida & Western.181 The following year, he acquired the 120-mile Savannah and Charleston Railroad, and in 1881, he opened 70 miles of new tracks from the SF&W at Waycross to Jacksonville. The result was a unified line reaching from Charleston to Savannah, Bainbridge, and Albany in Georgia and to Jacksonville and Live Oak in Florida. In 1882-1883, Plant strengthened his connections to the Florida panhandle by building a 32-mile rail line from the SF&W mainline at Climax to the Chattahoochee River at Chattahoochee, Florida. There it met two other lines, the Florida Central & Western, which ran east to Jacksonville, as well as the new Pensacola & Atlantic, which extended westward through the Florida panhandle to Pensacola. In 1888, Plant gained control of the Brunswick & Western Railroad. The B&W had been organized in 1882 as successor to the Brunswick & Albany, a 171-mile line connecting its two namesake towns. It crossed the SF&W mainline at Waycross. To acquire or build additional railroads and to develop related enterprises such as steamship lines and hotels, Plant established the Plant Investment Company. Formed in 1882, it especially targeted Northerners who could afford to escape winter by traveling south to resort hotels at Thomasville and in Florida and the Caribbean. North Georgia Expansions In north Georgia, several new railroad lines appeared during the period, and all would become parts of larger systems. One was an extension of the Northeastern Railroad, which had opened its 39-mile line from Athens to Lula in 1876, but, because of insufficient capital, had been unable to extend the line to Clayton as planned. In 1881, a breakthrough came when the city of Athens reached an agreement with the Richmond & Danville to transfer its one thousand shares of Northeastern stock to the Richmond Terminal Company, acting for the R&D, in exchange for completing the line to Clayton. The agreement specified that the railroad would be completed to Tallulah Falls by July 1882 and to Clayton by 1886.182 The backing of the Terminal Company provided the necessary boost and the Northeastern reached Tallulah Falls in June 1882. The new line began at Rabun Gap Junction, later renamed Cornelia, and proceeded north to Clarkesville, the seat of Habersham County, where the railroad followed a ridgetop a mile south of town. Continuing to the northeast, it crossed Glade and Panther creeks before reaching the vicinity of falls. Turning to the northwest, it followed along the southern edge of the gorge before reaching the small resort community overlooking the spectacular chasm. By the end of 1886, the tracks had not progressed beyond Tallulah Falls, prompting a debate in Athens over what to do about the R&D's failure to extend the line to Clayton as promised. To put it briefly, the result was a sale of the 21-mile northern section, from Cornelia to Tallulah Falls, to the newly organized Blue Ridge & Atlantic, which planned a Savannah-Knoxville route. The leading force behind the BR&A was Judge W. B. Thomas of Athens. 53 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey PROMOTING TOURISM To boost passenger revenues, the major railroads often promoted scenic, recreational, and historical attractions along their routes. In the mid-1870s, for example, the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad issued the booklet Guide to Southern Georgia & Florida, containing a Brief Description of Points of Interest to the Tourist, Invalid, or Immigrant, and How to Reach Them. Within its 75 pages were advertisements for hotels, restaurants, a "segar emporium," and other services that the traveler might desire, including those provided by realtors, architects, lenders, and undertakers. An ad for the railroad itself advised Florida-bound travelers to take the train to avoid "the dangers of coast navigation, and the frequent detentions which steamer lines meet with at St. John's River Bar." Atlantic & Gulf successor Savannah, Florida & Western continued the marketing campaign with its 1881 pamphlet Southern Georgia: Containing Valuable Information to Farmers, Naval Stores Manufacturers, Timber Men, Lumber Manufacturers, Fruit Growers, Vegetable Growers, Atlantic & Gulf tourist guide Savannah, Florida & Western tourist guide Tourists, Invalids, Pleasure Seekers, Travellers, Parties Seeking New Homes, and All who desire to better their condition. After the SF&W was absorbed into the Atlantic Coast Line in 1902, ACL maintained the marketing program with its Atlantic Coast Line: Tropical Trips and Tourist Hotel Directory, Season 1908-1909. Not to be outdone, ACL competitor Seaboard Air Line issued Winter Resorts in the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Cuba, and Nassau, a well-illustrated 43-page guidebook with a detailed list of hotels. In northwestern Georgia, the Western & Atlantic and the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia promoted the Civil War battlefields of Chattanooga, Atlanta, and in between. Curiously, both railroads used the name The Great Kennesaw Route in their marketing materials. The Richmond & Danville Railroad promoted the scenic attractions and health resorts of Appalachia. Its 1884 pamphlet Summer Resorts and Points of Interest of Virginia, Western North Carolina, and North Georgia featured Tallulah Falls, Toccoa Falls, and various resorts "for the pleasure-seeking public" including Mount Airy, White Sulphur Springs, and New Holland Springs. Of the last mentioned, the author noted that it was "quite popular with Georgians, and particularly with Atlanta people." v The Savannah, Florida & Western touts its Florida connections 54 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey The R&D retained its interest in the southern section, from Lula to Athens, and left it up to the BR&A to complete the line to Clayton. The BR&A, however, could not attract the necessary capital to carry out its plans; it entered receivership in 1892 and was sold under foreclosure in 1897. In 1898, the Tallulah Falls Railway was organized to take over its properties.183 While all of this was transpiring, to the west the Marietta & North Georgia Railroad was extending its narrow-gauge line from Canton to Ballground, a distance of 12 miles. The new trackage opened in 1882, putting the railroad much closer to the region's marble, iron, and copper deposits that had always been its goal. Despite its modest beginnings, the little M&NG would eventually reach Murphy, North Carolina, and Knoxville, Tennessee, and would become part of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, one of the nation's great railroad systems of the twentieth century. At the same time, in the Appalachian foothills near Gainesville, a new narrow-gauge line, the Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern was building south towards Jefferson; it opened in the spring of 1883. The GJ&S branched at Belmont, with one leg proceeding south to Hoschton and the other taking a more easterly course to Jefferson. The rails were soon extended south from Hoschton to Jug Tavern, now called Winder. By early 1884, the GJ&S reached Monroe, the seat of Walton County. Controlled by the lessees of the Georgia Railroad, the GJ&S was combined with the 10-mile Walton Railroad (also under the lessees' control) in 1884. Jefferson, established at the beginning of the nineteenth century as the seat of Jackson County, was another town that had gone without a railroad from its birth through the Civil War and Reconstruction. As in most cases where a new railroad came to an existing town, the GJ&S passed along an edge rather than heading for the center. At some point a spur was built to a depot that still stands, just northwest of the 1880 county courthouse. In 1882, a new company, the East & West Railroad of Alabama, leased the Cherokee Iron Company's railroad, which ran from Cedartown to the Western & Atlantic at Cartersville. The following year the E&W extended the Cherokee west from Cedartown to Esom Hill and then constructed its own line from there to Broken Arrow, Alabama.184 The Cherokee was purchased outright by the E&W in 1886. Like the Marietta & North Georgia, the humble E&W later became part of a major twentieth century railroad system, in its case the Seaboard Air Line Railway. The Consolidation Era Begins The proven commercial efficiency of rail transport in Georgia had led to ambitious rail planning and construction of the South's largest rail network. Despite network deficiencies not exclusive to the state, the promise of rail in Georgia seemed limitless. With the arrival of the so-called Richmond Terminal Company in Georgia and its assertive consolidation strategy, amalgamation of rail concerns continued and grew. But so did the state's network as well, as these growing systems expanded further and new independent lines were initiated to connect the unconnected. And a new impetus emerged, too: tourism. The state's resort areas realized the importance of rail connections, as did Henry Plant whose grand ambitions in south Georgia and Florida required Georgia rail acquisitions and development. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 55 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 10 MID-1880S GROWTH: 1884-1888 "The railroad boom in Georgia continues. New roads and feeders to old roads are daily projected. The town of Griffin has subscribed in cash $40,000 to the Georgia Midland, $20,000 to the Monticello Griffin and Lagrange, and are now completing a subscription of $50,000 for a new road. Lagrange raised $25,000 in 20 minutes for a local line. McDonough, a town of 700 inhabitants, raised $15,000, and Senoia gives $20,000 to the Atlanta and Hawkinsville. Newnan has subscribed $30,000 to the Newnham (sic) and Heard road. These figures are given as samples of what the small towns throughout the State are doing to encourage railroad building." Railway News, 1886.185 As it turned out, the Monticello Griffin & LaGrange would not be built, nor would the Newnan & Heard. The Atlanta & Hawkinsville failed to lay any tracks, but after its 1887 reorganization as the Atlanta & Florida Railroad, it did manage to complete a 102-mile line to Fort Valley. And unfortunately for Senoia, its $20,000 did not entice the railroad to go there; instead it passed about 10 miles to the east. When the Atlanta & Florida opened between Atlanta and Fayetteville in late December 1887, it became Atlanta's ninth rail line. Because downtown Atlanta was already crowded with tracks, the A&F began on the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia at Roseland, near the intersection of today's McDonough Boulevard and Lakewood Avenue. Trackage rights allowed entry into the city, and A&F passenger trains used the ETV&G passenger station in Atlanta.186 The A&F section from Fayetteville to Fort Valley opened in 1888. It passed through Zebulon, the seat of Pike County, and came within a mile of Knoxville, the Crawford County seat. At the latter place, the railroad lured commerce away from the courthouse square, creating a new town that was given the name Roberta. County government remained at Knoxville, which eventually became, like Appling, a courthouse without a town. Also mentioned by Railway News was the 98-mile Georgia Midland & Gulf Railroad. It opened from Columbus to McDonough in late 1887. The largest town along its route was Griffin, where the GM&G became the town's third railroad, along with the Central and the Savannah, Griffin & North Alabama. In Pike County, the GM&G crossed the Atlanta & Florida at Williamson, rather than at Zebulon, the county seat. That gave Williamson two railroads to Zebulon's one, but Williamson's location on the county's far northern edge gave it little chance to threaten Zebulon's status as the county seat. The Marietta & North Georgia Two north Georgia county seats that obtained rail service during the period were Jasper and Ellijay, in Pickens and Gilmer counties respectively. The 1882-1884 extension of the narrow-gauge Marietta & North Georgia Railroad from Ball Ground greatly boosted the economic prospects of the area. Before the tracks arrived in Jasper, it could claim only 146 residents, but after operations began in 1883 the town boomed, adding commercial buildings, a hotel, a new courthouse, and a newspaper.187 The M&NG was constructed in part to develop the area's marble industry, which had been stymied by the difficulty of transporting the stone over the area's rough, hilly roads. Once the new rails were in place, larger and faster shipments were possible, and marble quarrying flourished. The Georgia Marble Company, established by Samuel Tate in May 1884, acquired control of nearly 7,000 acres and then constructed a branch railroad from the M&NG mainline at Tate to the quarries and mills.188 Between 1884 and 1887 the M&NG was extended north from Ellijay through Fannin County and across the state line to Murphy in western North Carolina. The area around Murphy held brown iron ore deposits along with other minerals, offering substantial revenue for the railroad if developed.189 Two new narrow-gauge lines While the M&NG was working its way through the Appalachians, two other narrow-gauge lines were underway, one on the east side of the state and the other on the west. The eastern project, incorporated in 1884, was the 80-mile Augusta, Gibson & Sandersville Railroad. It opened from Augusta to Stapleton in September, 1885, and to Avera the following month. The rails reached Gibson, the seat of Glascock County, on December 10th. In June 1886 the AG&S reached Mitchell, and on November 28, 1886, it was completed to Sandersville. 56 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1888 57 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 58 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Tate, Pickens County The western narrow-gauge line was the Americus, Preston & Lumpkin Railroad. Construction proceeded as follows: 1884-1885, from Americus westward to Richland; 1886, from Richland westward to Lumpkin; 1887, from Lumpkin westward to Louvale; and 1887, from Americus eastward to the Ocmulgee River at Abbeville. In December 1888, the AP&L was reorganized as the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery Railway, led by Americus banker and lawyer Samuel H. Hawkins. Besides running a railroad, Hawkins and his associates planned to invest in new towns and other real estate projects along the route and were successful in establishing Cordele, named for Hawkins' daughter Cordelia, at the crossing of the Georgia Southern & Florida.190 More Activity in South Georgia Meanwhile, a hundred miles to the south, the Savannah, Florida & Western was laying tracks for a 24-mile branch from its mainline at Thomasville to Monticello, Florida. There it met a branch of the Florida Central & Peninsular, the principal railroad of northern Florida. After its new line opened in 1888, the SF&W had four lines between the two states; these extended from Waycross, DuPont, Thomasville, and Climax. Before the Civil War, no rails crossed from Georgia into Florida. Several new shortlines also came into existence during the period. One, the Sylvania Railroad, was completed in 1885 from Sylvania, the seat of Screven County in southeast Georgia, to Rocky Ford on the Central of Georgia mainline. Another Central feeder was the Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad, chartered in 1883 to build a 17-mile line north from Wrightsville to the Central at Tennille. Wrightsville had been laid out shortly before the Civil War as the seat of the new Johnson County, which had been created by assembling parts of Emanuel, Laurens, and Washington counties. Running south from Wrightsville was the 19-mile Dublin & Wrightsville Railroad, built around 1886 to connect the two towns of its name. It was merged into the Wrightsville & Tennille on December 1, 1886. Dublin, incorporated in 1812, had languished for decades as a minor place in an outof-the-way region until it secured the new line. Dublin would also see the Empire & Dublin Railroad come to town in 1890, followed by the Macon, Dublin & Savannah Railroad in 1891. In 1902, the MD&S was extended from Dublin to Vidalia, where a connection with the Seaboard provided a link to Savannah. A fifth line out of Dublin would be added in 1905 with the Dublin & Southwestern, which was acquired by the Wrightsville & Tennille two years later. Rome Emerges as a Rail Hub In northwest Georgia, two new railroads were constructed at Rome. On the west side of the city, the Rome & Decatur Railroad, organized in 1886, opened 28 miles of tracks to Cedar Bluff, Alabama in 1887. By July 1888, the tracks had been extended 34 miles to Attalla. The railroad's owners had hoped to build to the Tennessee River at Decatur, but the line never progressed beyond Attalla. The Rome & Decatur was purchased by the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia in 1890. South of Rome, the Rome & Carrollton Railroad began work on its narrowgauge line in 1884. The rails reached Cedartown in 1887, where a connection was made with the East & West Railroad of Alabama, also a narrow-gauge line. In 1887-88 the R&C changed its name to the Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus Railroad, converted its 22 miles of narrow-gauge tracks to standard gauge, and completed 40 more miles of tracks to Carrollton, where it connected with the Savannah, Griffin & North Alabama Railroad. The CR&C also built northwards from Rome, passing through Summerville and LaFayette, the seats of Chattooga and Walker counties, respectively. Summerville had been established in 1839-40, LaFayette a few years earlier. Both towns had been without rail service in part because of their isolated location between Taylor Ridge on the east and Lookout Mountain on the west. To reach Summerville and LaFayette from Rome, the CR&C had to lay its tracks 15 miles due west, almost to the Alabama border, and then turn sharply to the northeast around Simms Mountain. The route then passed along the southern tip of Taylor Ridge near Holland and Lyerly. The entire Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus line opened on July 1, 1888, running 138 miles from Chattanooga through Rome to Carrollton. (it never reached Columbus). The CR&C tracks between Rome and Cedartown, and possibly further, had been built on the grade left behind by the failed North & South Railroad of Georgia, which had also opened 23 miles of narrowgauge tracks running north from Columbus to Hamilton. In 1879, the 59 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Columbus & Rome Railway was organized to operate this line, and by 1882 it had been extended to Chipley, now Pine Mountain.191 A second extension, from Chipley to Greenville, opened in 1885. Greenville had been established after the 1826 Creek session as the seat of Meriwether County, but had no railroad until the arrival of the Columbus & Rome. Activity in the Columbus Region Two other west Georgia towns that acquired rail service during the period were Buena Vista and Ellaville, the seats of Marion and Schley counties, respectively. The rail line, built in 1884-1885, was the standard-gauge Buena Vista & Ellaville Railroad, which branched off the Central at Andersonville. To make the little railroad a reality, a strong local effort was needed. According to a contemporary publication, "the road-bed was graded and crossties laid--ready for the iron--by the almost unaided efforts of the citizens along its course. The Central Railroad Company furnished and laid the iron and supplied the rolling stock."192 But the BV&E did not remain just a local feeder line for long. In 1887, the Central, intending to develop a new Savannah-Birmingham route, built a connecting line from LaCrosse, on the BV&E about six miles east of Ellaville, to Americus.193 In 1889, the Central purchased the BV&E and constructed a 35-mile line running from Buena Vista to Columbus. At the latter place, the new line connected with the Columbus & Western, which had opened a 157-mile line between Columbus and Birmingham in July 1888.194 The Columbus & Western had been organized by the Central in 1880 to handle the Alabama portion of the Savannah-Birmingham project, which was accomplished in three steps. The first was the 1880 purchase of the Savannah & Memphis Railroad, a 55-mile line between Opelika and Goodwater, Alabama. This was followed by the 1882 acquisition of the Columbus-Opelika branch of the Western Railroad of Alabama. The final step was to construct 68 miles of new track from Goodwater to Birmingham; it was completed in 1888. After the Columbus & Western opened in July 1888, the Central consolidated it, the Buena Vista & Ellaville, and several other railroads that it owned or leased into a major new subsidiary, the 400-mile Savannah & Western. Also included in the S&W was the Savannah & Columbus Railway, the Columbus & Rome Railway, and three Alabama lines. The Savannah & Columbus had been incorporated only a month before the consolidation, so it was only a paper railroad. The Columbus & Rome was the 50-mile narrow-gauge line between Columbus and Greenville. The Alabama lines were the East Alabama, the Eufaula & Clayton, and the Eufaula & East Alabama.195 These railroads were separate from the Americus-Birmingham mainline and were to be operated as branches. One Alabama railroad not included in the Savannah & Western was the Mobile & Girard, an 85-mile line running from Columbus to Troy, Alabama, that had been leased by the Central in 1886. The M&G had entered Columbus in 1869 when a bridge opened over the Chattahoochee River. Previously the railroad ended at Girard, Alabama, now Phenix City. While the Central was involved in its Savannah & Western project, it was itself being drawn into a larger system, that of the Richmond & West Point Terminal Company. In October 1888, the Terminal Company gained full control of the Central after having taken control of the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia the previous year. With the Central, the ETV&G, and the Richmond & Danville in its clutches, it now controlled three major systems comprising more than 8,500 miles. But, as historian Maury Klein remarked, "the Terminal had reached its zenith; yet it hovered uneasily upon the brink of disaster."196 Three Specialized Shortlines Elsewhere, three specialized railroads opened during the period. The first, which began operations in 1885 or early 1886, was the 2.5-mile Bowden Lithia Springs Short Line Railroad. It was at first a private railroad, but became a common carrier after receiving a charter on March 25, 1887. The three-foot gauge line ran between the Sweet Water Park Hotel at Lithia Springs, the Bowden mineral springs a mile or so south of Austell, and the railroad depot in Austell. Near the hotel, the Piedmont Chatauqua opened in July 1888, attracting large crowds. The second railroad was also intended for the leisure traveler. Opened in 1887 as the Savannah & Tybee Railroad, the 17-mile line ran from its own station in Savannah across the salt marshes to Tybee Island. The route generally followed the south bank of the Savannah River, traversing McQueens Island 60 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 61 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Vidalia, Toombs County and passing near Fort Pulaski. After being sold on December 3, 1889, it was reorganized and renamed the Savannah, Tybee & Atlantic on March 1, 1890.197 On July 26th of the same year, the entire capital stock was purchased by the Central Railroad and the line was renamed again, this time as the Savannah & Atlantic.198 The third railroad, built around 1888, was a four-mile line between Milledgeville and the state "lunatic asylum" on the south side of town. First called the Milledgeville & Asylum Dummy Railroad, it hauled passengers and light freight using H. K. Porter steam dummies (locomotives disguised to look like streetcars) that pulled two rail cars, making 12 to 18 round trips a day. Standard Time, Standard Gauge, and the ICC On November 18, 1883, America's railroads established Railway Standard Time. Five time zones spanning the nation were designated, and the railroads adjusted their timetables and schedules in accordance with the new system. Railway Standard Time reduced confusion, improved safety, and generally made life easier. These benefits did not, however, impress a Georgia court that stated in an 1889 opinion: "The only standard of time...recognized by the laws of Georgia is the meridian of the sun.... An arbitrary and artificial standard of time, fixed by persons in a certain line of business, can not be substituted at will in a certain locality for the standard recognized by the law."199 The problem was that American localities seldom agreed when determining the meridian of the sun as a standard for timekeeping, even within cities. Buffalo, New York, for example, had three different time standards and Pittsburgh had six.200 Using the sun as a guide, each locality operated on its own time, but the railroad companies typically based their schedules on the local time at their terminal cities. Before the railroad era, when most people did not travel more than a few miles beyond their homes and communities, these variations seldom mattered. But as the railroad system grew and as more Americans took to the rails, confusion over train schedules escalated. Before Railway Standard Time, a coast-to-coast trip from Maine to San Francisco required travelers to reset their watch twenty times.201 Missed connections were likely for those who failed to keep up with the particular local times. For railroad employees who failed to note time differences, train collisions were sometimes the result. Despite resistance from many quarters, the railroads were ultimately successful in imposing time standardization across the nation. Even the U. S. Congress eventually agreed to the concept when it passed the Standard Time Act in 1918. While 1883 was the year for railroad standard time, 1886 would be the year for standard gauge. During a 36-hour period on May 31 to June 1, 1886, thousands of railroad workers converted the South's five-foot gauge tracks--13,000 miles of them--to the standard gauge of four feet and eight and a half inches. This was possible because in most cases one rail could be taken up and moved a few inches closer to the other rail without having to replace crossties. Not included in the conversion were several narrow-gauge railroads; it would be some time before all of these were changed. Another significant event of the period was the 1887 establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which placed some limits on the power of railroad companies. Pooling, a practice to avoid profit-destroying competition, was banned, and, in theory at least, shipping rates were limited to those determined to be "just and reasonable." In its early years, however, the ICC lacked adequate powers to enforce its decisions and was therefore only a minor annoyance to railroad owners. The Rail Boom Continues As described, the 1880s saw continuous expansion of Georgia's rail network and its attendant commercial benefits. Still more of the state's cities, towns, farms, and factories could take advantage of an ever-increasing regional and national system. Towns that became rail hubs boomed and grew into cities. More purpose-built shortlines connected industrial, extractive, and tourism concerns. New towns also continued to spring up along new lines, some of which continued to be very much local concerns and boosterism. And, as occurred nationally, time and track standardization helped regularize and make rail transportation still more efficient. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 62 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 11 NEW LINKS TO THE NEIGHBORS: 1889-1892 Interstate commerce by rail was burgeoning by the time that the Interstate Commerce Commission began operation. After the Marietta & North Georgia reached North Carolina in 1887, Georgia had a total of 22 rail links to its neighbors: three with Florida, four with Tennessee, six with South Carolina, and eight with Alabama. More were soon to come. One was a new railroad being built to Atlanta from Monroe, North Carolina, a town on the Carolina Central Railroad about 25 miles southeast of Charlotte. Begun in 1887, the 272-mile Georgia, Carolina & Northern crossed the Savannah River at Calhoun Falls, South Carolina, and continued west through Elberton, Athens, and Lawrenceville to Inman Park in Atlanta. In 1889, during construction, it was leased to the Seaboard & Roanoke, a predecessor of the Seaboard Air Line Railway. As a result of a court order that barred the GC&N from entering central Atlanta from the east, the company constructed a northern link called the Seaboard Air Line Belt Railway. Opened in 1892, this eight-mile line branched off the GC&N at Belt Junction near present-day Emory University and proceeded west to Howells, where it made a connection with the Western & Atlantic. After obtaining trackage rights over that railroad's line, GC&N trains were able to enter Atlanta.202 Florida Connections Two important connections to Florida--the Georgia Southern & Florida Railroad and the Florida Central & Peninsular Railway--began operations during the period. The GS&F, chartered in 1885, opened its route from Macon to Valdosta in February of 1889. The following year the line was extended to Palatka, a Florida port on the St. Johns River. The GS&F route bisected the Coastal Plain along a north-south corridor that would later be joined by U.S. Highway 41 and I-75. The GS&F was part of a larger Macon-based system that included the Macon & Birmingham and the Macon & Atlantic. Opened from Macon to LaGrange in January 1891, the 105-mile Macon & Birmingham was grading its railbed west of LaGrange when work was halted as a result of the railroad's parent Macon Construction Company entering receivership in March 1891. The work was never restarted and the western end of the M&B remained at LaGrange. At the time of the Macon Construction Company failure, the Macon & Atlantic had completed about 11 miles of track east of Brewton, a village in Laurens County, and had graded another 64 miles beyond that. The planned eastern terminus was to be a deepwater port at Colleton, South Carolina. As it turned out, the M&A never built any farther, and its property was sold under foreclosure on November 30, 1892. The Macon Construction Company's problems also led to the receivership of the Georgia Southern & Florida. In 1895, it came under the control of Southern Railway.203 The Georgia Southern & Florida marketed itself as the "Suwanee River Route," perhaps capitalizing on the popular 1851 Stephen Foster song with its phrase "way down upon the swanee river." The GS&F crossed the stream at White Springs, Florida. After the 1902 acquisition of the Atlantic, Valdosta & Western, the GS&F also crossed the Suwanee near Fargo, Georgia. The Florida Central & Peninsular Railway Company opened its 138-mile line from Jacksonville to Savannah in 1893. At Savannah, it connected with the South Bound Railroad, a 136-mile Columbia-Savannah line that was completed in 1891 and leased to the FC&P in 1892-93. In Florida, the FC&P had lines to Jacksonville, Tallahassee, Chattahoochee, and other north Florida cities, and it had begun expanding to Tampa and the central part of the state. The FC&P's Jacksonville-Savannah line ran closer to the ocean than the other coastal route, the Savannah, Florida & Western. It traversed all of Georgia's coastal counties, passing only ten miles or so west of Darien and not much further than that from Brunswick. As a result, considerable bridging, trestling, and filling was necessary to get the rails across the area's wide riverine wetlands. North of Savannah, the FC&P/South Bound turned towards the interior, running some 33 miles through Chatham and Effingham counties before crossing the Savannah River north of Clyo. 63 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey South Georgia Expansions Elsewhere, south Georgia gained a new line to Alabama with the Alabama Midland Railway, built from Bainbridge to Montgomery in 1890. It completed a bow-shaped Savannah-Montgomery route begun before the Civil War by the Atlantic & Gulf. It was financially assisted by Henry Plant, who quickly made it part of his Plant System. Meanwhile the Central of Georgia had expanded in Alabama with the 1888 formation of the Savannah & Western which combined existing lines and new construction to create a 222-mile rail link from Americus to Birmingham. It was part of a larger plan to create a direct route from Savannah to southwest Georgia and Alabama, one that would shortcut the existing route through Macon. Besides tapping the mineral resources of Birmingham, the Central hoped to capture more traffic out of Mobile and New Orleans by connecting with the Louisville & Nashville near Flomaton, Alabama.204 For the Savannah-Americus connection, the S&W constructed 58 miles of new tracks running directly east from Meldrim, 17 miles from Savannah, to Lyons. This section opened in May 1890. At Lyons, a traffic agreement was made with the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery Railway, which had opened its line from Abbeville to Lyons the same year. As part of the agreement, the SA&M received trackage rights over the S&W's LyonsMeldrim line and the Central's Meldrim-Savannah tracks. The Savannah, Americus & Montgomery had been organized in December 1888 as successor to the Americus, Preston & Lumpkin Railroad. The AP&L's narrow-gauge tracks ran 106 miles from Louvale in Stewart County through Americus to the Ocmulgee River port town of Abbeville. One of the SA&M's first actions was to rebuild the line to standard gauge, which was completed in 1890, and in the same year the company opened its Louvale to Montgomery line. New Lines and Extensions in North Georgia About the same time that the SA&M was widening its gauge, the Marietta & North Georgia was doing so as well. The 1889-90 conversion was part of a plan to extend the railroad into the copper district of southeastern Tennessee and then follow the Hiwassee River through the mountains to Knoxville.205 A subsidiary, the Knoxville Southern Railroad, constructed the standard-gauge line and opened it on August 9, 1890, connecting with the older M&NG tracks just north of Blue Ridge. As a result, a new route between Atlanta and Knoxville was formed as an alternative to the existing one through Dalton. Although on a map the new route looked more direct, it was impaired by the rugged terrain of the region. A particularly troublesome section was located just south of the Hiwassee River near Farner, Tennessee, where a set of switchbacks was installed to allow trains to climb a steep slope. This bottleneck was finally eliminated in 1898 when the switchbacks were replaced by an 8000-foot loop around Bald Mountain that allowed a steady ascent without the forward and reverse movements required by the switchback. The loop, along with a tight double-reverse curve near Talking Rock, Georgia, gave the railroad the nickname "Hook & Eye Line." While the Knoxville extension was underway, another railroad was slowly pushing towards the M&NG from the east. The Western North Carolina Railroad had begun at Salisbury and had reached Asheville in 1880, Waynesville in 1884, and Bryson City (then called Charleston) in 1886. Because of the difficult terrain, the final 59 miles to Murphy was not completed until July 1891.206 The new railroad soon attracted the attention of lumbermen such as the group of Minnesota investors who organized the North Georgia Land Company to buy property in expectation of cutting the timber. Like others who would follow, they sought to assure that a costly investment in a lumber mill would be supported by ownership of a large supply of timber. 207 To the west of the M&NG was the pioneering Atlanta-Knoxville route that had been established by the Western & Atlantic and the East Tennessee & Georgia. These two railroads, along with the Nashville & Chattanooga and the Memphis & Charleston, had turned Chattanooga into a rail hub comparable to Atlanta. Its strategic importance during the Civil War made it a target, as evidenced by the multitude of battle markers and monuments in the area. After the war, the city added more railroads, most notably the Alabama & Chattanooga (the Alabama Great Southern after 1877) and the Cincinnati Southern. The Cincinnati Southern, completed in 1879-80, was owned by Cincinnati's municipal government, which had built the line to protect and expand the 64 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey THE QUEEN & CRESCENT In 1883, a new name began to appear in the train schedules: the Queen & Crescent Route. A marketing name used by several associated railroads, the Queen & Crescent referred to Cincinnati, which had come to be known as the Queen City of the West, and New Orleans, the Crescent City. The northernmost and longest leg of the route, from Cincinnati to Chattanooga, was over the Cincinnati Southern, renamed the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway in 1881. The Alabama Great Southern Railroad, which formed the middle section, linked Chattanooga and Meridian, Mississippi, passing through Georgia's northwestern corner on its way. The New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad formed the southern section from Meridian to New Orleans. Two other railroads, the Alabama & Vicksburg Railway and the Vicksburg, Shreveport, and Pacific Railway, formed a secondary route from Meridian to Shreveport. v city's economic base. Because the Louisville & Nashville had given Louisville an advantage in competing for the trade of the South, Cincinnati felt that it needed its own line into the region. The two cities, which were rivals in the manner of Savannah and Charleston, each built railroads from the Ohio River to the southern interior, just as a few decades earlier Savannah and Charleston constructed competing lines from the Atlantic. With the arrival of the Cincinnati Southern, Chattanooga acquired an unusual distinction: it was at the junction of a municipally owned railroad (the CS) and a state-owned railroad (the W&A). While the two ownerships would not change, each railroad would soon join a larger system and take a new name. First, on October 12, 1881, the Cincinnati Southern was leased to the Erlanger Syndicate, a multinational investment group that owned the Alabama Great Southern Railroad. Successor to the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad, the AGS ran 293 miles from Chattanooga to Meridian, Mississippi.208 The Erlanger group gave the Cincinnati Southern a new, rather unwieldy, name: the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific. The group also designated their larger railroad system as the "Queen & Crescent Route" (for Cincinnati, the Queen City of the Midwest, and New Orleans, the Crescent City). The Western & Atlantic likewise joined a larger system and took a new name in 1890, when it was leased to the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway. The former Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, it now extended 320 miles across Tennessee to Hickman, Kentucky, on the Mississippi River, and it had over 300 miles of branch lines. The NC&StL itself was controlled by the Louisville & Nashville, which had acquired 55% of its stock in 1880, but it operated separately and under its own name. During the period, two new railroads were built from Chattanooga into Georgia. In 1888, the Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus Railroad completed its 140-mile line from the Tennessee city south to Rome and Carrollton (but not Columbus). In 1891, the CR&C was acquired by the Savannah & Western Railroad, a subsidiary of the Central of Georgia, but it kept its own name.209In the same year, the 93-mile Chattanooga Southern Railway opened from Chattanooga through Walker and Chattooga counties to Gadsden, Alabama. Built to haul coal, iron, and timber out of the region, it followed the eastern side of Lookout Mountain along its entire extent through parts of three states. A well-known feature of the of the Chattanooga Southern was its tunnel through Pigeon Mountain, an arm of Lookout Mountain west of LaFayette, Georgia. Something of a rarity in Georgia, the tunnel was featured in advertisements for the railroad, which used the marketing name "Pigeon Mountain Route." On the west side of Lookout Mountain, the Alabama Great Southern changed hands in April 1890 when the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia and the Richmond & Danville jointly purchased a controlling interest. The railroad thus passed from Erlanger control into the orbit of the Richmond & West Point Terminal Company, which had taken over the management of the ETV&G in 1887.210 Activity in the Macon Region All of the railroad building during the period was not interstate in nature; tracks were being laid in Georgia's interior as well. In the lower Piedmont, construction on the Covington & Macon Railroad began in 1886, but financial problems plagued the project as it continued building north. After the railroad reached Monticello in June 1887, the company decided to build not to Covington but to Athens instead. The line opened to the Classic City in early 1889. 65 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Along the way, the C&M passed through the county seat towns of Monticello, Madison, and Watkinsville. Left off the new line was Clinton, the seat of Jones County. It had already been bypassed by the Macon Branch of the Georgia Railroad, as well as the Atlanta-Macon line of the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia, and this latest snub meant the demise of the town. In 1905, the courthouse was moved a couple of miles northeast to Gray's Station on the railroad. Unfortunately for the C&M, insufficient income led to its sale at public auction on May 21, 1891. It was reorganized two days later as the Macon & Northern Railroad. Another line out of Macon, the Macon, Dublin & Savannah Railroad, completed its tracks to Dublin in 1891. The Laurens County seat had been reached the previous year by the Empire & Dublin Railroad, formed from a logging line constructed by the Empire Lumber Company sometime earlier. The E&D's base of operations was at Empire, on the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia six miles south of Cochran, where the lumber company operated a sawmill. The E&D also had a line from Empire to Hawkinsville. Opened in 1889, it was Hawkinsville's second rail line, the first being the Cochran-Hawkinsville branch of the Macon & Brunswick, which had become part of the ETV&G in 1881. Thus, Hawkinsville now had two railroads, but both ran to the northeast. In 1892, the Empire & Dublin was reorganized as the Oconee & Western Railroad. The O&W began work on a western extension to Grovania, on the Georgia Southern & Florida about 13 miles west of Hawkinsville, and completed grading for the new line. No further work was done, however, probably because of the troubled financial environment that was beginning to affect the railroads. New Lines and Extensions in the Albany Region In southwestern Georgia, Albany, the region's rail hub with existing lines running north, south, east, and southwest, added two new connections. Reaching northwest to Columbus was the new Columbus Southern Railway, chartered in 1885 as the Columbus & Florida Railway and reorganized and renamed the next year. The 88-mile line opened in April of 1890. Running northeast to Cordele was the Albany, Florida & Northern Railway, organized in 1889 and opened in 1891. The 35-mile line was soon leased to the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery, which had aided in its construction. In 1889 Albany gained a direct link to the Chattahoochee River when the Southwestern Railroad extended its Blakely line by 13 miles to reach the longtime steamboat port of Columbia, Alabama. The line would later stretch considerably farther, but the Columbia extension would be the Southwestern's last. By this time it had been leased to the Central Railroad for two decades and had largely lost its separate identity. In the Central's timetables, the railroad was listed only as the South-western division. Meanwhile, progress was being made on the railroad that would one day run southeast from Albany. Called the Georgia Northern Railway, it was an upgraded logging railroad that opened from Pidcock on the Savannah, Florida & Western to Moultrie in 1893. It will be discussed in a following chapter. Southeast Georgia In southeast Georgia, the first 16 miles of the future Wadley & Mount Vernon Railroad appeared in the 1880s as a logging railroad running southwest from the Central mainline at Wadley. In 1889 its tracks were extended 13 miles to Rixville, a place two miles south of Adrian. Around this time the entire logging railroad property was sold by Donovan, Perkins & Company to the Wadley & Mount Vernon Railroad Company, chartered April 30, 1890 with plans to construct a line to Mount Vernon, some 54 miles south of Wadley.211 Mount Vernon had been established as the county seat of Montgomery County in 1813, but had seen little growth because of its isolated piney woods location. The 1890 arrival of the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery Railroad boosted its prospects and perhaps encouraged the Wadley & Mount Vernon's investors to build in its direction. Eleven miles east of Wadley on the Central mainline lay Midville, where in 1889 the Midville, Swainsboro & Red Bluff Railroad opened a line to Swainsboro. Swainsboro had been established as the Emanuel County seat some seven decades earlier, but the relatively infertile soils of its wiregrass landscape had held back its growth. The poverty of the region had prompted the Central to build its pioneering line well to the north rather than take a straight-line route from Savannah to Macon. Had it chosen the more direct course, it would have passed through Bulloch, Emanuel, and Laurens counties, but in those days before commercial fertilizer these places had little to offer. 66 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Thirty-nine miles east of Midville was Dover, on the Central mainline just north of the Ogeechee River. Here the 10-mile Dover & Statesboro Railroad opened in November 1889. According to Poor's 1893 Manual, the company planned to extend the line south to Jesup, on the Savannah, Florida & Western, and had it been able to do so, it would have opened up one of the last parts of the state to be developed. The slow pace of growth in the area was suggested by the fact that in 1880 Statesboro had only 25 inhabitants despite its being the county seat.212 In the same year that the Dover & Statesboro reached completion, yet another railroad extending south from the Central mainline was evolving. Incorporated in 1889, the Rogers & Summit Railroad opened a line between Rogers and Stillmore, a settlement lying 31 miles south in Emanuel County. Rogers was at mile 86.8 on the Central and 12 miles west of Millen. In 1890, the Millen & Southern Railway was organized as successor to the R&S, and a year later that company built a 10-mile connection from Millen to the railroad at Thrift, replacing the line from Rogers. Millen, located on the Central mainline at its junction with the Augusta branch, was then a village located on the border of Burke and Screven counties; it would not be until 1905 that Jenkins County would be created and Millen named the county seat. Stillmore, about 14 miles southeast of Swainsboro, had no railroad before the R&S/M&S came to the place. It would soon have two. In November 1892, George Brinson's new 20-mile Stillmore Air Line Railway began service from Stillmore to Collins. At the time, Collins was a developing community on the Central's Savannah-Lyons line, opened in 1890 by Central subsidiary Savannah & Western Railroad. Stillmore was on its way to becoming a rail hub. Ninety miles south of Stillmore was Waycross, a more established hub with lines running in five directions. The town grew around the junction of two antebellum railroads, the Atlantic & Gulf and the Brunswick & Florida. After Henry Plant purchased the Atlantic & Gulf in 1879, constructed the Waycross Short Line in 1880-81, and acquired the Brunswick & Western (successor to the Brunswick & Albany, previously the Brunswick & Florida) in the mid-1880s, it became a Plant System hub. In 1890, Waycross gained a sixth line, the Waycross Air Line Railroad. It dated back to the early 1880s, when the Waycross Lumber Company built an eight-mile logging railroad running northwest from Waycross to Waltertown on the Satilla River. Observing that the new line was built in the direction of a previously untapped region, the company's attorney, Joel L. Sweat, suggested that the railroad be converted to a common carrier and extended northwest to Dublin, Hawkinsville, Macon, or some other interior town. Additionally, he proposed a southeast extension from Waycross to St. Marys, which would give the railroad an Atlantic port from which the lumber products of the northwestern extension could be shipped. Acting on this advice, the company secured a charter for the Waycross Air Line Railroad on October 24, 1887. The first 25 miles between Waycross and Sessoms opened in 1890.213 Meanwhile, a potential seventh Waycross railroad, the Abbeville & Waycross, was under construction southwards from Abbeville. It reached Bowens Mill in 1890 and Lulaville the following year. With a total length of 18 miles, it was far short of reaching Waycross when it entered receivership in 1892. Northeast Georgia In the northeastern part of the state, the Georgia Railroad gained three new feeder lines during the period. The longest, at 13 miles, was the Union Point & White Plains Railroad, chartered in 1886 but not opened until 1889. It connected White Plains in southern Greene County to the mainline at Union Point. The shortest was the four-mile Lexington Terminal Railroad, connecting the Oglethorpe County seat to the Athens branch at Crawford. When the Georgia Railroad came through the area in the early 1840s, Lexington was bypassed, supposedly because land that belonged to the town's Meson Academy blocked the railroad from entering town. According to historian Joan Sears, a restriction in the land donor's will prohibited the land from being sold, thus making it difficult for the railroad to acquire the needed right of way.214 Historian Mary G. Cumming, however, citing a letter by Georgia Railroad founder James Camak, wrote that the railroad builders were told to keep their tracks at least four miles away because of the locomotive noise and the machine's tendency to frighten livestock.215 67 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey The third new feeder line was the Smithonia & Dunlap Railroad, one of the most unusual railroads in Georgia in that it was owned by a farmer and used primarily to transport the products of his farm. Constructed in 18881889 by James Monroe Smith, the seven-mile S&D ran from Smithonia, a cluster of farm buildings and factories at the center of his personal empire, to the Georgia Railroad at Dunlap, 10 miles from Athens. Smith, who had begun in business by cutting and shaping wood for crossties, gradually acquired more and more land in Oglethorpe and Madison counties to add to his farm holdings; eventually he owned some 30 square miles, most of it contiguous. Smith said, according to some, that he intended to buy "all the land that's next to mine."216 The S&D had a sister line, the five-mile Smithonia, Danielsville & Carnesville, built in 1890-1892 from Smithonia to Five Forks (later renamed Colbert). While it never reached Danielsville or Carnesville, its name indicated Smith's interest in building railroads to several northeastern Georgia towns, among them Bowersville, Hartwell, Lexington, Danburg, Lincolnton, and even Augusta.217 "In Smith's time," observed writer Hal Steed, "many Georgia industrialists and successful businessmen had one of two ambitions: to build an office building or a railroad. Several skyscrapers were put up in Atlanta, and the state was crisscrossed with railroads. Some were little more than plantation makeshifts. The ground was not even graded for them and they ran up and down hill. Others were not more than ten miles long."218 Near Smithonia, the SD&C Railroad ran alongside a convict camp where Smith held dozens of unfortunates who had been leased to him for work on his farm and other enterprises. In 1895-96, some 171 prisoners were under Smith's control.219 "He [Smith] became a major buyer of convicts soon after Georgia's Reconstruction government was toppled by a campaign of voter fraud and Ku Klux Klan violence," wrote historian Douglas Blackmon. "On thousands of acres, he raised cotton, corn, sorghum, and timber, and operated small factories. For workers he relied on an army of terrified convict slaves, including many African Americans he had owned before the war or their descendants."220 While Smith's convicts were building his SD&C, a new rail line was under construction between Covington and Eatonton. Begun under an 1889 charter as the Eatonton & Machen Railroad, it was soon renamed the Middle Georgia & Atlantic Railway. In 1893, the MG&A leased the 21mile Eatonton Branch Railroad and in the same year built 44 miles of new tracks between Eatonton and Covington. All of this was part of a plan by the Seaboard Air Line System to establish a new Atlanta-Savannah route by way of Milledgeville, Sandersville, Swainsboro, and Statesboro. The Seaboard owned all of the MG&A's capital stock.221 The new MG&A tracks crossed the the Macon & Northern at Machen. At Carmel, about 15 miles northwest of Machen, the MG&A planned to build a branch line running north to a connection with the Georgia Railroad and the Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern Railroad at Social Circle. It was never built, nor was the Covington-Atlanta or Milledgeville-Savannah trackage. Two Specialized Shortlines Two specialized railroads were constructed during the period, one north of Macon and the other south of Chattanooga. The former, opened in 1890, was the Indian Springs & Flovilla Railroad, a three-mile resort line running from the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia at Flovilla to a well-known mineral spring thought by the Creek Indians to have healing properties. Hotels near the spring provided lodging, meals, and entertainment, and for those who could afford the charges, it was a delightful place. The standardgauge railroad had one locomotive, two passenger cars, a flatcar, and a coal car. 22The railroad struggled in the aftermath of the mid-1890s financial panic and was sold under foreclosure in 1897. It remained in operation, though, and was renamed the Flovilla & Indian Springs Railway. The second specialized line, completed in 1892, was the Chickamauga & Durham Railroad. It ran 17 miles from the Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus at Chickamauga to the Durham coal mines high atop Lookout Mountain. In its ascent, the railroad traversed Rock Creek Gorge, a narrow steepsided gap in the plateau just west of Flintstone. Along the way it passed by Lula Lake and Lula Falls, a scenic but isolated spot that occasionally attracted adventurous visitors from Chattanooga. The Chickamauga & Durham was sold under foreclosure in October of 1894, after which it was renamed the Chattanooga & Durham Railroad. 68 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey RESORT RAILS AND TOURIST TRACKS "The State of Georgia has an unusual number of attractive resorts, both for health and pleasure. To enumerate them would be to name Brunswick, St. Simon's Island, and Cumberland Island on the coast; Mt. Airy, in the northeastern part of the State; Lithia Springs, twenty miles west of Atlanta; Tallulah Falls, Indian Springs, near Flovilla; Tallapoosa Lithia Springs, Warm Springs, New Holland Springs, and a number of others of less prominence." Frank Presbrey, The Southland, published by Southern Railway Co., 1898. Fortunately for those seeking health and pleasure in the pre-automobile era, nearly all of the Georgia resorts in Frank Presbrey's list were readily accessible by rail. St. Simons Island and Cumberland Island were exceptions, but the former was only a short boat ride from Brunswick, and Cumberland would be similarly linked to St. Marys after that town got its railroad in 1906. One can gather from the list that mineral springs were especially popular. In fact, two were popular enough that they could support their own railroads: the Indian Springs & Flovilla Railroad and the Bowden Lithia Springs Short Line Railroad. The Indian Springs & Flovilla opened in 1890, running from the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia at Flovilla to Indian Springs. The Bowden Lithia Springs Short Line opened in 1885 running from the Georgia Pacific Railroad at Austell to the Sweetwater Park Hotel and adjacent Chatauqua grounds in Lithia Springs. Warm Springs was served by the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad, and Tallapoosa Lithia Springs was served by the Georgia Pacific. At Tallapoosa, the 175-room Lithia Springs Hotel, said to be the largest wooden building in the South, was the main attraction. In Augusta, the Augusta & Summerville Railroad transported tourists to resort hotels on "The Hill," which overlooked the city from the northeast. It opened in 1868. Across the river in North Augusta was the grand Hampton Terrace hotel, connected by an electric interurban line to Augusta in one direction and the resort town of Aiken in the other. Savannah had rail lines running from the city to "The Salts," as recreational spots on the coastal rivers were then called. The earliest was the Savannah, Skidaway & Seaboard Railroad, opened in 1868. Running all the way to the beach on Tybee Island was the Savannah & Tybee Railroad; it opened in 1887. In the Georgia mountains, the Northeastern Railroad of Georgia did a sizable tourist business taking Lithia Spring Hotel, circa 1882 (Vanishing Georgia) visitors to see the spectacular waterfalls of Tallulah Gorge. Opened in 1882 between Cornelia and Tallulah Falls, it also served a number of lesser-known tourist spots along its route. The AB&A took visitors to the Oglethorpe Hotel at Brunswick, which was also served by Southern Railway. The Savannah, Florida & Western carried thousands to resort hotels at Thomasville. Much recreational travel by train was in the form of day trips. Atlantans, for example, often took the Western & Atlantic to Vinings Station just across the Chattahoochee River or boarded Georgia Railroad trains for the short trip to Stone Mountain. In northwest Georgia, Chattanoogans frequently traveled to Chickamauga Battlefield Park by way of the Central of Georgia. Two interurban lines also served the park. A dozen Georgia cities and towns once had streetcar lines that provided ready access to getaway sites such as amusement parks and recreational parks. These were often located at the end of the line as a way to boost ridership. (Augusta was somewhat unusual in that its attractions lay along a loop.) In Rome, the cars went to DeSoto Park, in Gainesville to Chattahoochee Park, in Valdosta to Pine Park, in Waycross to Winona Park, in Columbus to Wildwood Park, and in Macon to Crumps Park. Atlanta streetcars traveled to parks at Ponce de Leon Springs, Eastlake, and Lakewood. Railroads and streetcar lines eventually lost their resort and recreational business to automobiles. Few of the railroad-served hotels still stand, and in many cases the railroad itself is gone. All of the streetcar lines were gone by the middle of the twentieth century. (For more information see Historic Streetcar Systems in Georgia: Context and Inventory, prepared for the Georgia Department of Transportation by New South Associates in 2010.)v 69 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey More Tracks, Shifting Ownership Overall, the years from 1889 to 1892 were remarkably productive for Georgia's railroad builders, with both long and shortlines put into operation all over the state. As Georgia's rail network matured, lines had been constructed to most corners of the state, and interstate connections now provided access practically anywhere in the U.S. Thus, the railroad boom and its associated developmental impacts continued. But at the same time, financial control of the major Southern lines continued to shift to northern interests. By 1890, of Southern railroads more than 100 miles in length, only 15 of 58 were clearly Southern controlled.223 ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 70 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey RAILROADS AT GEORGIA'S BORDERS Inman Yard, Atlanta Rome, Floyd County Fairmount, Gordon County Bolivar vicinity, Bartow County Attapulgus, Decatur County photo caption 1833 | Augusta | SC | South Carolina Railroad 1850 | Graysville | TN | Western & Atlantic 1854 | West Point | AL | Atlanta & West Point 1854 | Columbus | AL | Montgomery & West Point 1854 | NW of Wildwood | TN | Nashville & Chattanooga 1856 | N of Cohutta | TN | East Tennessee & Georgia 1859-60 | Georgetown/Eufaula | AL | Southwestern 1859-60 | Fort Gaines | AL | Southwestern 1860 | NE of Wildwood | TN | Wills Valley 1860 | Savannah | SC | Charleston & Savannah 1861 | Columbus | AL | Mobile & Girard 1865 | SE of Statenville | FL | Atlantic & Gulf 1869 | Augusta | SC | Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta 1870 | SW of Cave Spring | AL | Selma, Rome & Dalton 1873 | E of Toccoa | SC | Atlanta & Richmond Air Line 1873 | Augusta | SC | Port Royal 1881 | S of Folkston | FL | Savannah, Florida & Western 1882 | W of Esom Hill | AL | East & West Railroad of Alabama 1882 | N of Evans | SC | Augusta & Knoxville 1883 | SW of Bainbridge | FL | Savannah, Florida & Western 1883 | W of Tallapoosa | AL | Georgia Pacific 1883 | Cohutta-Ooltewah | TN | E. Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia 1887 | NE of Mineral Bluff | NC | Marietta & North Georgia 1887 | W of Rome | AL | Rome & Decatur 1888 | Rossville | TN | Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus 1888 | S of Metcalf | FL | Savannah, Florida & Western 1889 | SE of Lake Park | FL | Georgia Southern & Florida 1889 | SW of Blakely | AL | Southwestern/Central of Georgia 1890 | McCaysville | TN | Marietta & N Ga/Knoxville Southern 1890 | E of Elberton | SC | Georgia, Carolina & Northern 1890 | NW of Jakin | AL | Alabama Midland 1890 | W of Omaha | AL | Savannah, Americus & Montgomery 1891 | N of Clyo | SC | South Bound 1891 | SW of Menlo | AL | Chattanooga Southern 1891 | N of Flintstone | TN | Chattanooga Southern 1893 | S of Kingsland | FL | Florida Central & Peninsular 1897 | West Point | AL | Chattahoochee Valley (south to Riverview) 1899 | St. George | FL | Atlantic, Valdosta & Western 1900 | Rossville | TN | Rapid Transit Company 1901 | S of Quitman | FL | South Georgia 1901 | S of Clyattville | FL | Valdosta Southern 1902 | S of Attapulgas | FL | Georgia, Florida & Alabama 1902 | Augusta | SC | Augusta & Aiken (electric) 1904 | SW of Lyerly | AL | Central of Georgia (9.5-mile branch line) 1906 | Tennga | TN | Louisville & Nashville 1907 | N of Dillard | NC | Tallulah Falls 1908 | W of LaGrange | AL | Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic 1908 | S of Metcalf | FL | Florida Central 1908 | West Point | AL | Chattahoochee Valley (north to AB&A) 1914 | SW of Cairo | FL | Pelham & Havana 1917 | Rossville | TN | Chattanooga Railway & Light (electric) 1917 | Savannah | SC | Seaboard Air Line NOTES 1. For locations where a river forms the border, the dates shown above may be earlier than the date when the railroad bridged the river. For example, the South Carolina Railroad bridged the Savannah River at Augusta in 1853, twenty years after reaching the riverbank opposite the city; the Montgomery & West Point bridged the Chattahoochee River at Columbus around 1855, a year or so after reaching the opposite bank. 2. Not included are short mining branch lines such as the Nickajack Railroad on the Tennessee border in Dade County and the Menlo-Coe branch of the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railroad (former Chattanooga Southern) on the Alabama border in Chattooga County. Also excluded are lumber lines such as the Arbacoochee Timber & Railway Company line on the Alabama border southwest of Tallapoosa. 3. On its winding mountainous course from northeastern Alabama to Chattanooga, the Nashville & Chattanooga dipped slightly into northern Dade County, Georgia, but it had little impact on that isolated area. 71 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 12 AN ECONOMIC DEPRESSION HITS THE RAILROADS: 1893-1896 In his book Georgia: Unfinished State, writer Hal Steed noted the impact of the economic depression known as the Panic of 1893: Everybody who was anybody was building and developing--railroads in the country; street-car lines, office buildings, and subdivisions in the cities. Stock promotions bloomed overnight...These pyrotechnics of business expansion were effectively dampened by the panic of 1893. Railroads went into bankruptcy, hastily built cotton factories either closed down or operated only part time. Mill-hands were paid thirtysix cents a day and died in epidemics of typhoid and starvation in the factory districts of the cities. White and black farmers walked along country roads begging for food.224 As the depression slammed the nation's economy, overextended railroads failed by the dozens. "Of America's 364 railroads," reported one historian, "89 went bankrupt, representing forty thousand route miles, around a quarter of the total."225 In Georgia, where over one-third of the state's railroad mileage had been constructed in the thirteen years before 1893, the financial turmoil had begun even earlier as receiverships befell the Marietta & North Georgia (1891), the Blue Ridge & Atlantic (1892), and the Georgia Southern & Florida (1891), among others.226 In the spring of 1892, a shareholder's lawsuit pushed the Central Railroad of Georgia into receivership. This was soon followed by the receiverships of the Richmond & Danville on June 16, the Richmond Terminal Company on June 22, and the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia on June 24. To reorganize its fallen system, the Terminal Company's management turned to New York banker J. P. Morgan of Drexel, Morgan & Company. Morgan agreed to take on the task, but when his terms were resisted, he withdrew. A further worsening of the company's financial situation, however, led the directors to capitulate, and, in early 1893, Morgan took control.227 Southern Railway Emerges from the Wreckage In 1894, Morgan organized the new Southern Railway Company, replacing the Richmond Terminal Company, the Richmond & Danville, the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia, the Georgia Pacific, the Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta, and a number of other lines. Because of the lawsuits that had challenged the Terminal Company's control of the Central, it was not included in the restructuring. To manage this new empire, Morgan selected Samuel Spencer, a native of Columbus, Georgia, and a former railroad executive who had joined Drexel, Morgan & Company in 1889 as railroad advisor. Southern Railway's first president then set out to put the company on a firm foundation. In June 1895, Southern bought the Atlanta & Florida Railway, then a financially strapped line that ran 105 miles from Atlanta--by way of Fayetteville, Zebulon, and Roberta--to Fort Valley. The A&F name was dropped, and the line became Southern's Fort Valley branch. The following month, Southern acquired control of the 285-mile Georgia Southern & Florida Railroad, which ran from Macon through Cordele, Tifton, and Valdosta to Palatka, Florida, on the St. Johns River. It had huge potential, passing through a land described as "one of the South's important lumbering regions, one also rich in naval stores, cotton, fruits, and vegetables."228 Of equal importance, it provided entry into rapidly growing Florida, where mild winters were attracting Northern visitors in ever-increasing numbers. The GS&F continued to operate under its own identity, as did the Alabama Great Southern, which came under Southern control in 1895. The AGS ran southwest from Chattanooga through Georgia's northwestern corner to Birmingham. In 1896, Southern acquired a line to Columbus by leasing the 98-mile Georgia Midland Railway, which had been organized the same year to take over the properties of the Georgia Midland & Gulf Railroad. The GM&G had entered receivership the previous year. The line ran from McDonough, on Southern's Atlanta-Macon mainline, to Griffin, Warm Springs, and Columbus. 72 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 73 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Folkston, Charlton County Reorganization of the Central After its foreclosure sale, the Central Railroad was reorganized as Central of Georgia Railway on November 1, 1895. Included in the new company were the properties and franchises of the Savannah & Western Railroad, the Savannah & Atlantic Railroad, the Macon & Northern Railway, the Mobile & Girard Railroad, and the Montgomery & Eufaula Railway. The Southwestern Railroad and the Augusta & Savannah Railroad, which had been leased by the earlier Central Railroad, were also leased by the new company. Through stock ownership, the new Central also continued to control the Louisville & Wadley Railroad, the Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad, the Sylvania Railroad, and the Upson County Railroad. It also retained its half-interest in the Western Railway of Alabama.229 In western South Carolina, the Central Railroad controlled the 112-mile Port Royal & Augusta, extending from Augusta to the coast at Port Royal, as well as the 229-mile Port Royal & Western Carolina, extending from Augusta to Anderson, Greenville, and Spartanburg. Together the two roads created a direct route from the South Carolina upcountry to the excellent harbor at Port Royal. A problem, however, lay in the fact that the Central used its position to divert PR&WC traffic away from Port Royal, routing it to Savannah instead. Understandably, this was not well received in the Palmetto State, especially among those who lived along the PR&A, who saw that railroad's operations and facilities deteriorate under Central control. In 1893-94, the State of Carolina pursued legal action to prevent the Central from exercising control over the PR&A and succeeded in pushing the company out of the state. In 1896, the Charleston & Western Carolina was organized to replace the two Port Royal lines. The following year, the C&WC came under the control of the Atlantic Coast Line, but it was allowed to operate separately. More Railroad Changes in the Augusta Region Another victim of the troubled economy was the narrow-gauge Augusta, Gibson & Sandersville. Reorganized and renamed the Augusta Southern Railroad in 1893, it managed to convert its 80 miles of tracks to standard gauge in 1895. Its new ownership group was headed by James U. Jackson, an Augusta businessman who in 1902 would open an electric interurban line between that city and Aiken, South Carolina. At the south end of the Augusta Southern in Sandersville, the 3.5-mile Sandersville Railroad was constructed in 1894-95 between the Washington County seat and the Central of Georgia mainline at Tennille. The new railroad was in competition with the Sandersville & Tennille Railroad, constructed nearly twenty years earlier. The S&T had been leased to the Augusta Southern Railroad in 1893 and was purchased by that company in 1894. To reduce the costs of property acquisition in the difficult economic times, the Sandersville Railroad worked out deals with some landowners to trade land deeds for free travel. Thus, a number of local families were able to ride free for the rest of their lives, an arrangement that lasted until the last beneficiary died in the 1960s.230 Sixty miles south of Augusta, the Foy Railroad, a 10-mile lumber railroad operated by the E. E. Foy Lumber Company, ran from the Central of Georgia mainline at Rocky Ford to Portal in Bulloch County. By 1895 it had become a common carrier and operated in that status through 1903.231 Changes in south Central Georgia In south central Georgia, one of the panic's many casualties was the 265mile Savannah, Americus & Montgomery. In May 1895, the railroad was sold under foreclosure to a syndicate formed by the Richmond banking firm of John L. Williams & Sons and the Baltimore firm of Middendorf, Oliver & Company. The new owners renamed it the Georgia & Alabama Railway and selected John Skelton Williams, a son of John L. Williams, as the railroad's president. The SA&M's Albany, Florida & Northern subsidiary was split off and reorganized as the Albany & Northern Railway. In 1896, John Skelton Williams expanded the Georgia & Alabama system by a mix of purchases, leases, and new construction. He purchased the Abbeville & Waycross Railroad, the 18-mile line running south from Abbeville to Lulaville, and extended it four miles to Fitzgerald and another nine miles to Ocilla. From the Central of Georgia, he acquired a long-term lease for the 58 miles of tracks between Lyons and Meldrim and trackage rights for the 17 miles from Meldrim to Savannah. In December of that year, he bought the 88-mile Columbus Southern Railway, which linked Columbus and Albany and connected with the Georgia & Alabama mainline at Richland. 74 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey The Georgia & Alabama billed itself as the Savannah Short Line, promoting its 340-mile Montgomery-Savannah line as more direct than those of the Central and the Plant System. By comparison, the Central's route, which went through Macon, Americus, and Eufaula, totaled 415 miles. The Plant System's route, by way of Waycross, Thomasville, and Bainbridge, added up to 412 miles. In 1896, the Georgia & Alabama gained more traffic at Collins as the Collins & Reidsville Railroad opened its seven-mile line from Reidsville, the seat of Tattnall County. In addition, another county seat became connected when the Stillmore Air Line was extended 13 miles northwest from Stillmore to Swainsboro. A few miles west of Stillmore, the Atlantic Short Line Railway was at work on the unfinished line of its failed predecessor, the Macon & Atlantic Railroad. The M&A had laid 11 miles of track from Bruton (later spelled as Brewton), a point on the Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad. In 1894, the Atlantic Short Line added 16 miles, but soon thereafter entered receivership, bringing a halt to construction. Meanwhile, another piney woods railroad, the Hawkinsville & Florida Southern, was transitioning from logging line to common carrier. It had been organized in 1889 and by 1895 was hauling general freight. Passengers were also accommodated, but they had to ride on freight trains. A charter was received in 1896, after which the H&FS became a 43-mile common carrier running south from Hawkinsville to Worth, on the Georgia Southern & Florida three miles north of Ashburn. From the mainline at Davisville, a 15-mile branch ran to Fitzgerald. The HF&S proclaimed itself the "Pine Belt Route." Changes in Southwest and Southeast Georgia A similar transition was also underway northeast of Thomasville where in 1893 the Georgia Northern Railway had opened a 31-mile line from Pidcock to Moultrie. Pidcock was a small community on the Savannah, Florida & Western, and Moultrie was a backwoods hamlet that had seen hardly any growth since its founding as the seat of Colquitt County in the late 1850s. The railroad was an enterprise of New Jersey businessman James N. Pidcock, Sr. and his son, Charles W. Pidcock, Sr. Charles had come to south Georgia in the 1880s, followed by his father in 1892. The two acquired land in the area and built a tram to haul logs off the property. Having been associated with the Rockaway Valley Railroad in New Jersey, the Pidcocks had some experience with common-carrier lines and soon decided to upgrade the logging tram to that status. Charles Pidcock drove the first train into Moultrie on February 26, 1893, setting off a boom that raised the town's population from 150 to 2,400 over the next seven years, despite the economic panic.Five miles west of Pidcock on the Savannah, Florida & Western was the town of Boston. In 1891, a group of its citizens organized the Boston & Albany Railroad with plans to build north. Actual construction failed to begin, however, and on October 3, 1894, the bankrupt B&A, which had not survived the panic, was sold to the Pidcocks. The transaction gave the Georgia Northern a charter, which it had been operating without. On November 22, 1894, the Boston & Albany was officially renamed the Georgia Northern, making the existing railroad properly authorized.232 In the same region, Henry H. Tift's Tifton & Northeastern Railroad opened in 1896 running 25 miles from Tifton to Fitzgerald. Tifton had been established in the 1870s at Tift's sawmill on the Brunswick & Western and had boomed after the Georgia Southern & Florida came through in November 1888. Henry Tift's T&NE would later be merged into a larger system and would last until 1960, while the Pidcocks' Georgia Northern would last even longer. But a very brief existence was the outcome for four southeast Georgia lumber lines: St. Marys, Lake City & Gulf Railroad--Between 1893 and 1896, the Brooks Brothers lumber and turpentine company built a rail line from Boulogne, Florida, on the Plant System's Waycross-Jacksonville line, to Charlton, at the Big Bend of the St. Marys River. About 30 miles long, the railroad followed along Trail Ridge, a relict barrier island that forms the eastern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp. Despite its impressive name, the railroad was never more than a lumber line, and it failed to reach St. Marys, Lake City, or the Gulf. It was abandoned around 1900. Brunswick & Pensacola Railroad--This logging line, constructed by the Suwanee Canal Company in 1895-96, ran from Camp Cornelia, on the eastern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp about 12 miles southwest of Folkston, through Folkston to Bullhead Bluff on the Satilla River. The 75 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey RAILROAD MARKETING NAMES In addition to their official corporate names, some railroads used marketing names such as The Dixie Line and The TAG Route. These were often emblazoned on locomotives and railcars, while the official name might or might not be included. Timetables and brochures were more likely to include both names. _______________________________________________________ Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Atlanta & West Point Atlantic Coast Line Atlantic, Valdosta & Western Bainbridge Northern Central of Georgia Chattanooga Southern East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Gainesville & Northwestern Georgia & Alabama Georgia, Florida & Alabama Georgia Railroad Georgia Southern & Florida Hawkinsville & Florida Southern Louisville & Nashville Louisville & Nashville Macon & Birmingham Macon, Dublin & Savannah Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Richmond & Danville South Carolina & Georgia Tallulah Falls Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Waycross & Southern The Bee Line The ABC Hiawassee Route West Point Route The Standard Railroad of the South Jacksonville Short Line The Lumber Line The Right Way The Pigeon Mountain Route The Great Kennesaw Route The Nacoochee Valley Route Savannah Short Line The Sumatra Leaf Route The Stone Mountain Route The Suwanee River Route The Pine Belt Route The Old Reliable The Dixie Line The Pine Mountain Route The Vidalia Route The Dixie Line The Lookout Mountain Route Piedmont Air Line The Charleston Line Rabun Gap Route The TAG Route The Okefinokee Route Suwanee Canal Company was attempting to drain the swamp, harvest its timber, and sell the drained lands for agricultural development. It failed in 1897.233 Douglas & McDonald Railroad--Constructed in 1895-1896, this 20mile common carrier ran from Douglas to the Brunswick & Western at McDonald's Mill, now Axson. It mostly hauled lumber and was abandoned in 1904. South Brunswick Terminal Railroad--Opened sometime between 1889 and 1892, the South Brunswick Terminal Railroad ran from deepwater docks at Colonels Island to the Brunswick & Western Railroad at Waynesville over a distance of 17 miles. The line was projected to run 176 miles west to Cordele, across the coastal plain pine forest and through regions then largely untouched by rails.234 An 1895 Brunswick promotional booklet indicated that "the South Brunswick Terminal Railroad will, within a few months, have a connection with some of the largest saw mills in the pine regions."235 After foreclosure in 1895, the line was reorganized as the South Brunswick Railroad. That company only lasted until 1898, when the tracks were abandoned. Had it been completed to Cordele, the South Brunswick Terminal Railroad would have provided a rail alternative to the Altamaha and Ocmulgee rivers, which had long transported rafts of logs to coastal sawmills, with much of the trade going to Darien. In 1860, Georgia author Adiel Sherwood described the port town: It does not thrive as its position would scorn to promise. Immense amounts of lumber are shipped here for eastern states, and much cotton used to descend the river; but the Central Railroad has diverted most of the produce to Savannah; the Gulph Railroad [Savannah, Albany & Gulf], which runs through north part of the county, will divert still more.236 But the railroads failed to divert as much trade as Sherwood expected. As one historian noted: Even after timber entrepreneurs crosshatched the Wiregrass with railroads, the Altamaha continued to be a reliable conduit for moving timbers from the forests of the Altamaha Basin to low-country mills. 76 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Darien was, throughout the timber boom, a major milling center and timber port...by 1881 five mills in the area produced millions of board feet of lumber, which was then loaded on schooners and steamers to be shipped to markets in the North, in South and Central America, and in Europe.237 In 1895, a rail line finally came to Darien in the form of the Darien & Western Railroad. It had begun in 1890 as the Darien Short Line Railroad, a timber hauler operating from Belleville on the Sapelo River to pine forests in the interior. Its owners were attempting to extend the line west to Tattnall County and south to Darien when the company failed and was sold under foreclosure. In May 1894, the Darien & Western Railroad was chartered to replace it. The new company completed the line to Darien in 1895, and in the same year opened a westward extension to Middleton.238 Change in North Georgia Meanwhile, in north Georgia, three railroads were coming under new ownership. In 1894, the Rome Railroad was purchased by the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, which had leased the Western & Atlantic four years earlier. The 18-mile line, built in 1848-49, followed the north bank of the Etowah River between Kingston and Rome. Also in 1894, the Chickamauga & Durham Railroad, running from Chickamauga to the Durham coal mines atop Lookout Mountain, was sold under foreclosure and reorganized as the Chattanooga & Durham Railroad. The Chattanooga & Durham's president, former Atlanta mayor James W. English, also owned the Durham Coal & Coke Company, which mined the coal that was then carried down the mountain by the railroad to Chickamauga, where it was converted to coke. English's enterprises included the Chattahoochee Brick Company, which, like his mining operation, procured its labor cheaply through Georgia's brutal convict lease system.239 The third ownership change involved another mountain railroad, the 205mile Marietta & North Georgia Railway, which had been operating under receivership since 1891. It had a standard-gauge mainline stretching from Marietta to Knoxville, Tennessee, and a narrow-gauge branch line extending from Blue Ridge to Murphy, North Carolina. On November 1, 1896, it was replaced by a new company, the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern Railway Company. Upheaval and Change The Panic of 1893 disrupted rail organizations throughout the country, and Georgia was not spared. Numerous companies failed, although most were reorganized under new ownership, one such result being the formation of perhaps the South's most iconic rail system, the Southern. Another Georgia mainstay, the Central, survived through reorganization. Consolidation also continued, as bankrupt lines could be cheaply acquired. And, despite conditions, Georgians optimistically continued to plan and build new lines. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 77 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey BRUNSWICK AND DARIEN AS PORT AND RAIL TERMINALS In her book, The First One Hundred Years of Town Planning in Georgia, Joan Niles Sears studied, among other towns, Brunswick, Darien, and Savannah. Advancing a viewpoint made earlier by historian Ulrich B. Phillips, Sears argued that the prosperity of each town was dependent on three factors: A successful coastal town (all major Georgia colonial towns except Wrightsboro were on the water) depended on a deep harbor, a navigable river to bring produce from the interior and fertile lands feeding crops into the river highway to the port. Savannah had all three and prospered...Darien had a poor harbor but a navigable river and prospered until the midnineteenth century when the railroad provided a better means of transportation....Brunswick had an excellent harbor, but was on a small river which drained the Pine Barrens and, unlike Darien, prospered only after the advent of the railroad.1 As Sears observed, Brunswick's river, the tidal Turtle River, extended only a short distance into the coastal flatlands. Knowing that it was useless as a corridor to the state's interior, Brunswick instead looked north to the Altamaha, one of the major rivers of the east coast, and, in 1836, began construction of the Brunswick-Altamaha Canal. Due to a lack of adequate funding, it was not completed until 1854. As it turned out, though, the expected trade benefits failed to materialize and the canal was soon in need of repair, leading to its abandonment in 1860.2 It was the opening of the Macon & Brunswick Railroad in 1870 and the Brunswick & Albany Railroad in 1871 that enabled the city to tap the inland trade for its commercial benefit. These railroads, and those that followed, powered Brunswick's subsequent growth as a regional center and as a seaport. In regard to Darien, Sears noted that it prospered until the midnineteenth century and then declined as railroads expanded. While true, Darien recovered after the Civil War and thrived as a lumber (S. Storey) shipping port until the second decade of the 20th century. (Sears focused on the period 1733 to 1835). Huge quantities of timber were floated down the Altamaha to be consumed by the town's sawmills, and the resulting lumber was shipped to many foreign destinations. Although Brunswick clearly had the better harbor, Darien was able to accommodate ocean-going vessels, enough that it became the southern Atlantic coast's leading export point for lumber during the late 19th century.3 Still, Darien had not attracted a rail line. Finally, in 1895, six decades after rail construction began in Georgia, the town welcomed the Darien & Western Railroad. At first it extended only 20 miles to a connection with the Florida Central & Peninsular, but after being merged into the Georgia Coast & Piedmont in 1906, it became part of a line that reached 82 miles into the interior. If the D&W/GC&P had been built two or three decades earlier, Darien might have grown to compete with Brunswick, but the railroad had come too late. With the advantage of a head start, Brunswick and Savannah had secured their positions as rail terminals, and there was not a regional need for any others. After the Darien segment of the Georgia Coast & Piedmont was abandoned in 1919, the town settled into a sleepy existence that was only minimally disturbed by the later coming of U. S. Highway 17. v __________________________________________________________ 1 Joan Niles Sears, The First One Hundred Years of Town Planning in Georgia, Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Co., 1979, p. 51-52; Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to 1860, New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1908, p. 6. 2 Brunswick-Glynn County Joint Planning Commission, Brunswick-Altamaha Canal Study, 1981, p. 21-24. 3 Buddy Sullivan, Darien, New Georgia Encyclopedia, accessed Feb. 10, 2015. 78 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 13 RAILROADS REBOUND: 1897-1900 "Growing cities also needed timber, cement, brick, food, and fuel. Prior to the age of rail, all this came by ship or came from nearby. With railroads and trucks it could come from much further afield, dispersing the environmental effects across broader hinterlands, thus enlarging the ecological footprint of cities." J. R. McNeill240 At the end of the nineteenth century, the nation's population reached 76 million, nearly 40 percent of which was urban.241 As supply lines to the cities, the railroads had enabled their growth, both in numbers of residents and in extent of developed land. While the larger cities began to spread across the landscape by constructing streetcar lines to new suburbs such as Inman Park near Atlanta, many small towns flourished and expanded as well. All of this urbanization helped the railroads recover from the economic panic. The Central resumed its growth, and in December 1896 it bought the Middle Georgia & Atlantic Railway, the 65-mile line between Milledgeville and Covington, in a foreclosure sale. Shortly after the purchase, the Central extended the line four miles from Covington to Porterdale, a mill town on the Yellow River. The extension was completed on June 30, 1899. In 1898, the Central gained stock control of the Louisville & Wadley Railroad, a 10-mile feeder line in southern Jefferson County. Also connecting at Wadley was the Wadley & Mt. Vernon Railroad, then a 30mile line that ran south to Adrian and Rixville. It would later be added to the Central's holdings. One of the results of the Central's receivership was the loss of its halfinterest in the lease of the Georgia Railroad. It had been pledged to Samuel Thomas and Thomas S. Ryan, and on February 2, 1898, those two financiers assigned the lease to the L&N, which held the other half as well. On August 9, 1899, the L&N assigned a half-interest in the lease to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company of South Carolina. Thus, the Wadley lease that was first assigned jointly to the L&N and the Central became similarly assigned to the L&N and the Atlantic Coast Line.242 If it had not defaulted on a rental payment on the Georgia Railroad property, the Central might have been able to keep its half-interest. But the L&N had been looking for a way to push the Central out, and the default provided the means to do so. Railroad historian Maury Klein recounted the events: In February, 1898, he (L&N president Milton H. Smith) managed to obtain the Central's half of the Georgia Railroad lease by paying that hard-pressed company's share of the rental. The Central promptly brought suit to regain its rights as co-lessee but lost the decision. Smith did not want sole possession of the lease (and its annual deficit) as much as he wanted to eliminate the Central's negative attitude from the Georgia's management.243 L&N had plans for expanding to Atlanta, and the Central may have been an obstacle to those plans. At the capital city, a third belt line was constructed in 1899-1900 by the Atlanta Belt Railway, this one on the southeast side of town. The 5.5-mile line extended from the Atlanta & West Point and the Central of Georgia near East Point to the Georgia Railroad near Inman Park. After it was finished, it was leased to the A&WP. This new belt line would soon be followed by the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern/Louisville & Nashville belt line on the west side of the city. To the northeast of Atlanta, the Loganville & Lawrenceville Railroad opened in 1898 between those two towns, running by way of Grayson. At Lawrenceville, the L&L connected with the Georgia, Carolina & Northern, which had assisted in its construction. Lawrenceville was also served by the Lawrenceville Branch Railroad, which had formed a connection to Suwanee since 1881. At West Point, operations on the Chattahoochee Valley Railway began in 1900. Owned by the West Point Manufacturing Company, a textile producer, the railroad had been placed into service in 1895-96 as the Alabama-chartered Chattahoochee Valley Railroad running from Lanett to Langdale, both in Alabama. It was extended to Riverview in 1897 and to Jester, near Bartletts Ferry, in 1899. In 1900, the line was reorganized under a Georgia charter, keeping the name Chattahoochee Valley Railway. At West Point, its tracks connected with the Atlanta & West Point Railroad and the Western Railway of Alabama.244 79 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1898 80 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 81 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Midville, Burke County Also in 1900, the northwest Georgia coal-hauler Chattanooga & Durham Railroad was sold to the Chattanooga, Rome & Southern Railroad. The latter company was the reorganized Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus Railroad, whose property had been sold under foreclosure on January 13, 1897. In May 1901, the Chattanooga, Rome & Southern was acquired by the Central of Georgia. South Georgia Expansions While the railroads were beginning to encircle Atlanta, south Georgia continued to attract new rail lines. In 1897, the South Georgia Railroad opened a 28-mile line that ran from Heartpine, a defunct community near Adel, to Quitman. By 1900, the company's president James Wood Oglesby was promoting a northern branch to Tifton along with a much more ambitious southern extension from Quitman to Tampa.245 Oglesby was one of many lumbermen in Georgia who hoped to parlay their sawmill investments into railroad fortunes. Eighteen miles east of Quitman at Valdosta, another railroad was pushing through the pines. The Atlantic, Valdosta & Western, chartered in 1897, completed its line from Valdosta to Jacksonville in 1899. The rails cut across Georgia's "toe," that is, the peninsula of the state's territory formed by the 180-degree curve of the St. Marys River as it flows from the Okefenokee Swamp. Along with the 110-mile mainline, the railroad also had some 45 miles of branches, most of which were logging spurs in southern Clinch County. One of the railroad's directors was George S. Baxter, a lumberman specializing in crossties. Around 1899, Baxter and his partners built a large sawmill at the railroad's crossing of the Suwanee River, where a town soon grew up. Called Fargo, it became, as described by Clinch County historian Folks Huxford, "one of the most flourishing towns in the county [with] several stores, a large hotel, and other establishments."246 North of Fargo, the Waycross Air Line extended its tracks to Nicholls in 1896-97 and to Douglas in 1898. In the early spring of 1900, a second railroad opened to Nicholls. It was the Offerman & Western, a 35-mile line that ran west from the Savannah, Florida & Western at Offerman in northern Pierce County. Chartered in 1899, the O&W was closely connected to the Southern Pine Company, which had a sawmill at Nicholls.247 At Tifton, some 50 miles west of Nicholls, a new railroad began operating in 1900 to Thomasville. Initiated by the Union Lumber Company of Thomasville, the Tifton, Thomasville & Gulf Railway's 56-mile line accessed the lumber company's extensive timber holdings in Colquitt County.248 It also gave Moultrie, the Colquitt County seat, another railroad to go along with the Georgia Northern, the Sparks, Moultrie & Gulf, and the Tifton & Moultrie. Only eight years earlier, Moultrie had no railroad at all. The Sparks, Moultrie & Gulf had constructed its line from the Georgia Southern &Florida at Sparks to Moultrie in 1897, and the Tifton & Moultrie arrived sometime around 1899. In 1901, the SM&G was sold and consolidated with the Tifton & Moultrie. On June 3, 1903, the Railroad Commission of Georgia announced the discontinuance of the Sparks, Moultrie & Gulf and the Tifton & Moultrie as common carriers.249 On the northeast side of Cordele, the Dooly Southern Railway built a ninemile line in 1897-1898. It ran from Richwood, on the Georgia Southern & Florida, to Penia, on the Georgia & Alabama (later Seaboard). Primarily a lumber railroad, it also carried passengers on freight trains. The Dooly Southern was projected to extend to Irwinville, about 25 miles beyond Penia, but no additional tracks were ever laid.250 The 32-mile line from Cuyler to Statesboro began in 1894 as the Cuyler & Woodburn Railroad. After a foreclosure sale in early 1897, it became the Savannah & Statesboro Railway. Cuyler was a place on the Savannah & Western Railroad in the northern corner of Bryan County.251 The Ocilla & Irwinville Railroad, a 10-mile line between those two towns, was built in 1900 or before. Irwinville, incorporated in 1827, became the seat of Irwin County in 1831. It was on the route of the unfinished Ocmulgee & Flint Railroad of 1841-43, and may have been laid out in anticipation of a railroad coming through.252 In the lower Chattahoochee River region, the Georgia Pine Railway, chartered in 1895, opened 30 miles of tracks north from West Bainbridge to Damascus in 1898. The line was soon extended to Arlington, where it connected with the Central of Georgia. In its December 7, 1900 issue, the Railroad Gazette reported, "An amendment has been granted to the charter to extend the road north from Arlington about 35 miles to Cuthbert, and 82 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey a further extension is proposed to Columbus, about 55 miles more. The charter also permits of an extension from Bainbridge south about 40 miles to Tallahassee, Fla."253 The Georgia Pine's president was J. P. Williams of Savannah, who made his fortune in naval stores and Sea Island cotton. Running parallel to the Georgia Pine was the Bainbridge Northern Railway, which built its line from Bainbridge to Eldorendo sometime between 1896 and 1899. Operated by the Flint River Lumber Company, the railroad was later extended to Paulina in western Baker County, giving it a total length of 32 miles. Among the corporate changes during the period was the 1896 sale of the Oconee & Western's 40-mile Dublin-Hawkinsville line to the Wrightsville & Tennille. The W&T consolidated the line into its own operations in 1899, thus forming a 75-mile railroad running from Tennille to Hawkinsville. Another change came in 1897 when the Millen & Southern entered receivership and was reorganized as the Millen & Southwestern Railroad. Like the earlier company, the new M&SW operated the 32-mile line between Millen and Stillmore. West of Stillmore was the stalled Macon & Atlantic line and the Atlantic Short Line. Both companies had failed, leaving only 28 miles of completed tracks running from the Wrightsville & Tennille at Brewton eastward to the Nunez area, 10 miles short of Stillmore. To resuscitate the project, a third company, the Bruton & Pineora Railway, was chartered on June 27, 1897.254 By 1898 it had extended the rails to Stillmore, and by 1900 it had reached Register, 58 miles from Brewton. In July 1900, the Central of Georgia acquired the B&P, and the next year it acquired the 10-mile Dover & Statesboro Railroad. It connected the two railroads by building nine miles of tracks between Statesboro and Register. The new line opened June 9, 1901 and became the Central's Oconee Division.255 Recovery and Optimism Continue Georgia's mature rail network at the nineteenth century's close continued to fuel urban growth. Seemingly endless rail connections at Atlanta continued to feed that city's meteoric rise. Further, Georgia's numerous regional and thus national rail connections meant that practically any product could be sent forth or received in practically any direction. Cities became less dependent on their hinterlands, and the latter could thus be more readily consumed for other purposes, specifically residential expansion. Despite repercussions from the recent economic downturn and the resulting ongoing consolidations, Georgia's rail network grew still and optimism in rail abounded. Indeed, lumber barons' often grandiose plans for their lumber lines, typically accompanied by equally grandiose names, are sometimes almost comical in light of results. Nonetheless, Georgians continued to invest their hopes and dreams in rail. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc SEGREGATION As the nineteenth century came to a close, the Georgia General Assembly passed a law requiring racially segregated Pullman cars. An earlier state law in 1891 had compelled the railroads to provide separate railcars for blacks, but sleeping cars were excepted because the Railroad Commission of Georgia found that it did not have jurisdiction over them, and the Pullman Company had rejected the idea. Historian Donald L. Grant tells what happened: Over black protests, the Georgia legislature extended the segregation law to include Pullman cars in 1899. [W. E. B.] Du Bois, Atlanta Congregational minister Henry H. Proctor, and Gammon theology professor John W. E. Bowen met with Gov. Allen D. Candler to urge him to veto the bill, to no avail. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington tried to see Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln and president of the Pullman Company, when the ICC suggested to Du Bois in 1901 that he challenge the 1899 Georgia law in the courts. The suit was initiated but later dropped, and railroad segregation remained complete and inflexible in Georgia until after World War II.1 v 1 Donald L. Grant, p. 214-15. 83 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey THE ATLANTA BELTLINE RAILROADS The Atlanta Beltline project focuses on the reuse of a 22-mile railroad corridor that encircles the center city. While tracks on the north side remain in operation, the others have been abandoned, and sections on the east and west sides have been adapted into paved walking and biking trails. Trail construction is continuing, and possibilities for light rail transit have been discussed. Constructed between 1871 and 1908, the loop was not planned as a whole, but instead took form as separate railroad companies built according to their individual needs. The first section, constructed in 1871-73, was the original mainline of the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line Railway. It lies on the east side, north of present-day DeKalb Avenue. The A&RAL was later folded into Southern Railway, and when the latter reconfigured its tracks in downtown Atlanta, the old A&RAL mainline became known as the Southern belt line. The next section, on the north side, opened in 1883 as a 3.3-mile link between the A&RAL and the Georgia Pacific Railway. By this time, the A&RAL had been reorganized as the Atlanta & Charlotte Air-Line, which was controlled by the Richmond & Danville, as was the Georgia Pacific. The 1883 trackage later became part of Southern Railway's mainline. In 1893, a new line appeared north of and parallel to the Georgia Pacific belt line. This was the 8-mile Seaboard Air-Line Belt Railway, built because Seaboard had been blocked from entering the city on the east. It later became the Seaboard mainline, while the original mainline segment north of Kirkwood came to be called the Seaboard belt line. In 1900, a belt line was completed on the southeast side of the city. The 5.5mile Atlanta Belt Railway was a subsidiary of the Atlanta & West Point, with which it connected near present-day West End. Four years later, the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern opened its 7-mile belt line on the west side, connecting with the Atlanta Belt Railway and completing the rail encirclement of the city. On the northwest side, one more railroad would be added to the mix in 1908 with the arrival of the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic. It crossed the AK&N belt line just north of Simpson Street (now Joseph E. Boone Boulevard) and ran parallel to it for a few blocks before turning east and southeast towards the center city. Although it was built as mainline trackage rather than as a belt line, it has been included in the Atlanta Beltline's planning studies. v Date | Railroad | Location 1873 | Atlanta & Richmond Air Line Railway | East side, north of DeKalb Ave. 1883 | Georgia Pacific Railway Belt Line | North side 1893 | Seaboard Air-Line Belt Railway | North side 1900 | Atlanta Belt Railway (A&WP) | East side, south of DeKalb Ave. 1905 | Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern (L&N) | West side 1908 | Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic | Northwest side 84 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 14 ATLANTIC COAST LINE AND SEABOARD AIR LINE: 1900 The beginning of the twentieth century brought into existence two railroad companies that would dominate much of the industry in Georgia for nearly seven decades: the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. As their names suggested, both had a strong presence on the coast, but each also had east-west routes across Georgia. Both traced their ancestry to antebellum railroads in southeastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina. Both expanded into Georgia and Florida, in part by purchasing existing rail systems in those two states. The early Atlantic Coast Line was not a single company but rather an association of independently operated railroads led by the Wilmington & Weldon and the Wilmington, Columbia & Augusta. Controlled by William T. Walters and Benjamin F. Newcomer of Baltimore, these two railroads formed the nucleus of a system that also included the Petersburg Railroad, the Richmond & Petersburg, and the Northeastern of South Carolina. The name Atlantic Coast Line, first applied to the system in 1871 in a handbill, gradually became the primary marketing name for the group of railroads.261 In 1889, Walters and his associates formed a holding company called the American Improvement and Construction Company, and in 1893 it was renamed the Atlantic Coast Line Company. Still, the component railroads operated separately, although with greater oversight from the holding company.262 The consolidation of the parts into a whole began in 1898 when the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad purchased the Petersburg Railroad and renamed itself the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company of Virginia. The same year, the Wilmington, Columbia & Augusta and several other South Carolina railroads were consolidated into a new Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company of South Carolina. On May 1, 1900, the ACL of South Carolina, the Wilmington & Weldon, and two other railroads were merged into the ACL of Virginia, which was renamed Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company.263 Like ACL, Seaboard Air Line was initially an association of independently operated railroads rather than a single company. In the 1890s, it consisted primarily of the Seaboard & Roanoke, the Raleigh & Gaston, the Raleigh & Augusta Air Line, the Carolina Central, and the Georgia, Carolina & Northern. The system had been assembled after the Civil War by Moncure Robinson, a civil engineer turned financier, and his son John Moncure Robinson, who became president of the Seaboard & Roanoke and the Raleigh & Gaston. The elder Robinson died in 1891, as did his son in 1893, but the system remained intact. In 1895, a syndicate led by the banking firms of John L. Williams & Sons of Richmond and Middendorf, Oliver & Company of Baltimore purchased control of the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery Railroad and reorganized it as the Georgia & Alabama Railway. This future Seaboard property ran from Lyons, Georgia, to Montgomery, Alabama. John Skelton Williams, son of John L. Williams, was made president of the G&A. In 1896, Williams acquired a lease of the Central's 58-mile Lyons Branch, running from Lyons to Meldrim, and he also acquired trackage rights on the Central between Meldrim and Savannah. In December 1898 the Williams syndicate purchased control of the Seaboard group, and, in February 1899, it acquired control of the Florida Central & Peninsular. On July 1, 1900, all of the individual railroads--the Florida Central & Peninsular, the Georgia & Alabama, and the Seaboard group--were consolidated into a single company called the Seaboard Air Line Railway. The new 2600-mile network stretched from Virginia through the Carolinas to Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.264 Thus, the South began a long period (1900 to 1967) that would be dominated by three large railroad companies: the Seaboard and the Atlantic Coast Line, both created in 1900, and the Southern Railway, created only six years earlier. Within Georgia, a fourth system, the Central of Georgia, was quite powerful as well, but it did not have the reach of the others because it operated only in Georgia and eastern Alabama. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 85 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 86 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Rockmart, Polk County PLACE NAMES AND THE RAILROADS When the railroads came to Georgia in the 1830s, many towns, villages, and hamlets were already in existence, but over the following decades the railroads created hundreds more. Often a railroad's civil engineer laid out a route and chose places along the way to put up a water tank or add a siding. This was essential because locomotives could not go far without adding water, and trains needed sidings to pass one another. These water tanks and sidings sometimes grew into substantial villages. The place might even get a post office if enough people lived nearby. Many times the place was named for a family whose farm, turpentine still, or sawmill adjoined the tracks. Railroad timetables might indicate these place names in the possessive form, such as Goodwin's and Odell's, both found on a July 1882 timetable issued by the Atlanta & Charlotte Air-Line. (Goodwin's is now Brookhaven, and Odell's is now Oakwood.) Occasionally the name included "Turnout" or "Switch," denoting a place with a sidetrack that allowed trains to pass. As the trackside communities grew, they often changed their names for various reasons. Sometimes it was to honor a military hero, political leader, or other distinguished personage. In some cases, it was to help a community promote itself as a place for business or tourism. Business promotion provided the motivation at Harmony Grove, a town on the Southern Railway in Jackson County, which in 1904 renamed itself Commerce. Tourism promotion has an example at Chipley, on the Central of Georgia Railway in Harris County. In 1958 it changed its name to Pine Mountain, for a long and scenic ridge near the town. Ackert, Fayette County Carlton, Berkeley, Inman, and Ackert Imagine the frustration of the depot agent in Carlton, Georgia, who discovers that a large shipment of guano arriving in town should have been sent not to Carlton, on the Seaboard, but to Carrollton, on the Central. This mistake apparently happened so often that, in 1908 or thereabouts, Seaboard officials decided to change the station name to something less likely to cause confusion. The new name, Berkeley, was then entered into train schedules and other railroad documents, and for the railroad the problem was solved. Not so with the citizens of Carlton. Displeased by what they saw as the railroad company's arrogance, they refused to change the town's name, so for years thereafter Carlton's railroad depot bore the name Berkeley. Chipley had gotten its name from William Dudley Chipley, a native of Columbus who became known in the Florida Panhandle as "Mr. Railroad." He served in several railroad industry roles including vice president and general manager of the Pensacola & Atlantic Railroad, a line that began regular service from Pensacola to the Chattahoochee River in 1883.1 When the route was being surveyed, Chipley arranged for the rails to follow a particular ridge that offered exceptionally attractive scenery as a measure to encourage tourist travel.2 Thus, it is somewhat ironic that his name was dumped at Chipley, Georgia, in favor of a name that was thought to be better for promoting tourism. A similar situation occurred at the community of Inman, five miles south of Fayetteville, and once on the Atlanta-Fort Valley line of Southern Railway. Southern was concerned that the Inman in Fayette County might be confused with Inman Yard, its big facility in northwest Atlanta, so it changed the name of the station at Fayette's Inman to Ackert v __________________________________________________________ 1 The line did not quite reach the Chattahoochee. It terminated at River Junction, Florida, a mile or so south of the confluence of the Chattahoochee and Flint rivers, which combine to form the Apalachicola River. River Junction is now a part of Chattahoochee, Florida. 2 Sidney Johnston and Barbara E. Mattick, Florida's Historic Railroad Resources, Documentation for the National Register of Historic Places, Tallahassee, Florida, 2001, p. E-10-11 87 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 15 EXPANSION IN THE NEW CENTURY: 1901-1907 As they had done for decades, the railroads continued expanding into previously unserved areas. They also expanded within cities-- constructing sidings and spurs for factories and warehouses and adding miles of connecting tracks to handle the continuing growth in freight traffic. Some of the larger railroad companies erected trackside warehouses, either owned directly or through affiliated companies. In downtown Atlanta, Louisville & Nashville built a gigantic freight warehouse that dwarfed the adjacent Georgia Railroad freight depot. The five-story, 835-foot-long structure was said to be the largest concrete building in the world at the time of its completion in 1906. While warehouses were certainly important to urban vitality, they seldom aroused much local excitement or civic pride. Considerably more successful in that regard were the impressive new passenger stations that opened early in the century, including Columbus Union Station in 1901, Savannah Union Station in 1902, Augusta Union station in 1903, and Atlanta Terminal Station in 1905. Designed by regionally prominent architects of the time such as Bruce & Morgan, P. Thornton Marye, and Frank P. Milburn, these symbols of wealth were grand gateways "meant to impress, comfort, and reassure the visitor."265 Trains arrived and departed under huge train sheds, allowing passengers to stay dry in rainy weather. Station lobbies and concourses often included amenities such as restaurants, newsstands, and barbershops. Street entrances typically included a portico for carriages and automobiles, and most entrances were conveniently located for boarding streetcars. Standing in front of Atlanta's Terminal Station was a statue of Samuel Spencer, the Columbus, Georgia, native and civil engineer who became Southern Railway's first president. After Spencer was killed in a railroad accident in 1906, company officers and employees contributed to a fund to construct a monument in his honor. Unveiled in 1910, it featured a statue sculpted by Daniel Chester French placed on a pedestal designed by Henry Bacon.266 (The statue now stands on Peachtree Street in midtown Atlanta.) Samuel Spencer presided over a railroad company that in 1901 operated 6,612 miles in 10 states.267 In that same year, another railroad president, George Brinson of the Stillmore Air Line Railway, operated 6,555 fewer miles, but he had just added 20 miles by extending his line north from Swainsboro to a connection with the Central of Georgia at Wadley. It was Wadley's fourth railroad, the others being the Central's mainline between Savannah and Macon, the Louisville & Wadley's 10-mile line to Louisville, and the Wadley & Mount Vernon Railroad. Chartered in 1890, the Wadley & Mount Vernon Railroad Company purchased a logging railroad, upgraded it to a common carrier, and extended it to Rixville, about two miles south of Adrian. In 1902-03, the W&MV extended the line south from Rixville to the Oconee River. Along the way at Rockledge, it crossed the Macon, Dublin & Savannah, which had been extended from Dublin to Vidalia in 1901-02. Meanwhile, an associated company known as the Wadley & Mount Vernon Extension Railroad was constructing a 21-mile line from Douglas north through Broxton to the Ocmulgee River at Barrows Bluff. It was begun in 1901 and completed in March of 1904.268 A 40-mile gap remained between the two railroads, and two rivers needed to be bridged. That would turn out to be the high point of the Wadley & Mount Vernon. In 1905, the Douglas-Barrows Bluff line was sold to the new Douglas, Augusta, & Gulf Railroad, and the tracks from Rockledge to the Oconee River were abandoned. In 1906, the Central of Georgia bought the W&MV and the Stillmore Air Line and merged the two into a single company named the Wadley Southern Railway. Although the Stillmore Air Line name disappeared, Stillmore's citizenry could take comfort in having achieved a bit of prominence as a piney woods rail hub. As noted earlier, the Bruton & Pineora Railroad was completed through Stillmore in 1898, and by 1901 the line was open to Statesboro. In 1903-04, the Millen & Southwestern extended its line south from Stillmore to Vidalia, giving Stillmore rail lines radiating in six directions, one more than Wadley, twice as many as Swainsboro, and two more than Atlanta had when it was a Confederate rail center. Granted, all of Stillmore's lines were merely feeders to larger systems, but all were important to the towns that they served, and all helped to develop the region's economy. 88 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 89 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Rockmart vicinity, Polk County Had the Bruton & Pineora been built as originally planned, it would have continued east from Stillmore to Pineora on the Central mainline in Effingham County. Instead, after the Central acquired the line in 1900, the terminus was changed to Dover, and at Register the tracks were redirected to the north instead of continuing east. Register also gained a new rail line to the south in 1902 when the Perkins Lumber Company converted its logging line to a common carrier called the Register & Glennville Railroad. It opened to a connection with the Seaboard Air Line at Claxton and Hagan, and was soon extended farther south to Glennville, where it connected with the Georgia Coast & Piedmont Railroad. Thirty miles west of the Register & Glennville Railroad was the new Garbutt & Donovan Short Line Railway. An enterprise owned by lumbermen R. M. Garbutt and W. O. Donovan, the G&D opened in 1904 from Lyons in Toombs County to Selma in southern Emanuel County. Selma, which no longer exists, was on the new Millen & Southwestern Railroad extension between Stillmore and Vidalia. The G&D gave Lyons a second railroad (the Seaboard being the first), as well as a connection to the north that did not have to go through Vidalia. In 1910, the G&D extended the north end of its line from Selma to Oak Park and in the same year Garbutt, Donovan, and other area businessmen acquired a charter for the Wrightsville, Adrian & Lyons Railroad, a 50-mile line proposed to connect those places. Presumably it was to be an extension of the G&D, but it was never built. The G&D itself was abandoned the following year. Fifty miles west of the Garbutt & Donovan, the Dublin & Southwestern Railroad opened in mid-1905. This 31-mile line ran from Dublin to Eastman, where it connected with the Southern Railway's line between Macon and Brunswick. The Dublin & Southwestern would have a short independent existence; it was acquired in 1907 by the Wrightsville & Tennille, giving the W&T two lines running southwest from Dublin, one to Eastman and the other to Hawkinsville. To the east of the Wrightsville & Tennille, the Augusta & Florida Railroad opened its 30-mile line in 1905. It ran north from Midville, on the Central's Savannah-Macon mainline, to a connection with the Augusta Southern at Keysville. The railroad was a local venture headed by Allen W. Jones of Midville, a leading farmer and businessman in Burke County. After Jones and his associates attempted unsuccessfully to secure trackage rights into Augusta on the Augusta Southern, they drew up plans for their own line to the city. It was never constructed, though, and the A&F remained limited to its Midville-Keysville route. One corporate change should be mentioned here. In 1902, the Sylvania Railroad, a 15-mile line running from Sylvania to the Central mainline at Rocky Ford, entered receivership and was replaced the next year by the Sylvania Central Railroad Company. It was controlled by the Central of Georgia through stock ownership. Activity in the Coastal Region On the coast, the Darien & Western Railroad built a 10-mile westward extension from Tibet, northwest of Townsend in Liberty County, to a connection with the Atlantic Coast Line at Ludowici. It was completed in 1905.269 At the time, Ludowici was a newly incorporated town located in western Liberty County (Long County would not be created for another fifteen years). Previously called Johnston Station, Ludowici was named for the Ludowici family which had established a Ludowici-Celadon roofing tile plant there a few years earlier. The Darien & Western was not the only railroad to arrive in Ludowici in 1905--the Reidsville & Southeastern began operating its 36-mile line in October. At Reidsville, it connected with the seven-mile Collins & Reidsville Railroad, constructed between those two places in 1896. In 1906, the Darien & Western, the Reidsville & Southeastern, and the Collins & Reidsville were consolidated into the Georgia Coast & Piedmont Railroad, placing the 82 miles of rail line between Collins and Darien under a single ownership. While most of the route ran perpendicular to the coast, the section between Brunswick and Crescent was somewhat unusual in that it was parallel to the sea, as well as closer to it than either the Seaboard or the Atlantic Coast Line. At the southern end of the coast, the little port town of St. Marys finally gained rail service in 1907 when the St. Marys & Kingsland Railroad completed its 11-mile line to a connection with the Seaboard Air Line at Kingsland. Two decades earlier, the Waycross Air Line Railroad had considered St. Marys 90 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey for a potential ocean terminal, but it ended up focusing all of its attention on its line northwest of Waycross. The Waycross Air Line reached Douglas in 1898, and in 1901 it was extended to Fitzgerald. After obtaining a charter amendment authorizing a further extension to Birmingham, the WAL changed its name to the Atlantic & Birmingham Railroad in late 1901 and extended its line from Fitzgerald to Cordele in May 1902.270 The following year the line reached Montezuma, 139 miles from Waycross. In 1903, the Atlantic & Birmingham purchased the Tifton & Northeastern and the Tifton, Thomasville & Gulf. Together they established a branch route to Thomasville from the A&B mainline at Fitzgerald. Meanwhile, another railroad with eyes on Birmingham was working its way west. In 1901-02, the Brunswick & Birmingham Railway built a 42-mile line from Brunswick to the Atlantic Coast Line at Offerman. There it met the Offerman & Western, a 35-mile line between Offerman and Nicholls that had opened in 1900. In 1902, the Brunswick & Birmingham bought the Offerman & Western, giving it a line from Brunswick to Nicholls, where it met the Atlantic & Birmingham. In March 1903, the Brunswick & Birmingham purchased another small railroad, the 10-mile Ocilla & Irwinville, which ran between those two towns, and which in 1902 had been extended west about six miles to the Alapaha River at Crystal Lake. The B&B then built a line from Ocilla to Bushnell, on the A&B's seven miles west of Douglas, and acquired trackage rights on the A&B between Bushnell and Nichols.271 In August 1903, the Brunswick & Birmingham defaulted on a bond payment, and in late 1903 the Atlantic & Birmingham purchased it, but at a price that some creditors believed was too low. A court decided the issue in favor of the A&B, and the transaction was completed in August 1904.272 Activity in the Valdosta Region To the southwest of the A&B, changes were afoot at Valdosta. In 1902, the Georgia Southern & Florida purchased the 110-mile Atlantic, Valdosta & Western, completed three years earlier between Valdosta and Jacksonville. The AV&W, which promoted itself as the Jacksonville Short Line, proved to be a good investment for the GS&F as Jacksonville was clearly a better port than Palatka. Running south from Valdosta was the new Valdosta Southern Railway. Chartered in 1896, it opened its 28-mile line to Madison, Florida, in 1901. At Madison it connected with the Seaboard line that ran across much of northern Florida. At Lakeland, 20 miles northeast of Valdosta, the Milltown Air Line Railway began operations in 1904. Lakeland was then called Milltown, and the railroad ran a straight 10 miles (the "Air Line") to a connection with the Atlantic Coast Line at Naylor. It was constructed by "Lumber King" George V. Gress to move his products to market. To the west of Valdosta, the South Georgia Railroad extended its line into Florida in 1901. At the time it was a 28-mile connector between the Georgia Southern & Florida at Heartpine, near Adel, and the Savannah, Florida & Western (Atlantic Coast Line after 1902) at Quitman. The 23-mile extension took it to a connection with the Seaboard at Greenville, Florida, and in 1904 the company completed a 26-mile extension from Greenville to Perry, Florida. Constructed under the charter of the West Coast Railway Company, it was operated under lease as the South Georgia & West Coast. In the same year, the line's northern end was moved north from Heartpine to Adel. Also in 1904, the Flint River & Gulf Railway, another feeder to the GS&F, opened between Ashburn and Bridgeboro. It will be discussed later. When the GS&F crossed the Brunswick & Western at Tifton in 1889, it propelled that town to regional prominence. Other railroads followed, including the Tifton & Moultrie and the Tifton, Thomasville & Gulf. Lesser known was the Tifton Terminal Railroad, an early twentieth century operation that provided switching services in the Tifton area. Over the years its reported length ranged from three to thirty miles, suggesting that at times it served more purposes than switching, with logging and lumber transport being a distinct possibility. Southeast of Tifton, the Gray Lumber Company operated a logging line that was briefly named the Fitzgerald, Pinebloom & Valdosta before being renamed the Ocilla, Pinebloom & Valdosta. Mostly built in the 1890s, the 52-mile line ran from Lax, in western Coffee County, to Gray's sawmill 91 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey at Pinebloom (near Willacoochee) on the Brunswick & Western. From Pinebloom, the line continued south to Nashville. In 1901, the Railroad Commission of Georgia declared the OP&V to be a common carrier, and on March 22, 1905, it was officially chartered as such.273 Another logging line that became a common carrier was the 26-mile Broxton, Hazlehurst & Savannah. Chartered in 1905, it was a conversion of the Southern Pine Company's logging tram between Broxton and Hazlehurst. Not long after it was established, it transferred its tracks to the Ocilla & Valdosta Railroad (not to be confused with the Ocilla, Pinebloom & Valdosta) which had been chartered in 1903 to build a railroad between Macon and Valdosta. By 1906, the O&V had come nowhere near either city, but had succeeded in opening tracks between Broxton and Ocilla and starting work on a line from Ocilla to Fitzgerald. North of Fitzgerald, it had acquired the Fitzgerald, Ocmulgee & Red Bluff Railway, a 13.7-mile line running from Fitzgerald to the Ocmulgee River at Garbutt's Landing, built in 1902. While absorbing the FO&RB, the O&V had gotten itself into a difficult financial situation. In 1907 it sold the Broxton-Hazlehurst line to the Douglas, Augusta & Gulf Railway, an affiliate of the new Georgia & Florida Railway. In the same year, the remaining tracks were sold to the Broxton, Hazlehurst & Savannah. However, because the Broxton-Hazlehurst line had been sold, the BH&S charter was now in doubt, so the Fitzgerald, Ocilla & Broxton was established to replace it. New Lines in Southwest Georgia In southwest Georgia, several new lines appeared during the period. At Pelham in Mitchell County, a 23-mile logging line was converted into the common-carrier Flint River & Northeastern Railroad. After the 1904 conversion, it ran from Pelham through Sale City to Ticknor where it met the Georgia Northern Railroad (Ticknor was about a mile northwest of Doerun). It served the business interests of Pelham's Judson L. Hand, among them the Hand Trading Company, the Farmers Bank, the Pelham Manufacturing Company, and various oil, fertilizer, lumber, naval stores, and cotton operations. Hand wanted the Atlantic Coast Line to have competition in handling his shipments, a goal which he achieved with his connection to the Georgia Northern. In 1910, the Georgia Northern acquired the FR&NE, but operated it separately. In 1905, the Georgia Northern made changes to both ends of its route. At the south end, four miles of new track were built from the mainline to the Atlantic Coast Line at Boston, a growing town that offered more potential than Pidcock; the Pidcock section was then abandoned. At the northern end, the GN extended its line so that it reached Albany by way of a new bridge over the Flint River. The railroad had reached Darrow, about two miles southeast of Albany, in 1902, but had relied on trackage rights on the ACL for the final leg of the trip.274 In the far southwestern corner of the state, the Wainhurst Railway, opened in 1903, ran from Brinson on the Atlantic Coast Line to Reynoldsville and the Chattahoochee River. Almost entirely a logging line, its length varied over its years of operation, generally in the 25 to 40 mile range. Brinson, the northern terminus, was named for early settler Simeon Brinson, not for George M. Brinson, the builder of the Stillmore Air Line Railway. A few miles east of Brinson was another lumber line, the Georgia Eastern Railway. It supplied a sawmill owned by E. Swindell & Co. of Bainbridge and apparently carried other freight as well. Built sometime before 1904, the 18-mile line ran from Swindell Landing to Mount Royal, northeast of Bainbridge. The Bainbridge Northeastern Railway bought the line in 1908 and abandoned it in 1910. North Georgia Activity In the Piedmont, three of the old narrow-gauge lines were extended during the period. The first of these projects was the Seaboard's conversion of the East & West Railroad of Alabama into an Atlanta-Birmingham route. After buying the 117-mile E&W in 1902, Seaboard organized the Atlanta & Birmingham Air Line Railway to extend the railroad at each end. On the eastern side, 43 miles of tracks were laid between Howells, in northwest Atlanta, to the existing line at Rockmart. On the west, 37 miles were laid from Coal City, Alabama, to Birmingham. The E&W had been converted to standard gauge in 1889-90, but it needed further improvements to match the new extensions. Grades were reduced from two percent to a maximum of one percent, curves were reduced from 92 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey fourteen degrees to six degrees, and new rails were laid down on new ballast. In addition, wooden bridges were replaced with steel plate-girder structures. For the entire line, plans called for ten water stations and three coaling stations, with the latter to be located at Howells, Rockmart, and Coal City. To cross the Chattahoochee River, a new deck truss bridge with two spans, each 135 feet long, was erected. At Howells, a new rail yard and several new shops were built.275 After the route opened in late 1904, the 22-mile Rockmart-Cartersville link and the Coal City-Pell City tracks became branch lines. For about 25 miles between Rockmart and Powder Springs, the new mainline ran parallel to Southern Railway's Rome-Atlanta line, crossing over it west of Hiram. Near Braswell it passed through a 730-foot long tunnel under Brushy Mountain, less than a mile from the Southern's tunnel through the same ridge. Seaboard absorbed the Atlanta & Birmingham Air Line in 1909. The second extension project involved the 50-mile, three-foot gauge Central of Georgia line from Columbus to Greenville, constructed between 1874 and 1885 by the North & South Railroad of Georgia and its successor, the Columbus & Rome. In 1906, the Central converted it to standard gauge and extended it north from Greenville to Raymond, where it connected with the Griffin-Carrollton line (the former Savannah, Griffin & North Alabama). This link, in combination with trackage rights on the Atlanta & West Point, gave the Central a Columbus-Atlanta passenger route that was significantly shorter than the older route through Macon. The third project, also constructed in 1906, was the Gainesville Midland Railway's extension of its Jefferson branch to Athens. The Gainesville Midland, chartered in 1904, had taken over the Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern after that company entered receivership in 1897. The GM built its new tracks at standard gauge, and in 1908 it converted the narrow-gauge tracks between Jefferson and Gainesville to standard gauge. The Monroe branch was not converted until 1913. When the Gainesville, Jefferson & Southern transitioned into the Gainesville Midland, it did not include its southernmost tracks, that is, the 10-mile section from Monroe to Social Circle. Built in 1880 as the Walton Railroad, this section of the line was instead sold to the Georgia Railroad, which organized the Monroe Railroad in 1904 as titleholder for the property.276 Although not an extension project, in 1905 the narrow-gauge Hartwell Railway converted its rails from three-foot gauge to standard. Its little woodburner Nancy Hart was then replaced with a larger coal-burning engine. The railroad had come under the control of Southern Railway in 1902. Elsewhere in north Georgia, Clayton finally gained a rail connection to the outside world with the 1904 extension of the Tallulah Falls Railway from Tallulah Falls. For decades, railroad builders had sought to reach the town, located a few miles south of Rabun Gap, without success. The 14 miles of new tracks were laid 22 years after the railroad reached Tallulah Falls and 50 years after the original North Eastern Railroad Company was chartered to construct a line from Athens to meet the Blue Ridge Railroad at Clayton.277 Had the latter railroad been completed, the Northeastern or its successors almost surely would have been built much sooner. INCLINE RAILWAYS Incline railways are a special type of tram designed for operating on steep slopes. Georgia's only existing example is the Tallulah Gorge power plant's incline railway, built in conjunction with the Tallulah Falls dam in 1912-14. Used for the maintenance of the plant, it is not open to visitors. In Dade County, an incline was constructed sometime around the turn of the twentieth century for the Cole City coal mining operations on Sand Mountain (Cole City was named for E.W. Cole, president of the Nashville & Chattanooga Rialroad). It brought coal from the mountaintop to coke ovens and the Nickajack Railroad in the valley below. It has been gone for over a century. Just across the state line in Chattanooga is an existing incline built for regular passenger service. Opened in 1895 as the Lookout Incline and Lula Lake Railway, it was part of a larger plan that anticipated a conventional railroad along the top of the mountain to Lula Lake and Falls, a scenic attraction in Georgia. Only the incline was ever built. A short distance to the north, an earlier incline operated between 1887 and 1899.v Tallulah Gorge hydropower plant (Vanishing Georgia) 93 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 94 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Flintstone, Walker County Southern Railway acquired control of the Tallulah Falls Railway in July 1905 and extended it from Clayton to Franklin, North Carolina, in 1907. For a time, Southern considered building a long-projected extension down the Little Tennessee River to Knoxville, and actually built two sections on the western end: 25 miles between Maryville and Chilhowee, Tennessee (later extended six miles to Calderwood), and about 14 miles between Almond and Fontana, North Carolina.278 Although the grand northern extension failed to materialize, the new section did play a significant role in the 1911-1926 development of the Tallulah River for hydroelectric power. As part of the project, rail spurs were built from the TF at Wiley to Lake Burton and from Lakemont to Lake Rabun. (See Railroad Spurs for Electric Power Plants in Chapter 22, page 2.) The Tallulah Falls Railway was especially significant because it was the only railroad ever completed through Rabun Gap. Other rail companies had tried to build there, among them the Blue Ridge Railroad in the 1850s, the Augusta & Knoxville in the 1880s, and the Black Diamond Railroad in the 1890s. The Blue Ridge made the most progress, with substantial work accomplished in grading, masonry, and tunneling on both sides of the Chattooga River. It had opened its line as far as Walhalla, 17 miles from the river. The Augusta & Knoxville stopped far short of the gap, and the Black Diamond turned out to be no more than a paper railroad. In the western Blue Ridge mountains, the 260-mile Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern came under the control of the Louisville & Nashville when L&N acquired a majority of the AK&N's stock in March 1902. At the time, L&N was pursuing plans for a Cincinnati-Atlanta line, and towards that end had built connecting tracks between Knoxville and Jellico, Tennessee. The AK&N purchase secured most of the southern section of the new route, that is, from Knoxville to Marietta. From Marietta to Atlanta, L&N acquired trackage rights on the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis. At Atlanta, the AK&N constructed a seven-mile line along the west side of the city. Opened in 1904, it connected with the 5.5-mile Atlanta Belt Railway which ran along the southeastern edge of town to a connection with the Georgia Railroad at Inman Park. The Atlanta Belt Railway had been constructed by the Atlanta & West Point in 1900. Because L&N controlled the A&WP and the Georgia Railroad through the 1881 Wadley Lease of those properties, and because L&N had control of the AK&N, it was able to enter Atlanta with minimal interference from competing lines. The AK&N Belt Line completed the railroad circle around the center city. The other components were the previously mentioned Atlanta Belt Railway on the southeast side, the Southern Railway on the northeast side, and the Southern and Seaboard lines on the north side.279 (See Atlanta Beltline Railroads in Chapter 13, page 6.) By acquiring the Atlanta, Knoxville &Northern, the Louisville & Nashville succeeded in securing a route to Atlanta, but it was dissatisfied with the AK&N's slow and winding course through the mountains. Consequently, the entire mountain section was bypassed by constructing a new and much straighter line from Etowah, Tennessee, to Junta, on the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis just north of Cartersville. With lower grades and far fewer curves, the 80-mile "New Line," opened in 1906, was a considerable improvement over the older route. The latter, though, remained in operation, serving the area's marble quarries, textile mills, and other shippers such as the smelters and sulphuric acid plants of the Ducktown copper mining district in Tennessee.280 The L&N "Old Line" and the Tallulah Falls Railway were the only commoncarrier railroads that ever traversed Georgia's Blue Ridge mountains. Lying between the two lines were five counties that would never have a commoncarrier rail line: Forsyth, Dawson, Lumpkin, Union, and Towns. Their county seats--respectively, Cumming, Dawsonville, Dahlonega, Blairsville, and Hiawassee--would remain small villages until well into the automobile era. About 30 miles west of the L&N "New Line," the Chattanooga, Rome & Southern Railroad, which ran a 138-mile route between Chattanooga and Carrollton, once again came into the possession of the Central of Georgia, thanks to the 1901 purchase of the former by the latter. The Central had previously owned the CR&S through its Savannah & Western subsidiary, but lost it in the financial turbulence of the early 1890s. Included in the purchase was the 17-mile branch line from Chickamauga to Durham. Two railroads in the Piedmont opened during the period. In Morgan County, the six-mile Bostwick Railroad, built in 1907, ran from the village of Bostwick to the Central of Georgia's Athens branch at Apalachee. In DeKalb 95 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey County, the four-mile Georgia Granite Railroad, chartered in 1904 and built around the same time, ran north from the mainlineGeorgia Railroad mainline at Lithonia to a granite quarry at Rock Chapel. Corporate Changes Several corporate changes during this era should be mentioned. In 1902, Southern Railway leased the South Carolina & Georgia Railroad, which was the successor to the pioneering rail line built in 1831-1833 as the South Carolina Railroad. Southern had gained control of the SC&G in 1899. At Augusta, the SC&G made a connection with the Augusta Southern Railroad, the 84-mile line between Augusta and Tennille that had been leased to the SC&G in 1897. Southern leased the Augusta Southern from April 1899 to April 1901, and controlled it for a time afterwards. In 1901, the Georgia Pine Railway changed its name to the Georgia, Florida & Alabama Railway and extended its line south from Bainbridge to Tallahassee and north from Arlington to Cuthbert. The railroad marketed itself as the "Sumatra Leaf Route" for a variety of tobacco grown at the Georgia-Florida border that was used for wrapping cigars. The Sumatra leaf was a mainstay of the economy in what was known as the shade tobacco region. Also in 1901, the Seaboard Air Line Railway absorbed the Georgia, Carolina & Northern into its own operations. The GC&N, completed in 1892, ran from Atlanta to Monroe, North Carolina. During the same year, SAL purchased the Loganville & Lawrenceville Railroad, which connected with the GC&N at Lawrenceville. In 1902, the Atlantic Coast Line greatly enlarged its rail network by purchasing and consolidating the Plant System. By means of a single transaction, ACL expanded into Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, and added over 1,600 miles of tracks, including lines from Savannnah to Montgomery, Waycross to Jacksonville, and Brunswick to Albany, among others. Taking over the Plant System was certainly a major accomplishment for ACL, but 1902 was an even more remarkable year for the company because it also gained stock control over the Louisville & Nashville. L&N, though, would continue to operate separately, as would the Georgia Railroad, the lease of which had been shared by ACL and L&N since 1898, when the Central of Georgia was eased out. As for the Central, in 1907 it came under the control of Edward H. Harriman, the rail baron who owned stock control of the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Illinois Central systems. Harriman held his interest in the Central for two years before selling it to the Illinois Central. The IC, located primarily between Chicago and New Orleans, was a north-south system that needed good east-west connections, and the Central of Georgia, which connected with the Illinois Central at Birmingham, seemed to meet that requirement. Two Late-Developing Cross-State Railroads: the AB&A and the Georgia & Florida The Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad was built by Henry Atkinson, a former cowboy who became an Atlanta banker and businessman. In 1891, he purchased shares in the Georgia Electric Light Company and eventually acquired enough stock to take control. In 1902, he reorganized the company and renamed it the Georgia Railway & Electric Company. Atkinson had been investing in south Georgia railroads, and in 1899 he became president of the Tifton, Thomasville & Gulf, the rail line between Tifton and Thomasville that opened the following year. When the TT&G consolidated with the Atlantic & Birmingham in 1903, Atkinson joined the latter railroad's board of directors.288 At the time, the A&B was a 340mile system with a mainline from Brunswick to Montezuma and branch lines from Nicholls to Waycross and Fitzgerald to Thomasville.289 To recap, it had begun as the Waycross Air Line in the late 1880s, had changed its name to Atlantic & Birmingham in 1901, and had acquired the Brunswick & Birmingham in 1904. The Atlantic & Birmingham, as its name indicated, planned to extend its line to the Alabama city, which by 1898 had become the largest shipping point for pig iron in the U.S., and the third largest in the world.290 Atkinson certainly supported those plans, but he also had plans for his home base of Atlanta. Even though the city already had four railroads entering the city from the south, Atkinson believed it could support yet another. In 1905, he organized the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad for the purpose of buying the Atlantic & Birmingham Railway and extending it to Birmingham and to Atlanta as well. 96 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey From the western end of the A&B at Montezuma, the AB&A began construction on the 260-mile extension to Birmingham and the 78-mile line to Atlanta. In Atlanta, hundreds of houses were demolished to clear the way for the tracks, a rail yard, a freight depot, and a large warehouse at Haynes and Mangum Streets (now the site of the new football stadium). For the AB&A's headquarters, an elegant office building was erected at the corner of Fairlie and Walton streets in downtown Atlanta.291 The first official AB&A train entered Atlanta on June 19, 1908, setting off a grand welcome celebration that included a banquet at the Kimball House (the hotel named for the Atlanta entrepreneur and railroad builder). In September, the AB&A entered Birmingham where similar festivities took place. At Fitzgerald, the AB&A erected a large two-story passenger depot with a restaurant at one end and the company's Brunswick Division headquarters upstairs. Designed in the Spanish Revival style then popular in the lower South, it was completed in 1910.292 At Brunswick, the AB&A improved the rail lines and docks that had been built by the Brunswick & Birmingham and the Atlantic & Birmingham, adding additional slips, a cotton warehouse, and more facilities for shipping lumber and coal. Also at Brunswick, the railroad built separate passenger and freight depots beside the city's Oglethorpe Hotel, which it had purchased in 1907.293 Like two other Henrys--Flagler of the Florida East Coast and Plant of the Plant System--Atkinson believed that hotels could be profitable complements to the railroad business. Also like Flagler and Plant, he further augmented his empire by starting an ocean shipping operation: the Brunswick Steamship Company, nicknamed the Bee-Line. Passenger service was provided by the S.S. Brunswick, which sailed to Havana, and freight service was handled by the Satilla, Ogeechee, Ocmulgee, Ossabaw, and Altamaha, which traveled to New York. Railroads, steamships, and hotels: each of these enterprises generated a revenue stream and supported the entire system. Unfortunately, the AB&A and its associated companies were taking on a heavy debt load during a time of economic instability. The economic recession of 1907-08 inhibited revenues to the point that the AB&A could not make bond and equipment trust payments that were due on January 1, 1909. On that date, the railroad was placed in receivership.294 Built by former Seaboard Air Line Railway president John Skelton Williams between 1906 and 1911, the Georgia & Florida ran from Augusta across the Coastal Plain to Madison, Florida. Williams intended for his railroad to continue south to the Gulf, where a new seaport would be developed.295 At the time, construction of the Panama Canal was underway, and Williams most likely planned to tap the expanded trade that would be opened up by the canal. In 1906-07, to form the core of his new railroad, Williams acquired six existing lines.296 In order from north to south, these were as follows: Augusta & Florida Railroad. The A&F was a 30-mile line running from the Augusta Southern Railroad at Keysville to the Central of Georgia at Midville. Constructed in 1905, it had only been in operation a short time. Atlantic & Gulf Short Line Railroad. This 18-mile line ran from Midville to Swainsboro. Previously known as the Midville, Swainsboro & Red Bluff Railroad, it was reorganized as the A&GSL around 1905. Millen & Southwestern Railroad. A 53-mile line running from Millen to Vidalia, it had begun as the Rogers & Summit Railroad in 1889. It became the Millen & Southern in 1890 and the Millen & Southwestern in 1897. Douglas, Augusta, & Gulf Railway. This 56-mile railroad was organized in 1905 to purchase and consolidate several small existing lines south of the Ocmulgee River. In 1905, the DA&G bought the Douglas-Barrows Bluff portion of the Wadley & Mt. Vernon, and in 1906, it purchased the Ocilla, Pinebloom & Valdosta's tracks south of Pinebloom.297 In 190607, the company bought the Broxton-Hazlehurst section of the Ocilla & Valdosta. Nashville & Sparks Railroad. The N&S was an 11.5-mile line from Nashville to the Georgia Southern & Florida at Sparks. Chartered March 16, 1900, the line was in operation by early 1901. Valdosta Southern Railway. A 28-mile line running from Valdosta to Madison, Florida, it was purchased by the G&F in 1907. 97 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey To connect these railroads, the G&F constructed four new sections of track. From north to south, these were as follows: Swainsboro to Pendleton, 20 miles, built 1909. Pendleton was on the Millen & Southwestern one mile north of Normantown. After completion of the new mainline, Pendleton became the south end of the G&F's Millen branch. Vidalia to Hazlehurst, 28 miles, built 1908-1909. This section included a massive drawbridge over the Altamaha River. Douglas to Garrant, 10 miles, built 1908. To straighten the line in Coffee County, the G&F built a cut-off from Douglas to Garrant, near West Green. The older tracks between Broxton and Garrant were abandoned, which put Broxton on a branch rather than the mainline. Nashville to Valdosta, 27 miles, built 1908. To obtain entry into Augusta, Williams obtained trackage rights on the Augusta Southern Railroad north of Keysville. The Era of Big Systems The turn of the twentieth century saw the ongoing consolidation of lines and further acquisitions lead to the preeminence of major systems. The Southern, Seaboard, Atlantic Coast Line, the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic, the Central of Georgia, the Georgia Southern & Florida, and the Louisville & Nashville were Georgia's major rail operators. Still, however, smaller sub-regional systems and shortlines continued to be developed. Indeed, the general commercial, industrial, and agricultural trends of the nineteenth century continued into the twentieth, with their associated impetus on settlement and development patterns and urban growth. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 98 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 99 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Jett Street, Atlanta CHAPTER 16 TRAINS TO EVERYWHERE: 1908-1915 As the new century transitioned into its second decade, railroad owners built into previously unserved areas, filling in the gaps left by earlier lines. They often began small, with some owners seeing possibilities for their little railroads to grow into important "bridge lines" carrying traffic between larger systems. George Brinson Builds from Savannah In the Savannah area, George M. Brinson, developer of the Stillmore Air Line, opened the Brinson Railroad, a 25-mile line between Savannah and Springfield. Springfield had become the Effingham County seat in 1821, replacing Ebenezer on the Savannah River, but it lacked a rail connection until 1907 when the Brinson Railroad arrived. In 1909, Brinson purchased the Savannah Valley Railroad, a logging line and sometime common carrier that ran from Egypt, on the Central of Georgia mainline, north to Newington, Sylvania, Hiltonia, and Millhaven. In the same year, he extended the Brinson Railroad from Springfield to Newington, where it joined the Savannah Valley line. The SVRR's Newington-Egypt tracks were then leased to Southeastern Lumber Company, and the tracks between Newington and Millhaven were incorporated into the Brinson Railroad. In 1911, Brinson extended his rails from Millhaven to the Central of Georgia at Waynesboro. Another extension in 1913 took the railroad from Waynesboro to a connection with the Georgia & Florida at St. Clair in western Burke County. Brinson planned to continue the line northwest to Athens, but was unable to do so. He left the company in 1914, after which the line was renamed the Savannah & Northwestern Railway. While Brinson was building his rail line from Savannah to the northwest, another railroad was developing in much the same manner and almost in the same direction. It was the Savannah, Augusta & Northern, which between 1908 and 1910 built its 39-mile line running northwest from Statesboro to a connection with the Georgia & Florida at Stevens Crossing, near Midville. At Statesboro, the SA&N connected with the Savannah & Statesboro, formerly the Cuyler & Woodburn, which accessed Savannah by way of the Seaboard line that ran west from the port city. The Savannah, Augusta & Northern was sold in 1910, around the time that the final section of tracks was laid from Garfield to Stevens Crossing. In 1911, the Savannah & Statesboro began operating the line, but this would last only until 1916, when the SA&N was taken over by George Brinson for his newest venture, the Midland Railway. Brinson planned for the Midland to be a 150-mile line running from Savannah northwest to Statesboro, Swainsboro, Wrightsville, Sandersville, and Milledgeville. In 1915 the Midland opened new tracks from Savannah to Statesboro, but that would turn out to be the only part of the route that Brinson constructed. Other Activity on the Coast Down the coast from Savannah, new or improved rail connections were being sought at St. Marys, Hinesville, and Darien. St. Marys already had its St. Marys & Kingsland Railroad, but some businessmen in the area believed that the port town offered greater potential as a rail terminal than was being realized by the little 10.7-mile rail line. In March 1909, the StM&K's board of directors adopted a resolution to extend the line to Waycross and to the Georgia Southern & Florida Railroad near Sparks or Adel. On March 6, 1911, the StM&K was reorganized and renamed the Atlantic, Waycross & Northern Railroad. The following month, the AW&N merged with the Abbeville & Northwestern, a projected line from Abbeville to the Georgia Southern & Florida at Unadilla.298 In March 1915, the Atlantic, Waycross & Northern applied for a charter amendment to build an extension from Kingsland to Fort Valley, 185 miles to the northwest. Seven years later, Poor's 1922 Manual of Railroads reported that grading had taken place between Kingsland and Folkston, but no reports of track-laying followed. Hinesville, established in the mid-1830s as the new seat of Liberty County, had been bypassed by the antebellum Savannah, Albany & Gulf Railroad, and it would not be until 1912 that the town secured a rail connection. In that year, the Flemington, Hinesville & Western opened its five-mile line running northeast from Hinesville to Flemington, where it made a sharp turn to the southeast before continuing to a connection with the Atlantic Coast Line at McIntosh. The FH&W's owners planned to build farther to the west, to Glennville or Claxton, but it was not to be. The financially struggling railroad was renamed the Savannah, Hinesville & 100 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1908 101 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey THE RAILROADS AND AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION To boost revenue from farms while also encouraging farmers to diversify their crops and avoid an overreliance on cotton, several railroad companies actively pushed for agricultural development and education. For example, on its 1906 system map the Central of Georgia promoted Georgia as "The Orchard Belt of the South" and "The Fruit Paradise of the World."1 In 1917, the Central published Peanuts for Profit, a pamphlet intended for cotton farmers then struggling to fight off the boll weevil. It promoted peanuts as an alternative and provided guidance on how to grow and market the crop.2 To encourage improved agricultural practices along its route, the Georgia Southern & Florida Railroad established an experimental farm near Tifton. Called Cycloneta after a tornado that once visited the place, the facility was established to demonstrate "the capacity of the region in every branch of husbandry." A 1906 publication indicated that "The fruits raised on this farm are especially fine."3 Between 1908 and 1917, the State College of Agriculture, in partnership with several railroads, conducted train tours to promote better farming techniques. An Athens newspaper commended the program: In the work of advancing agricultural education, spreading abroad the best agricultural literature and bringing up to the highest standard the work of the Georgia farmer, the railroads in this state are playing a conspicuous part. They see very clearly that the improvement of farm conditions means an improvement of business all around...The people of Georgia know the good that was done by the educational train that was carried through Georgia last spring under the direction of the State College of Agriculture and which was visited by nearly four hundred thousand people. The operation of that train cost the State College of Agriculture less than seventeen hundred dollars. Five thousand dollars was contributed by interested friends of agricultural education. And the railroads made possible the success of the movement by furnishing the train and the transportation worth not less than twenty thousand dollars.4 Tifton, Tift County (Vanishing Georgia) In 1911, the train visited 154 towns in 120 counties in 47 days, hauling "a passenger car for the educators and staff, livestock cars, and cars with modern farming machinery, [and] a center flat car that served as a stage...."5 Crops and livestock were not the only topics for rail-assisted agricultural education; tree-planting was similarly promoted as a smart investment in rural economies. As early as 1929, the Georgia & Florida Railroad ran a "Tree Train" to demonstate forestry techniques and promote new plantings of fast-growing pines such as the loblolly.6 Rail historian Roger Grant noted the results: "In time loblolly pines became a significant part of the economy of the Wiregrass Region; the G&F benefitted greatly by transporting these commercially grown trees, which were used extensively as pulpwood."7 v __________________________________________________________ 1 Wayne Cline. Alabama Railroads. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997, p. 170. 2 Online at archive.org. 3 Allen Daniel Candler and Clement Anselm Evans, Georgia; comprising sketches of counties, towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form, Vol. 2, Atlanta: State Historical Association, 1906, p. 348. 4 Athens Banner, July 4, 1911. 5 4 July 1911: "College on Wheels," accheritage.blogspot.com/2011_07_01_archive.html 6 H. Roger Grant, Rails through the Wiregrass; A History of the Georgia & Florida Railroad, DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006, p. 104. 7 Ibid., p. 105. 102 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Western Railway in 1916, and it was abandoned as a common carrier in 1917. It was then sold to the Dunlevie Lumber Company, which operated it for a short time thereafter.299 Like St. Marys, Darien had a railroad and sought to extend it. In Darien, though, the extension was to the south, parallel to the coast, rather than away from it as at St. Marys. In one of the bolder schemes undertaken by a small railroad company, the Georgia Coast & Piedmont decided to cross the broad Altamaha River and its former rice fields so that it might reach Brunswick. Completed in 1914, the 18-mile extension included bridges over each of the four branches of the Altamaha, including swing-span steel drawbridges over the South Altamaha and Darien rivers. After it was finished, the new route formed a link in the new Quebec-Miami Highway, a precursor to the Atlantic Coastal Highway and US 1. Between Darien and Broadfield, GC&P trains hauled automobiles on flat cars, and at least one old photograph shows the trains making the trip with the riders seated in their vehicles.300 Activity in the Waycross-Valdosta Region Meanwhile, to the south, another vast wetland was yielding to the railroad. Constructed between 1910 and 1912, the Waycross & Southern was a 20mile line from Hebardville, near Waycross, to Hopkins at the northeast edge of the 660-square-mile Okefenokee Swamp. From Hopkins, the W&S pushed into the watery domain by building a network of tram roads set on pilings so that it could haul lumber from the swamp to the Hebard Lumber Company saw mill at Hebardville. The common-carrier W&S, which marketed itself as "The Okefinokee Route," was reportedly intending to reach Jacksonville, but those plans remained unrealized. On somewhat drier ground was the piney woods Waycross & Western Railroad. Incorporated on February 19, 1912, it built a 44.5-mile line running west out of Waycross to Milltown (now called Lakeland). Completed in 1914, it followed a route that generally paralleled today's State Route 122. About 25 miles south of Lakeland at Statenville, the seat of Echols County, the Statenville Railway built a 14-mile line to Haylow, at the crossing of the Atlantic Coast Line and the Georgia Southern & Florida. It opened in 1910. With rails running in five directions, Haylow had more transportation options than many Georgia communities of its size, but not enough to turn it into a full-fledged town. It did, however, have a hotel, described in one account as "a kind of bed-and-breakfast farm house."301 Thirty miles north of Lakeland is Alapaha, where in 1910 the Ocilla Southern Railroad opened a rail line to Ocilla. The following year, it leased the Ocilla-Fitzgerald tracks of the Fitzgerald, Ocilla & Broxton, and in 1912-13, the company extended the southern end of its tracks from Alapaha to a connection with the Georgia & Florida Railway at Nashville. In 1914, the railroad was extended north from Fitzgerald to the Seaboard Air Line at Rochelle. At Valdosta, twenty miles southwest of Lakeland, the Valdosta, Moultrie & Western constructed a 42-mile line to Moultrie. Built in 1910, it ran across northern Brooks County and southeastern Colquitt County, and plans called for it to continue beyond Moultrie if enough capital could be raised. At Morven, the VM&W crossed the South Georgia Railway (previously the South Georgia & West Coast Railway and before that the South Georgia Railroad), a north-south line that bisected Brooks County. The county was also served by the Atlantic Coast Line, which ran a few miles to the south, as well as the Georgia Northern, which followed the boundary with neighboring Thomas County on the west. Moultrie already had several railroads, as did Valdosta, so it was unlikely that the VM&W would capture a major portion of the trade of those towns. Moultrie also obtained a new link to the east in 1910. The Sparks Western Railway, chartered September 8, 1908, built its line from Sparks, on the Georgia Southern & Florida near Adel, to Kingwood, two miles east of Moultrie. At Kingwood it connected with the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic, on which trackage rights were obtained for entry into Moultrie proper. While the line was under construction, it was acquired by the new Georgia & Florida Railway, and it was absorbed into that company the following year. Aiming for the Gulf of Mexico Northwest of Moultrie, activity was underway on two more railroads: the Flint River & Gulf and the Georgia Southwestern & Gulf. Both lines ran southwest from the Georgia Southern &Florida, following parallel courses 103 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 104 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Hazlehurst vicinity, Jeff Davis County that were only about 20 miles apart. The Flint River & Gulf, incorporated in 1903, was planned as a route from the GS&F at Ashburn to the Flint River at Bainbridge. It opened its first few miles out of Ashburn in 1904 and reached Sylvester sometime in 1906. A November 1, 1906 timetable indicates that the railroad had been completed to a connection with the Georgia Northern at Bridgeboro, which would be the full extent of the line's construction under the Flint River & Gulf banner. In 1907 the line was purchased by the Gulf Line Railway, and in 1911 the tracks were extended from Bridgeboro to Camilla.302 The Gulf Line had been established in 1907 to acquire and consolidate the Flint River & Gulf and the Hawkinsville & Florida Southern, presumably as a step in building a railroad to the Gulf where it could capture Panama Canal traffic. However, in 1913, its property, rights, and franchises were returned to the Hawkinsville & Florida Southern, which then became the operator of the line from Hawkinsville to Camilla.303 The Georgia Southwestern & Gulf Railroad was organized in 1906 to build a line from Dawson and Albany to the Gulf at St. Andrews, Florida. As planned, it would have passed through the Georgia counties of Terrell, Calhoun, Dougherty, Baker, Miller, and Decatur. In 1910, the GSW&G leased the 35mile Albany & Northern Railway, which ran from Albany northeastward to Cordele, perhaps thinking that the connection with the Georgia Southern & Florida at the latter town would help in attracting investors. Whatever was the case, the 155 miles from Albany to St. Andrews was not constructed, and the Cordele-Albany trackage was all that the Georgia Southwestern & Gulf would ever operate. As it turned out, of the three aforementioned railroads with "Gulf " in their name, none would ever actually attain that goal. Somewhat more successful was the Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay Railway, a 1907-08 venture by A. B. Steele, president of Atlanta's Enterprise Lumber Company. He upgraded his lumber line south of Dothan, Alabama, to a common carrier and extended it to Cottondale, on the Louisville & Nashville in Florida, and to St. Andrews Bay at a place called Harrison, later renamed Panama City. At Dothan, a connection was made with the Central of Georgia for service to Atlanta, thus giving credence to the company name even though the railroad had no tracks in Georgia.304 Another railroad with a presence on the Gulf was the Georgia, Florida & Alabama. It arrived there in 1906 by acquiring the 50-mile Carrabelle, Tallahassee & Georgia Railroad, which connected the first two places in its name but never reached Georgia on its own. In 1910, the GF&A built a northern extension from Cuthbert to Richland, and had plans to continue on to Columbus. That would have put it just across the Chattahoochee from Alabama. But the line would never progress beyond Richland, and the Georgia, Florida & Alabama would have to be content with its lines in Georgia and Florida. Three More Lumber Lines Become Common Carriers Railroads that were built for the purpose of hauling logs and lumber out of a particular area had a problem: when the forest was all gone, the railroad would lose its primary reason for existence. Having invested considerable sums in acquiring property and constructing rail lines, owners were often loath to move elsewhere and leave their investments behind. As an alternative, some tried converting their lumber lines to common-carrier railroads, hoping to benefit from local farm shipments and traffic forwarded from other railroads. One lumber line that tried this approach was the 22-mile Blakely Southern Railroad. It ran south from Blakely, on the Central, to Jakin, on the Atlantic Coast Line. Originating from two logging trams that eventually joined deep in the Early County pine forest, the Blakely Southern began operating as a common carrier in 1912. It soon entered receivership, lost its charter on September 21, 1914, and was abandoned the same year. Despite its shortcomings, the Blakely Southern was at least accurately named. The Florida Central Railroad could not say the same; it should have been called the Thomasville Southern. Incorporated in Georgia in 1907 and starting operations in 1908, the former logging railroad ran 47 miles from Thomasville to Fanlew, Florida. It was controlled by J. L. Philips & Company, a Thomasville lumber concern. According to a 1910 guidebook, it ran daily passenger and freight trains and made stops at 14 stations along its 47-mile course.305 But the service did not last long. In 1912, the railroad entered receivership and in October 1914, it was sold to the Atlantic Coast Line, which soon abandoned the section from Thomasville to Fincher. The tracks in Florida remained in service for a few more years.306 105 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Another lumber railroad that made the leap to common carrier was the Ocmulgee Valley Railroad, a 21-mile line that was converted in 1915. It ran from the Southern Railway at Lumber City to Jacksonville in southern Telfair County. Jacksonville, established as the county seat after the Creek cession of 1802-1805, lay where a trade route crossed the Ocmulgee River at a ford.307 The town had been bypassed by the Macon & Brunswick, the Atlantic & Birmingham, and the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery, which left it to rely on steamboats and inadequate roads for its transportation needs. Consequently, a rail link to the outside world must have seemed like a godsend. It failed, though, to impress one observer: [T]he Ocmulgee Valley Railway Company has constructed a short railway, which purports to extend from Lumber City to a point in the pine woods some miles short of Jacksonville, Telfair county, Ga. ...The Ocmulgee Valley Railroad is not a prosperous artery of commerce. During last year it spent nothing for its upkeep, paid its officers no salaries, and charged off nothing for depreciation... For the rails it uses it has never paid a dollar. This is also true of all its rolling stock and other railway material. Depots, platforms, terminals, and other such attributes of the railway are wholly nonexistent. Its president testified that he did not believe it possible that it would ever pay its operating expenses. He did not think it could be sold. Indeed, he doubted if it could be given away to any one under obligation to continue its operation. He was equally skeptical as to the possibility of bonding the property. The condition of the road and the roadbed is not less calamitous. Generally, its supports are rotten, and in at least one place crossing a stream or other depression, the stringers having rotted away, the passing train is upheld only by the rail.308 Apparently the railroad's condition did not improve; it was abandoned in 1917. Other Activity in South Georgia In the upper coastal plain, another old county seat belatedly gained a rail connection. In 1911, the Irwinton Railway opened its three-mile line from Irwinton to the Central of Georgia at McIntyre, nine miles east of Gordon. Irwinton was one of the oldest towns in the area, having been laid out in 1811, but it had been bypassed by the Central. Unfortunately for the town and the railroad, a 1913 accident resulted in the line's closure the same year.309 Forty miles southwest of Irwinton, at the Ocmulgee River town of Hawkinsville, a new railroad opened in 1914. The Hawkinsville & Western extended 23 miles west, crossed the Georgia Southern & Florida at Grovania, and connected with a branch of the Central of Georgia at Perry. The H&W gave Hawkinsville a rail outlet to the west, gave Perry an outlet to the east, and gave the GS&F another feeder, at least for a time. Expansion in North Georgia While all of this south Georgia development was taking place, the northern part of the state was also seeing considerable rail activity. In early 1911, the Bowdon Railway opened as a 12-mile line from the Carroll County town to the Central of Georgia at Bowdon Junction. Not content with its sole connection being with the Central, its owner considered a 30-mile extension southwest to the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic at Roanoke in Randolph County, Alabama, but it was never constructed. On the east side of Atlanta, the Atlanta, Stone Mountain & Lithonia Railroad began operations in 1909. It was a common carrier for a time, but its primary role was hauling granite from quarries in eastern DeKalb County. It eventually comprised four lines, three at Lithonia and one at Stone Mountain. Each connected with the Georgia Railroad's AtlantaAugusta mainline. Eight miles southeast of Lithonia at Conyers, the Milstead Railroad began service in 1909 over a three-mile line to the Milstead Manufacturing Company's textile mill on the Yellow River. Essentially a long spur, it had its own locomotive which was used to haul railcars between the mill and the Georgia Railroad. The factory was later taken over by Callaway Mills, but the railroad continued to operate as before. Like the much longer Chattahoochee Valley Railway, the Milstead was owned by a textile company. In 1911, the Greene County Railroad Company built a 13.5-mile line from Monroe to Bostwick, where it connected with the Bostwick Railroad, a six-mile line in northern Morgan County that ran east from Bostwick to the Central of Georgia at Apalachee. The Bostwick, built in 1907, entered receivership in 1912 and was purchased shortly afterwards by the Greene County Railroad. Although the latter railroad never actually entered Greene 106 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey County, it did give Monroe, the seat of Walton County, its third rail line, along with the Gainesville Midland and the Monroe Railroad. In the eastern piedmont, the Elberton & Eastern Railroad constructed a 22mile line from Elberton south to Tignall, a town in northern Wilkes County. Opened in 1913, the E&E was forced into receivership in April 1916. In the same year, the lessees of the Georgia Railroad purchased it and extended it 13 miles south to Washington, where it connected with the Georgia Railroad branch from the mainline at Barnett. Two of the new railroads that were built in north Georgia during the period were focused on resource extraction, one on iron ore and the other on lumber. The Rome & Northern Railroad, built in 1909-10 by Michigan businessman R. G. Peters, hauled iron ore on a 19-mile standard-gauge line running from Rome north to Gore, a hamlet among the Armuchee ridges. Peters planned to extend the line north to the Western & Atlantic at Tunnel Hill, but it never reached beyond Gore. In 1913-1915, the Gainesville & Northwestern constructed a line from the Southern Railway at Gainesville to the Byrd-Matthews lumber mill at Robertstown, which was about a mile up the Chattahoochee River from Helen. Along the way, the 35-mile railroad passed through Brookton, Clermont, Cleveland, and Nacoochee. Promoted as the "Nacoochee Valley Route," it reached the foot of the Blue Ridge mountains, but no break in the range such as Rabun Gap to the east or the Murphy Belt to the west allowed it to go any farther. Narrow-gauge common-carrier trains disappeared from the state's rail system during the years between 1911 and 1913 as three railroads either converted their rails or ended service altogether. In the northeastern Piedmont, the 9.6-mile Lawrenceville Branch Railroad widened its tracks to standard gauge in 1911. The LBRR had opened in 1881 as a three-foot gauge line between Lawrenceville and Suwanee. Twenty miles to the east, the western branch of the Gainesville Midland (Belmont to Monroe) likewise made the conversion in 1913. In that same year, the Bowden Lithia Springs Short Line Railroad quit operations and abandoned its narrow-gauge tracks. That line's reason for existence, the Sweet Water Park Hotel at Lithia Springs, had burned in 1912. The period saw at least one notable corporate change when, in 1911, the Chattanooga Southern Railroad was sold by the estate of financier Russell Sage to new owners who renamed it the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railroad.310 Marketed as the "TAG Route," the railroad continued to serve the iron ore mines along its 90-mile course, among which were those at Estelle on the west side of Pigeon Mountain. This mining operation was a major source of ore for the Chattanooga Iron & Coal Corporation's furnace at Chattanooga. New Stations and Y's Railroads continued building impressive passenger gateways such as the 1909 Southern Railway station in Athens and the 1912 Union Station in Albany. When the new Terminal Station at Chattanooga opened in 1909, Southern Railway and Central of Georgia trains began operating out of that facility rather than the old Union Depot at the center of town. The Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis and the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia continued to use the old building. While most travelers arrived at these big city stations by streetcar or horsedrawn carriage, a fortunate few came by automobile. In 1908, Henry Ford began producing the Model T. Within a few years, assembly line manufacturing resulted in huge cost-per-unit savings, drastically reducing the price at which Ford could sell his vehicles. Automobile ownership soared into the millions, and demands for better roads soon intensified. New passenger stations drew praise from the traveling public, but for many rail workers the "Railroad Y" was a more welcome sight. Funded by the larger rail companies and located at major junctions or terminals, these YMCA buildings provided lodging and board and other Y services to assist railroaders, especially those working away from home. Atlanta had a Railroad Y on Hunter Street (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive), and in 1911, Atlantic Coast Line funded a YMCA building in Waycross. The Screven Avenue facility opened the following year, providing fifty boarding rooms along with various activity spaces.311 A Web of Rail Lines The early twentieth century saw rail development continue its frenetic pace, as developers seemed to study rail maps and propose new lines for the remaining vacant spots. Still more towns were connected, still more 107 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey RAIL YARDS For medium-sized and large railroads, rail yards are necessary for switching, freight classification, and intermodal transfer. Early yards were typically located at or near city centers, but as the railroads expanded their operations they often built new larger yards at the urban edge. Listed below are some of the yards--past, present, and former--in Georgia. ATLANTA: Inman Yard, South Yard, Armour Yard (Southern Railway); Howells Yard (Seaboard Air Line); Hulsey Yard (Georgia Railroad); Bellwood Yard (Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic); West End Yard (Louisville & Nashville); Hills Park Yard (Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis). Hills Park Yard is now Tilford Yard (CSX). EAST POINT: Industry Yard (Central of Georgia). AUGUSTA: Harrisonville Yard (Georgia Railroad). MACON: Macon Yard (Central of Georgia); Macon Yard (Macon, Dublin & Savannah); Brosnan Yard (Southern Railway). Brosnan Yard is Norfolk Southern's largest in the southeast. SAVANNAH: Southover Yard (Atlantic Coast Line); Savannah Yard (Seaboard Air Line). Dillard Yard (Southern Railway). WAYCROSS: Rice Yard (Atlantic Coast Line). Now operated by CSX, it is the largest rail yard in the southeastern United States. An oddly named yard is Junta, on the north side of Cartersville. It lies at the junction of former Louisville & Nashville, Seaboard Air Line, and Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis routes. v communities sprang up, and still more industrial and agricultural interests engaged the network through connectors, spurs, and shortlines. But, in some cases, this energy was misplaced as proposed lines failed on paper or quickly closed down when revenues did not justify full completion or even continued operation. Nonetheless, Georgia's rail map in the first decade of the twentieth century was nearing its fullest completion, as a spider's web of lines crisscrossed the state, seemingly going to everywhere. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc Rice Yard, Waycross, Ware County 108 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 109 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Roberta, Crawford County CHAPTER 17 RAILROADS AT THEIR ZENITH: 1916-1920 By 1916, new railroad construction in Georgia had largely, but not entirely, come to an end. A new shortline would be built between Lincolnton and Washington, and new tracks would appear in parts of south Georgia, but, for the most part, the railroad-building era was over, at least within Georgia's borders. Nationally, 1916 was the year that total rail mileage peaked, with approximately 254,000 miles of tracks crisscrossing the United States. This immense network was attended to by 1,701,000 railroad employees, making up 4.2 percent of the total U.S. labor force.312 In his American Railroads, John F. Stover provides some figures that put this growth into perspective: While the population had not quite tripled (36,000,000 to 102,000,000) between 1865 and 1916, the nation's rail network had grown more than sevenfold in the same years. In the half-century the annual value of manufactured products in America increased nearly seventeen times, from perhaps $3,000,000,000 to about $50,000,000,000. Annual rail freight ton-mileage increased by thirty-five times in the same years. While the total national income was experiencing a sevenfold increase and the national wealth was growing ten times, annual gross railroad revenue had a twelvefold increase, from $300,000,000 to $3,600,000,000. American railroads were clearly taking care of the nation's transportation needs, even though those needs were growing with explosive speed. In the years between the two wars [the Civil War and World War I] the American economy had developed from an agrarian-oriented secondrate industrial society into the industrial giant of the world. The nation's railroads had kept pace with the change.313 A splendid symbol of that change opened in 1916 at the foot of Cherry Street in Macon. The city's Terminal Station, a three-story Beaux Arts edifice designed by architect Alfred Fellheimer, was jointly owned by the Central of Georgia, the Southern Railway, and the Georgia Southern & Florida. In the mid-1920s it handled as many as a hundred arrivals and departures each day. With eight tracks for through trains and ten tracks for local trains, it was well-suited to move large numbers of passengers efficiently. The Last New Shortlines During the period, the last of the shortlines (roughly, railroads under 100 miles in length) arrived on the scene. On the sandy lands near Savannah were two of these: the Savannah & Southern Railway and the Shearwood Railway. The Savannah & Southern had been chartered in 1909 to build a railroad from Savannah to the Altamaha River, about 50 miles away. The line began at Norden, a point on the Seaboard railroad between Pembroke and Ellabell, and proceeded southwest towards Glennville. The town of Willie, which no longer exists, was reached in 1911, but it was not until 1916 that the railroad was completed to Glennville, some 32 miles from Norden. The line to the Altamaha was never built, and Glennville remained the railroad's southern terminus. The Shearwood Railway, incorporated on January 12, 1912, ran 38 miles from Hagan and Claxton on the Seaboard northeast to Egypt on the Central, and plans called for it to continue farther to Clyo on the Seaboard's SavannahColumbia line. The company's president was J. N. Shearouse of Brooklet, who owned several sawmills in the area. He was killed in 1926 when the locomotive he was operating overturned on a rain-weakened railbed.314 A new shortline north of Augusta also made its debut during the period. Incorporated in 1914, the Washington & Lincolnton Railroad completed a 20-mile line between those towns in 1918. The Georgia Railroad had assisted the W&L with financing, as it had done with several other feeder lines. Washington had secured a rail connection in 1852, but Lincolnton had to wait over six decades for train service. Undoubtedly, the lack of a railroad had held it back: its population in 1920 was 657 as compared to Washington's 4,208. Lincolnton, though, had company in that regard; other county seat towns that were isolated from the railroads such as Blairsville, Dawsonville, Franklin, and Newton, also remained small. In south Georgia, the 25-mile Pelham & Havana Railroad, incorporated in 1908 and based in Cairo, opened a line from Cairo to Calvary in 1910, followed by an extension to Darsey, Florida, around 1914. In 1918 the rails reached Havana, a Florida town in the shade tobacco district, where the P&H connected with the Atlantic Coast Line. The company's owners planned to extend the line about 18 miles north to Pelham, a Mitchell County town on the ACL's Albany-Thomasville branch, but that segment remained unbuilt. 110 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Two Not-so-short Shortlines In his book Georgia Short Line Railroad Album, Albert M. Langley, Jr., observed that no official definition of shortline exists and that one common definition, a railroad less than 100 miles long, is arbitrary and inadequate in that it leaves out some 100-plus-mile railroads that many railroad historians would consider to be shortlines. Two such railroads included in his book, the Ocilla Southern and the Savannah & Atlanta, are also considered to be shortlines here. At work on a grand plan, specifically a new line from Atlanta to Jacksonville, the Ocilla Southern Railroad took a step towards that goal in 1917 when it opened a seven-mile extension from Rochelle northwards to Pope City.315 There the tracks connected with the Hawkinsville & Florida Southern's 18mile line to Hawkinsville. A lease of that line was secured, along with a lease of the Hawkinsville & Western Railroad's line from Hawkinsville to Perry. This made the Ocilla Southern a 110-mile railroad extending from Nashville on the south to Perry on the north. That was only about a third of the distance between Atlanta and Jacksonville, however, and it would turn out to be the greatest length that the railroad would ever achieve. The company entered receivership in June 1918 and remained in that status for several years before it abandoned its entire line. None of the trackage was ever reopened. Considerably more successful in expansion and longevity was the Savannah & Atlanta Railway. Organized by the W. M. Imbrie Company of New York on December 8, 1915, the S&A built a 35-mile connecting link from the western end of the Savannah & Northwestern Railway at St. Clair, on the Georgia & Florida Railway, to the Georgia Railroad at East Warrenton, 3.5 miles south of Camak. The new line opened in August of the following year, establishing an Atlanta-Savannah route 28 miles shorter than the best alternative. In July 1917, the S&A merged the Savannah & Northwestern into its own operations.316 Other Activity in South Georgia In the middle Flint River region, yet another lumber company was attempting to convert a logging railroad to a common carrier. In mid-1915, Byromville-based Georgia Lumber Company announced a new standard- gauge railroad to run 26 miles from Byromville on the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic to Americus. "The Georgia Lumber Company owns several million feet on both sides [of the Flint River] and this new road will run through their property," reported a trade publication. "The railroad will run through one of the richest sections of Sumter County, between Americus and the river. It is proposed later to extend the road to Tifton."317 By late fall, the line was being called the Americus, Hawkinsville & Eastern, but it was still 12 miles shy of reaching Americus. In April of 1917, it was reported that the Americus & Atlantic Railway had applied for incorporation, had completed a trestle and bridge over the Flint River, and had laid track on 14 miles.318 But it was still 12 miles short of Americus, and, as it turned out, it would never reach the place. At the state's borders, two line extension projects did come to fruition. The first and longest was Seaboard Air Line's new route from Savannah to Charleston. Incorporating some older lines while also adding new tracks, it opened in 1917. Along with the Charleston connection, the new link created a second Seaboard mainline between Savannah and Hamlet, North Carolina (the new line would later be known as the East Carolina Division). In Savannah, the railroad crossed the Savannah River at Hutchinson Island, where Seaboard maintained a large complex of docks and warehouses. The second project took place in 1916 when the Chattahoochee Valley Railway extended its line southward to reach the Central of Georgia at Bleeker, Alabama. An earlier extension in 1908 had taken the railroad north from West Point to the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic at Standing Rock, Alabama. The CV was owned by the West Point Manufacturing Company, which built the new connections to avoid dependence on the Atlanta & West Point. Except for a short section in and north of West Point, the CV was entirely within Alabama. Corporate Changes Two corporate changes occurred during the period. In 1917, the Monroe Railroad, the 10-mile line between Monroe and Social Circle, was absorbed into the Georgia Railroad, and in 1919, the Georgia & Florida acquired the 84-mile Augusta Southern, which operated between Augusta and Tennille. 111 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 112 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Newington, Screven County Railroad Abandonments Prior to 1920 For common-carrier railroads, abandonments were rare during the nineteenth century. Among the few that were lost were the four-mile Etowah Railroad, destroyed in the Civil War and not rebuilt, the five-mile Memphis Branch Railroad, abandoned around 1885, and the 17-mile South Brunswick Railroad, abandoned in 1898. Logging lines were much more likely to disappear. In most cases, their rails were taken up after all of the marketable trees had been removed. Although some lines carried freight other than log and lumber, once the forest disappeared and the sawmills closed, they had little revenue to fall back on. Among the lumber lines cast aside were the Etowah & Deatons Railroad, abandoned in 1884;328 the Ocmulgee & Horse Creek, abandoned in 1888; the Brunswick & Pensacola, abandoned around 1899; the St. Marys, Lake City & Gulf, abandoned around 1900; the Dooly Southern, abandoned in 1903; the Douglas & McDonald, abandoned in 1904; and the Bainbridge Northeastern, abandoned around 1910. Two resort lines were abandoned before 1920. The first to go was the 2.5mile Bowden-Lithia Springs Railroad, abandoned in 1913 after the Sweet Water Park Hotel burned the year before. It was followed by the 2.6-mile Flovilla & Indian Springs Railroad, abandoned in 1918 after patrons of the hotels at Indian Springs deserted the railcars in favor of automobiles. The antithesis of a resort was the convict laborers camp on the Smithonia farm of James Monroe Smith. After he died in 1915, his five-mile Smithonia, Danielsville & Carnesville Railroad was abandoned the following year. The Smithonia & Dunlap Railroad continued operating for a time longer. Some abandonments resulted from lines being bypassed or duplicated. One was the Broxton-Garrant segment of the Georgia & Florida, abandoned in 1908 after being bypassed by a new line to the south.329 Another was the section of the Florida Central between Thomasville and Fincher, abandoned around 1914 after Atlantic Coast Line purchased the railroad.330 ACL had its own tracks in that area and did not need those of the FC. Numerous short abandonments took place as lines were straightened to improve operating efficiency. An example is Southern Railway's 1915-19 straightening of its line near Toccoa that cut off a number of curves near the North Fork of the Broad River. Other short abandonments resulted from relocating junctions. One took place in 1905 when the Atlantic & Birmingham Railway moved its junction with the former Brunswick & Birmingham from Nicholls to Sessoms, which was 3.3 miles to the east. New tracks built from Sessoms to Guysie allowed the older Guysie-Nicholls section to be abandoned. One of the longer pre-1920 abandonments was that of the Georgia Coast & Piedmont, which entered receivership in 1915. It was sold in 1919 after which the 57-mile southern section, running from Ludowici to Darien and Brunswick, was abandoned. The northern section, extending from Ludowici to Glennville, Reidsville, and Collins, remained in operation as the Collins & Ludowici Railroad, at least until 1921. In that year, the Collins & Glennville Railroad was organized to operate the line between those two towns, leaving Ludowici out of the picture. Its tracks to Glennville were abandoned around that time. Along with losing its Ludowici line, Glennville also relinquished its connection to Register when the East Georgia Railway ceased operations in 1918-19. The line had opened as the Register & Glennville Railroad in 1902. Three factors contributed to the demise of the little railroads in this coastal flatland region: the sparse population; the decline of the lumber industry, which had cut down most of the original pine forest; and increasing competition from automobiles and trucks. Other Abandonments before 1920: B Tifton & Moultrie Railroad, Tifton-Moultrie, abandoned (or made logging-only) in 1904. B Atlantic & Birmingham Railway, Ocilla-Bushnell and Irwinville-Crystal Lake, abandoned November 1905.331 B Wadley & Mount Vernon Railroad (Rockledge-Oconee River portion only), abandoned around 1905. B Fitzgerald, Ocmulgee & Red Bluff Railroad, Fitzgerald-Garbutt's Landing, abandoned 1907. B Savannah Valley Railroad, Newington-Egypt, abandoned ca. 1910.332 113 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey B Ocilla & Irwinville Railroad, Ocilla-Irwinville, abandoned 1915-16. B Fitzgerald, Ocilla & Broxton Railroad, Broxton-Ocilla, abandoned ca. 1916. B Wainhurst Railway, Brinson-Reynoldsville-Chattahoochee River, abandoned 1916. B Ocmulgee Valley Railroad, Jacksonville-Lumber City, abandoned 1917. B Ocilla, Pinebloom & Valdosta Railroad, Willacoochee-Gladys, abandoned ca. 1919. All of the railroads above were totally abandoned, and none were later reopened. In fact, it was exceedingly rare for a rail line to be reopened after being abandoned. The Peak Reached As Georgia's rail network passed through the watershed period 1916-1920, when national and state rail mileage and ridership peaked, the growth trend continued. Although more false starts occurred and some lines failed, still other railroads and lines continued to be brought into operation. Georgia's rail web, then, was as geographically complete as it ever would be. Rail now stretched, if not literally everywhere, through all of Georgia's regions, and multiple lines served all its cities. Industry, agriculture, and community growth had long-since adapted to the preeminence of rail transportation-- those who had it flourished, those who did not, suffered. These changes obviously had entailed much physical change within the state, as the steel rails snaked across the landscape, as cities and towns grew into hubs, as factories sought them out, and nearby farms grew dependent on them. But, unbeknownst to Georgians at that time, the rail age was indeed at its zenith and on the cusp of a long, slow decline. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 114 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Ladds, Bartow County WORLD WAR I AND GOVERNMENT CONTROL Soon after America went to war in the spring of 1917, railroads came under severe stress as they strived to meet the military's logistics demands. "By the autumn of 1917, matters came to a head," reported one historian. "There was a national shortage of freight cars estimated at 158,000, and more than that number were piled up around the eastern ports waiting to be unloaded."1As problems in coordinating the traffic worsened, the Federal government realized that bold measures were needed, and in late December President Wilson issued an order to nationalize the railroads. A few months later, the U. S. Railroad Administration, headed by Georgia-born William Gibbs McAdoo, took control. In short order, the USRA required railroads to use the fastest routes to move critical supplies, to consolidate operations at major terminal yards, and to eliminate inessential passenger trains. Freight rates were increased to generate funds to rebuild deteriorated infrastructure, and demurrage charges were boosted to speed up unloading and return of freight cars so that they would be available for further shipments. (Demurrage was a financial penalty assessed when cars were not unloaded within an agreed-upon time.) To help handle the huge increase in traffic, the USRA ordered 100,000 freight cars and 1,930 locomotives. To hold down costs and reduce production times, these were to be built to standard designs. To compensate railroad owners for the takeover, the federal government made an annual rental payment equal to the particular railroad's average net operating income for the years 1914 to 1917. Federal policy also specified that after the war the railroads would be returned to private ownership in no worse shape than before the takeover.2 Some shortline railroads fared poorly under the USRA, at least according to their owners. Testifying in a 1919 Congressional hearing, George Brinson told of the adverse impact of Federal policy on his Midland Railway, especially its inability to get railcars from larger railroads when needed. He noted that he had made money on his earlier railroads and felt that he was in a good position to continue doing so, especially considering the uncut pines along the Midland. Although his railroad's territory was modest, and other than Savannah the only good-sized town on the line was Statesboro, he expected to succeed. He told the committee of his approach to railroad building: [T]he short line railroads are pioneers. They go out into the new territory where the population is thin and where taxable values are low. They build up the country and they enable the people to increase their property valuation and to my mind, although it sounds a little ridiculous, that is the reason I am in the short-line railroad business. I built three or four little railroads, and on each one of them I came out fairly well, but I built just one too many, just one.3 Brinson hung on for a few more years. In 1922, the Midland entered receivership and Brinson was appointed receiver. In December 1923, the 43-mile section from Statesboro to Savannah was abandoned. The remainder of the line survived as the Statesboro Northern Railway, a branch line of the Georgia and Florida Railway. v The Light Mikado was the standard light freight locomotive and the most widely built type of the USRA standard designs. This image is taken from the 1922 Locomotive Cyclopedia of American Practice which is now in the public domain. See Copyright. 1 Wolmar, p. 290. 2 William D. Middleton et al., Encyclopedia of North American Railroads (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), p. 1119. 3 U. S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Return of the Railroads to Private Ownership, p. 2726. 115 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey SHIPPERS Georgia's railroads hauled a wide variety of freight, essentially whatever the state was producing and whatever it was consuming at any given time. As interstate links developed, the products of other areas were also hauled as well. Cotton underpinned the financial health of antebellum lines, and lumber kept many postbellum railroads operating. The rise of trucking in the twentieth century eventually ended the railroads' small-freight business (in rail-speak called LCL for "less than car load"), forcing them to depend on hauling bulk materials to remain profitable. Today's trains largely haul commodities, bulk chemicals, intermodal containers, and automobiles. Listed below are some of the shippers and types of freight moved over the state's railroads from their beginning to the present: Farmers. A common Georgia scene during harvest time was the small town depot with bales of cotton crammed onto the freight platform, with more bales on the depot grounds and in wagons crowded around the depot. Cotton dominated the farm economy for a long time, up until the 1920s when the boll weevil caused many farmers to shift to other agricultural products.1 Of course, even before the weevil arrived, some farmers were growing and shipping non-cotton crops such as grain, fruits, vegetables, and hay, as well as livestock and animal products such as wool, hides, and leather. Savannah (Vanishing Georgia) Early mills and factories. Before the railroad era, mills and factories were usually located on streams that provided adequate water power to operate the machinery. Examples were at Scull Shoals on the Oconee River, Planters Factory on the Ocmulgee, New Manchester on Sweetwater Creek, and Roswell on Big Creek, among other places. Raw materials and finished goods had to be hauled in and out on primitive roads, which eventually led to these factories being replaced by those located on a railroad. According to some sources, the impetus for building the Georgia Railroad was an incident in which industrial machinery being hauled by wagon to Athens was stuck for weeks in a local mudhole. Before the Civil War, and for a time afterwards, mills and factories tended to locate along the railroads at the edges of the central commercial district. During the last two decades of the nineteenth century, they began moving farther out, a trend that historian John Stilgoe attributes to pressure by insurance companies hoping to avoid fire-related losses. "By insisting on one-story, or at most, three-story heights, the insurance companies prompted many factory owners to relocate away from the central city," said Stilgoe.2 Textile Mills. Over the years, hundreds of textile mills have operated in Georgia. Some of the largest mills were constructed along the railroads at Atlanta, Augusta, Columbus, and Macon, while numerous others were built in mill towns that lay near larger places: Lindale near Rome, Trion near Summerville, New Holland near Gainesville, Chicopee also near Gainesville, Milstead near Conyers, Clarkdale near Austell, Bibb City near Columbus, Payne City near Macon, Remerton near Valdosta, Porterdale near Covington, and Silvertown near Thomaston. Whittier Mill, which began construction in 1895 beside the Southern Railway, was one of several outlying mills in Atlanta. In her book The Men and the Mills, Mildred Gwin Andrews tells of the many business deals conducted aboard Southern Railway's Crescent trains traveling between Atlanta and Richmond: The Crescent was the symbol of the new industrial South, which could not have come about without the famous Southern Railway system and connecting lines. For years and years it was the lifeblood of the textile mills...In earlier days, it was on the Crescent that passengers met and bought and sold textiles and machinery. You'd be surprised by how much business could be conducted between Greensboro and Charlotte, for example, or Spartanburg and Atlanta, and so on.3 Shippers continued on the following page... 116 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey SHIPPERS (continued) Automobiles. Millions of automobiles have been shipped by rail in Georgia, many from factories within the state. White Star automobiles were built in Atlanta in the early 1900s, and Ford Motor Company had an early auto plant on Ponce de Leon Avenue beside the Southern Railway. In the 1950s, Ford constructed a much larger assembly plant at Hapeville. General Motors built a plant at Lakewood (south Atlanta) in 1927 and another at Doraville in 1947. None of these now exist, but today Kia has a factory at West Point. Autos produced outside of Georgia also travel by rail; for example, a large ship-to-rail facility operates at Colonels Island near Brunswick. Steel mills. Atlantic Steel once operated a large steel mill on the Southern Railway in Atlanta. Today its site is occupied by the Atlantic Station multiuse complex. Other iron and steel mills were located in Columbus, Cordele, and at various places in northwest Georgia. Mines and quarries. Coal, iron ore, and a variety of other minerals were shipped from north Georgia for many decades. Slate roofing tile was shipped from Rockmart, and clay tiles flowed from Ludowici. Brickyards in Macon and Atlanta provided many rail shipments. Quarries near Lithonia, Stone Mountain, Elberton, Tate, and many other locations shipped granite, marble, and other mineral products. Today, aggregates, sand, and clays are often shipped by rail. Kaolin clay is shipped in large quantities from mines in central Georgia. Forest products. Many railroads owed their existence to hauling logs and lumber, especially in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Although dozens of these lines disappeared after the last forests were cut in the 1920s, some of the lumber roads extended their days by transitioning to common carriers. Forest-related industries along the railroads included sawmills, lumber yards, pulpwood yards, turpentine and naval stores operations, and paper mills. During the 1940s, paper manufacturing became a major industry in Georgia. At Savannah, the Union Bag-Camp Paper Corporation built the largest kraft container factory in the country, while the Gilman Paper Company built a large plant farther down the coast at St. Marys.4 Georgia Kraft Company completed one mill at Macon in 1948 and another at Rome Hauling timber, Dougherty County, ca. 1910 (Vanishing Georgia) Cotton on COG line (Vanishing Georgia) Loading watermelons, Thomas County, ca. 1910 (Vanishing Georgia) Georgia Marble Company, Nelson, Pickens County (Vanishing Georgia) in the mid-1950s. Paper mills were also built at Augusta, Brunswick, Cedar Springs, Riceboro, and Rincon, among other places. By the 1980s, Georgia had become the nation's leading producer of woodpulp and paper and paperboard products and led the South in shipments of converted products. The state had 168 plants, employing 27,000 workers.5 Breweries. Several breweries operated in Georgia at one time or another. Among the larger plants with rail access were those of Carling, which opened on the south side of Atlanta in 1958; Pabst, which opened six miles east of Perry in 1971; Miller, which opened in northeastern Albany in 1979; and Anheuser-Busch, which opened near Cartersville in 1993. Shippers continued on the following page... 117 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey SHIPPERS (continued) Meat packing. Shipments of livestock and the products of meatpackers provided substantial revenues for some railroads. At Moultrie, the Swift & Co. plant on the Georgia Northern Railway was one of the largest in the Southeast. It was operated by Swift from 1917 to 1987. Warehouses. Not shippers per se, but intermediaries, warehouses have stood along Georgia rails by the thousands. Among the larger examples were the Sears & Roebuck warehouse on Atlanta's Ponce de Leon Avenue, served by Southern Railway, and the Candler Warehouse in the West End area of the city, served by the Central of Georgia and the Atlanta & West Point. Grocery warehouses occupied sizeable trackside buildings in a number of cities. An example is the 1899 Griffin Grocery Company warehouse in that city; it now houses the local welcome center. Other examples are the H. V. Kell Grocery Co. in Fort Valley and the Central Grocery Co. (1916) on N. Central Avenue in Tifton. In Atlanta, the Produce Row warehouses took up most of a city block near the State Capitol. The site is now used for parking. Ice houses. Before the development of refrigerated boxcars, ice houses were often seen along the rails, especially in the peach-growing regions of middle Georgia. Large blocks of ice were loaded into openings at the tops of boxcars where they dropped into compartments that kept the fruit and produce cold. Cotton ginning and processing. Cotton gins and cottonseed oil mills were found in many Georgia towns, often close by the railroad. A 1917 directory of cottonseed oil mills listed over 200 in the state.6 Grain elevators. That grain bin beside the tracks may be full of chicken food to supply Georgia's important poultry industry. Turpentine industry at Ruskin, Ware County, ca. 1900 (Vanishing Georgia) Finally, it should be noted that much of the freight hauled by the railroads has always been, and continues to be, for their own accounts. Railroads have long been major consumers of iron and steel, used for rails, bridges, locomotives, rolling stock, and a variety of other equipment. They have consumed huge amounts of wood, used for crossties and, in the early years, bridges, trestles, and fuel. They have consumed millions of tons of crushed stone, used for track ballast. Among other materials that the railroads have employed in large quantities are coal for steam locomotives, petroleum for diesel-electric locomotives, and aluminum for freight and passenger cars. v 1 Fabian Lange et al., "The Impact of the Boll Weevil, 1892-1932," The Journal of Economic History, 69(3), p. 685-718. 2 Stilgoe, Metropolitan Corridor; Railroads and the American Scene (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 85. 3 Mildred Gwin Andrews, The Men and the Mills: A History of the Southern Textile Industry (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987), p. 233-34. 4 Stewart, p. 251. 5 Albert A. Montgomery and Robert L. Chaffin, The Pulp and Paper Industry and Georgia's Forest Resource: An Economic Outlook, Georgia Forest Research Paper no. 26 (Georgia Forestry Commission, 1982), p. 5. 6 The American Fertilizer Hand Book (Philadelphia: Ware Bros. Co., 1917), section 2, p. 11-13. 118 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 119 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Raines, Crisp County IMPROVING THE LINES Because of the great expense of initial construction, railroad companies often built lightly to get their roads into service so that revenues would begin flowing and impatient investors would be mollified. Later they would come back and rebuild to a higher standard. Some lines, though, were built solidly from the beginning, for example, the Cincinnati Southern, the Clinchfield, and the antebellum Blue Ridge Railroad.1 The Blue Ridge Railroad failed before it was completed, in part due to the costs incurred by its high construction standards. The Blue Ridge, Clinchfield, and Cincinnati Southern all were mountain railroads, facing engineering and construction challenges more intense than those found in flatter regions. But even in the Piedmont and the Coastal Plain, hills had to be overcome, streams had to be crossed, and rail lines had to be constructed with efficiency in mind. Here are some of the factors that railroad builders had to consider in laying out or reconstructing a rail line: Avoiding steep grades: Civil engineers generally tried to keep maximum mainline grades below two percent, that is, a rise of two feet vertically for every one hundred feet horizontally.2 They paid particular attention to the line's ruling grade, which is the particular grade between two rail terminals that limits how trains can be used on that line.3 Rail line construction, Polk County (Vanishing Georgia) As an example, the Gainesville Midland had a ruling grade at Belmont in Hall County that was approximately three percent, well above the preferred limit.4 Steep grades resulted in higher operating costs as more locomotives, and thus more crews, were needed to haul a given amount of tonnage. Another problem was that on steep grades in wet weather, steam locomotive drive wheels would often slip, causing delays and interfering with train schedules. A good location to see track grades changing along a railroad route is on U.S. 129 south of Arcade in Jackson County. Here the old Gainesville Midland line, now part of CSX, runs close to the highway, offering a view of its undulating profile. Steepest Railroad Grades in Georgia: Atlanta & West Point--1.3% near Newnan Central of Georgia--1.9% near Hamilton Georgia Railroad--1.35% on the Camak-Macon line Seaboard Air Line--1.6% near Richland Steepest Railroad Grades Outside of Georgia: Atlantic Coast Line--1.6% near Tennille, Alabama Louisville & Nashville--3.73% near Stony Fork Branch, Virginia Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis--2.98% on Tracy City Branch in Tennessee Southern Railway--5.1% near Saluda, North Carolina Note: The figures above are for the steepest system-wide grades on several Class I railroads that operated in Georgia during the period 19301950. Source: Trains (magazine), December 2012. In mountainous areas, an oft-used way to maintain a reasonable grade was to follow a stream. The Tallulah Falls Railway, for example, followed the Tallulah and Little Tennessee rivers, while between Blue Ridge and McCaysville the Marietta & North Georgia followed the Toccoa River. Sometimes tunnels were needed to maintain low grades, but these were often avoided by simply going around whatever ridge happened to be in the way. The Western & Atlantic, for example, circumvented Missionary Ridge by passing around its north end (which caused the railroad to enter Chattanooga from the northeast rather than the southeast). Similarly, the Central of Georgia avoided a cluster of ridges north of Rome by taking a westerly course around them. The resulting route was rather indirect, and it involved more curves than might be desirable, but it had the advantage of being tunnel-free. Considering its rugged terrain, Georgia's Blue Ridge region had fewer tunnels than one might expect, a circumstance that largely results from the fact that only two common-carrier railroads, the above-mentioned Marietta & North Georgia and the Tallulah Falls Railway, ever penetrated the area. Neither railroad found it necessary to dig a hole through a mountain. The one railroad that did have tunnels was the Blue Ridge Railroad; it began boring into ridges at Dicks Creek and at Warwoman Creek in eastern Rabun County, but because the railroad failed during construction, the tunnels were never completed. Improving the Lines continued on the following page... 120 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey IMPROVING THE LINES (continued) In the Valley and Ridge region are the two Chattoogeta Mountain tunnels: a 1,477-foot bore completed by the Western & Atlantic in 1849-50, and, next to it, a taller replacement of similar length built in 1928 by W&A successor Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis. About 25 miles to the west, on the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau, is the Pigeon Mountain tunnel built in 1890-91 by the Chattanooga Southern Railroad. It was abandoned in the early 1980s. Two tunnels are located in the Piedmont region, both at Brushy Mountain in Paulding County. The 730-foot Divide Tunnel was built by the Atlanta & Birmingham Air Line Railway, a subsidiary of Seaboard Air Line Railway, in 1904. Abandoned in 1988, it is now a feature of the Silver Comet Trail. The 750-foot Braswell Tunnel was built in 1882 by the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad. It was abandoned after a 4,200-foot cutoff was constructed nearby in 1979-80. Also in the Piedmont is the site of a former tunnel through Pine Mountain. Built in the 1880s by the Georgia Midland & Gulf Railroad, it was "daylighted" (the ground above was excavated to convert the tunnel to a cut) sometime around 1912-13. Before we leave the topic of steep grades, one other site should be mentioned: the switchback at Tate in southern Pickens County. A switchback is a Z or W-shaped section of track that allows trains to climb steep hillsides by a series of alternating forward and reverse moves. Because switchbacks require short trains and slow movements, they were typically built only as a last resort. The Tate switchback, used on a marble quarry branch line, is the only one in the state. Avoiding bridges: Because of the expense of constructing and maintaining bridges and trestles, some early railroad builders attempted to minimize stream crossings by locating tracks on stream divides. An example is the Central's 103-mile Atlanta-Macon line, which had no bridges, trestles, or large culverts because it closely followed the divide between the Flint and Ocmulgee river basins. Similarly, the Georgia Railroad avoided bridges over Snapfinger Creek and its tributaries by laying out its route along the upper reaches of that basin. This route took it along the base of Stone Mountain, several miles north of the most direct route. The Atlanta & Richmond Air Line, built in 1870-73, followed the divide between the Chattahoochee watershed and the watersheds of the Ocmulgee, Oconee, and Savannah rivers, but much less strictly; its builders preferred a direct route to a bridgeless but curving one. Where bridges were employed, railroad companies often used lightly built trestles to get the line into service, and then later Double-tracking near Thaxton, Wilkes County (Vanishing Georgia) replaced them with sturdier structures that permitted heavier trains. Another technique to reduce trestle maintenance costs was to replace them with earthen fills. Reducing curvature: One way to gain efficiency in operating trains is to have them go in a straight line rather than through a series of curves. Rails within curves wear out faster than those on straight track, and curves also reduce operating speeds. A particularly troublesome double-reverse curve was on the Louisville & Nashville just north of Talking Rock. Called "The Hook," it contributed to the line's nickname "The Hook and Eye Line."5 In the 1950s, L&N bypassed the curve by cutting through a nearby ridge. A much larger curvature reduction project took place near Toccoa in 191519. There, Southern Railway's Atlanta-Washington mainline twisted its way through a hilly region along the North Fork of the Broad River. To bypass this section, Southern laid out a new and much straighter course that included a 1,313-foot long, 200-foot tall viaduct over the river. Known as the Wells Viaduct for the project's chief engineer, it used innovative hollow concrete piers to save on materials expense. Bypassing city centers: To avoid city centers congested with both local and through trains, railroads began constructing bypass tracks, most of which were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Atlanta, the first of these "belt lines" was a link between the Georgia Pacific and the Atlanta & Charlotte that opened in the 1880s on the north side of town. It was later followed by a belt line on the southeast built by the Atlanta & West Point, one on the west by the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern, and a second line on the north built by Seaboard. In Augusta, the Augusta Belt Railway performed a similar function on the south and west sides of that town. Improving the Lines continued on the following page... 121 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey IMPROVING THE LINES (continued) Using better signaling and train control: Many people have been killed or severely injured in situations where two trains occupied the same section of track at the same time.6 Hoping to avoid these disasters, railroad officials have tried a number of measures including double tracking, longer side tracks, and a variety of train control and signaling techniques. In 1917, seeking to expand capacity on its Atlanta-Richmond line, Southern Railway double tracked the entire stretch, permitting more trains overall, but also incurring large costs in added maintenance. A later technology known as centralized traffic control allowed Southern to return to a singletrack system. By installing CTC on one set of tracks while converting the other to a series of sidings, considerably less track had to be maintained, all the while increasing capacity.7 Today railroads are implementing a system called Positive Train Control that integrates monitoring alongside tracks, inside locomotives, and within back office servers. PTC was mandated by Congress in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Using a standard gauge: A longstanding problem with the early railroads in the South was the lack of a consistent rail gauge, that is, the distance between the rails. Georgia used the five-foot gauge exclusively, as did South Carolina and Tennessee, and it was the predominant gauge in Alabama and Mississippi, but most of the railroads in North Carolina and many of those in Virginia used the standard gauge (4' 8.5"). The Montgomery & West Point used the standard gauge, which prevented cars from running the entire distance between Atlanta and Montgomery.8 Northern railroads typically used the standard gauge, but the region had exceptions, just like in the South. At points where gauges changed, it was usually necessary to transfer freight from one car to another. This not only caused delays, it was expensive because additional workers had to be paid, and the possibility of loss or damage to the goods being moved was increased. Where a car could simply roll from one railroad line to another, these problems could be avoided. Eventually, the increasing demands of interstate commerce forced a move towards standardization. During a 36-hour period between May 31 and June 1, 1886, the South converted its five-foot gauge tracks to standard gauge by moving one rail three inches closer to the other. The task required thousands of workers acting in unison, and much careful planning had to go into the effort. It took much longer to convert Georgia's narrowgauge railroads to the national standard, with the time span being measured not in hours but in decades. The first conversions took place in the 1880s, the last in 1913. Trestle maintenance, Hall County, ca. 1926 (Vanishing Georgia) Using grade separation: Where roads cross tracks at grade, collisions between trains and motor vehicles can be expected. Railroad companies have long pressed local governments to close grade crossings, and they continue to do so. Grade separation projects (overpasses and underpasses) improve safety and avoid delays caused by collisions, but because of their expense only a few are underway at any given time. Using better rails, crossties, and ballast: During their first few decades, railroads replaced strap rail and U-rails with T-rail and replaced iron with steel. In many cases they also replaced light rail with heavier rail, and in recent times they have replaced bolted rail with welded rails. Better rails allow heavier trains and improve safety. Over time the railroads also replaced softwood ties with hardwood, and replaced untreated ties with longer-lasting ties treated with preservatives such as creosote. Early lines often laid crossties directly on the ground without using ballast underneath. Ballast is designed to drain the track quickly after a rain, reducing rot of the ties. It also holds the track in place and is especially important in minimizing lateral displacement. Ballast materials have included crushed rock, hard crushed furnace slags, cinders, lava, and oyster shell. v 1 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston, p. 136-151. 2 Middleton, Smerk, and Diehl, Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. 3 A ruling grade is usually the steepest grade, but not always. Other factors such as train momentum and the availability of helper engines also come into play. 4 Vintage Rails, July/Aug 1998, p. 84. 5 The "Eye," near Farner, Tennessee, is a loop where the railroad passes over itself. It still exists. 6 Among the many victims was Southern Railway president Samuel Spencer, killed in a Virginia train collision in 1906. 7 George Bibel, Train Wreck: The Forensics of Rail Disasters (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012); Ruddy Ellis, "Gwinnett Rail: A Different Type of `Air Line,'" Southeastern Railway Museum, at http://www.srmduluth.org/Features/ gwinnettrail.htm. Accessed Sept. 1, 2014. 8 Hanson, West Point Route, p. 3-4. 122 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 18 A SNAPSHOT OF GEORGIA'S RAILROADS IN 1920 In 1920, a national watershed moment for rail was reached. National rail passenger travel reached its all-time high as each day some 1.2 million people boarded 9,000 inter-city trains and traveled 47 million passenger miles.341 The nation's rail mileage had dropped slightly to 253,000 miles, a decline of 1,000 miles from the 1916 peak.342 Georgia's rail mileage then stood at 7,591 miles.343 Thus, 1920 as a pivotal point in Georgia's rail chronology cannot be understated: rail's meteoric rise to surpass all previous modes of transportation had continued unabated. It was the primary medium for all commerce. Much of the nation's and Georgia's industrial, agricultural, and mineral products came and went aboard trains. Communities, in Georgia and elsewhere, were connected to a massive national transportation network that moved people and their products seemingly almost anywhere. Towns off the network--if they survived--were often relegated to backwater status. Scores of cities and towns had themselves sprung up along the tracks, and established towns with the foresight to invest or otherwise attract rail had in some manner or another accommodated the tracks and, typically, continued to grow around them. But, the growth trajectory was about to stall and be reversed. The primary menace had already been revealed as rubber-wheeled contraptions with internal combustion engines. So, 1920 becomes a point in this story to pause and to take stock of what Georgia's rail network looked like at its physical and productive zenith. The railroad's presence itself was crucial, as all its attendant benefits could not be fully realized without it. And, as in many American industries, the strongest organizations had tended to consolidate and grow at the expense of lesser companies, as was the case in Georgia. Given the complexity of the state's rail development to this point, 1920 also becomes a good place to address what, in general, the result had been. At its zenith, then, Georgia's rail network was, for the most part, a sprawling network of major systems, with hanger-on shortlines vying for growth and simple survival. Below is an overview of Georgia's major systems in 1920. Most of the information is from that year's edition of Poor's Manual of Railroads. Central of Georgia With headquarters in Savannah and major hubs at Macon and Columbus, the Central operated 1,924 miles of line, almost all of which was in Georgia and Alabama. In the latter state, three separate branches reached to Birmingham, Montgomery, and Dothan. The Dothan line continued westward to the small towns of Florala and Lockhart; at Lockhart short branches ran south to Paxton and Lakewood, each just across the state line in Florida. The northernmost point on the system was at Chattanooga, on a branch that departed from Griffin, swung south and west of Atlanta, and continued near the Alabama border to the Tennessee city. Among the many Georgia cities and towns connected by the Central were Albany, Americus, Athens, Atlanta, Augusta, Barnesville, Bremen, Carrollton, Cedartown, Columbus, Covington, Cuthbert, Griffin, Macon, Madison, Metter, Millen, Milledgeville, Newnan, Rome, Savannah, Statesboro, and Waynesboro. The Central covered most of the state except for one area south of Savannah and another north of Athens. Besides its owned and leased tracks, the Central controlled four other railroad companies: the 103-mile Wrightsville & Tennille, the 89-mile Wadley Southern, the 15-mile Sylvania Central, and the 10-mile Louisville & Wadley. At the time, the Central of Georgia itself was controlled by the Illinois Central, with which it connected at Birmingham. Georgia Railroad With headquarters in Augusta, the Georgia Railroad operated 341 miles of line, all in Georgia. Along with the 171-mile Augusta-Atlanta mainline, the Georgia Railroad operated a 74-mile branch to Macon, a 39-mile branch to Athens, a 17-mile branch to Washington, a 10-mile branch to Monroe, a five-mile branch from Milledgeville to the State hospital, and a threemile branch to Lexington. In addition, the railroad operated the four-mile Augusta Belt Railway; traveled on four miles of trackage rights on the Central east of Macon; and controlled the 12-mile Union Point & White Plains Railroad. 123 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey At the time, the Georgia Railroad was leased jointly to the Atlantic Coast Line and the Louisville & Nashville, but it operated under its own name. Under the terms of the lease, the lessees also held the Georgia Railroad's interests in the 91-mile Atlanta & West Point Railroad and the 133-mile Western Railway of Alabama. These two lines connected at West Point, Georgia, and had the same managers. Atlantic Coast Line Running from Virginia through the Carolinas and Georgia to Florida, the Atlantic Coast Line operated 4,894 miles of line from its headquarters in Wilmington, North Carolina. ACL had an east-west line across south Georgia from Savannah through Valdosta and Thomasville to Montgomery. A second east-west line connected Brunswick and Albany. These two lines intersected at Waycross, which also had a direct route through Folkston to Jacksonville. Other ACL lines in south Georgia included Albany to Thomasville, Jesup to Folkston, Amsterdam to Otisca, and three connections to Florida. ACL also controlled the 343-mile Charleston & Western Carolina Railway, about 14 miles of which passed through Georgia at Augusta. Seaboard Air Line Railway From its general office in Baltimore, Seaboard operated 3,563 miles of line in 1920. Like the ACL, it was organized around a north-south coastal route stretching from Virginia to Florida. In Georgia, Seaboard's coastal line was somewhat closer to the sea than was the ACL. Seaboard had two east-west lines spanning Georgia, one across the Piedmont through Athens and Atlanta to Birmingham and the other across the Coastal Plain from Savannah to Montgomery. Crossing the latter line at Richland was a Columbus-Albany line. Branch lines included Abbeville-Ocilla and Rockmart-Cartersville, among others. Affiliated with the Seaboard was the 93-mile Macon, Dublin & Savannah Railroad, operating between Macon and Vidalia. Southern Railway With 7,023 miles of line operated in 1920, Southern Railway was larger than the Atlantic Coast Line and the Central of Georgia combined. It owned 4,341 miles of line, leased 786 miles, had trackage rights on 518 RAILROAD NICKNAMES In times past, the abbreviated names of railroad companies-- L&N, S&A, ACL, W&A, and G&F, for example-- were often painted onto the sides of locomotives and rail cars. On occasion, people living along the lines suggested alternative meanings for these letters, including the following: Remarks on the rural character of a railroad's domain: ETV&G--Eat Turnips, Vinegar & Greens (East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia) GF&A--Gophers, Frogs & Alligators (Georgia, Florida & Alabama) TT&G--Turtles, Terrapins & Gophers (Tifton, Thomasville & Gulf) Remarks on the quality of the equipment and facilities: AB&A--Always Busted & Anxious (Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic) FO&B--Fall Off & Bust (Fitzgerald, Ocilla & Broxton) G&F--God Forsaken (Georgia & Florida) GC&P--Get a Crowd & Push (Georgia Coast & Piedmont) TF--Total Failure (Tallulah Falls) W&T--Wiggle & Twist (Wrightsville & Tennille) Remarks on the punctuality of service: ACL--Always Comes Late (Atlantic Coast Line) GS&F--Go Slow & Flag (Georgia Southern & Florida) MD&S--Mighty Damn Slow (Macon, Dublin & Savannah) L&N--Late & Never (Louisville & Nashville) S&A--Slow & Aggravating (Savannah & Atlanta) SAL--Surely Always Late (Seaboard Air Line) SCL--Service Customers Lack (Seaboard Coast Line) 124 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey miles, and controlled by ownership of securities nearly 1,500 miles of other rail companies. Included in the last category were the Georgia Southern & Florida, the Alabama Great Southern, the Tallulah Falls Railway, the Hartwell Railway, and the Lawrenceville Branch Railroad. In Georgia, Southern's major routes were from Chattanooga and Knoxville through Rome, Atlanta, and Macon to Brunswick and from Charlotte to Atlanta and Birmingham. Among other routes were ColumbusMcDonough, Atlanta-Fort Valley, Athens-Lula, Toccoa-Elberton, RomeAnniston, and Rome-Gadsden. Southern's general office was in Richmond and its operating office was in Washington, D.C. Louisville & Nashville Owning 5,041 miles and controlling another 2,400 miles of line in 1920, the Louisville & Nashville was one of the largest railroads in the South. Its presence in Georgia, however, was relatively small. The company had two lines in the state, both north of Atlanta. The older of the two ran 144 miles south from Etowah, Tennessee, to Marietta. The second and newer line, also running from Etowah, was 88 miles long; it terminated at Cartersville. L&N also controlled the 1,247-mile Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, which operated under its own name. The NC&St.L's presence in Georgia was as the lessee of the Western & Atlantic, running from Chattanooga to Atlanta, with a branch from Kingston to Rome. Near the southwestern corner of Georgia, L&N had a branch line that ran from Alabama to River Junction (Chattahoochee), Florida. Although it did not enter the Peach State, it did connect with an ACL line running from River Junction to Climax, Georgia. L&N was headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. It was controlled by the Atlantic Coast Line, but operated separately. As noted above, L&N and ACL jointly leased the Georgia Railroad. Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railway The AB&A operated 640 miles of line in 1920. It had four mainlines: 455 miles from Brunswick to Birmingham, 76 miles from Manchester to Atlanta, 80 miles from Fitzgerald to Thomasville, and 26 miles from Sessoms to Waycross. In addition, it had three miles of trackage rights at terminals in Atlanta, Birmingham, and Waycross. The railroad's general office was in Atlanta. Georgia & Florida Railway The Georgia & Florida operated 348 miles of line in 1920. Along with the 250-mile mainline from Augusta to Madison, Florida, the G&F also had a 44-mile branch from Pendleton to Millen, a 34-mile branch from Nashville to Moultrie, a 17-mile branch running north from Douglas towards Barrows Bluff, a two-mile branch from Sparks to Adel, and a one-mile switching line in Valdosta. The railroad's general office was in Augusta. Besides its own lines, the G&F controlled the 83-mile Augusta Southern Railroad, which ran from Augusta through Wrens, Gibson, and Sandersville to Tennille. Georgia, Florida & Alabama Railway The Georgia, Florida & Alabama operated a 181-mile mainline that ran from Richland through Cuthbert, Arlington, Bainbridge, and Tallahassee to Carrabelle, Florida. Its general office was in Bainbridge. Shortlines and other Railroads In addition to the major companies and their affiliates noted above, Georgia had approximately 30 other common-carrier railroads in 1920. These shortlines ranged from the 2.9-mile Milstead Railway at Conyers to the 147-mile Savannah & Atlanta Railway, operating between Savannah and the Georgia Railroad at Camak. Also in rail operation were a variety of mining, logging, and switching lines, along with streetcar and interurban railways. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 125 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 19 RUBBER CHALLENGES STEEL: THE 1920S "The year 1920 had seen the highest-ever number of passengers 1.2 billion, not including commuters--but by the end of the decade, total passenger mileage across all railroads had fallen by more than 40 percent, despite the population growing by one-eighth." --Christian Wolmar344 During the 1920s, the nation's dominant technology for passenger transport began to shift from steel wheels to rubber tires as mass production made automobiles more affordable for a growing middle class. No longer reserved for the wealthiest, automobiles became ubiquitous. Sales soared, and by 1925, the auto industry had become America's largest.345 As autos proliferated, a clamor for improved roads followed, but because road building and maintenance were primarily local responsibilities, road conditions varied greatly across the state and the nation. Interstate travel was still largely the domain of the railroads, but during the second decade of the twentieth century, hundreds of local roads were linked to form multistate auto trails such as the Lincoln Highway in 1912-13 and the QuebecMiami International Highway in 1911 (renamed the Atlantic Highway in 1915). These were not, though, highways in the modern sense, but rather designated routes marked by distinctive signposts. In the winter and spring of 1915, Southern cities competed for a new inland route, to be called the Dixie Highway. Laid out over the following decade, it comprised several routes in Georgia, most of which ran parallel to a railroad. Between Chattanooga and Atlanta, for example, the road followed the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis; between Atlanta and Albany it followed the Central of Georgia; and between Albany and Thomasville it followed the Atlantic Coast Line. Most of the Dixie Highway in Georgia was surfaced with dirt, but hardsurfaced and gravel sections were constructed as funding allowed.346 In 1919, the first concrete highway in the state opened as an experimental fivemile strip north of Griffin, but because of their relatively high cost concrete roads remained rare.347 Even if dirt road driving was to be routine in most of Georgia, that fact did not stop the deleterious effects of expanding automobile ownership on rail passenger revenues. In response, some railroad companies tried to cut expenses by replacing passenger trains with gasoline-powered motor cars. Often used on branch lines and shortlines, they came in several forms including gas-electric and gas-mechanical "doodlebugs," converted trucks, and odd vehicles called "critters." In his 1947 book Mixed Train Daily: A Book of Short-Line Railroads, Lucius Beebe told of the little Bowdon (GA.) Railroad's motor car, a converted truck with a two-axle, four-steel-wheel configuration in front and a single axle with rubber tires in back. Beebe, who remarked that the line existed primarily to serve Roop's Grocery Store in Bowdon, also noted that the ungainly looking vehicle was the railway's only rolling stock. If a full carload of freight needed to be moved over the line, the railroad borrowed a locomotive from the Central.348 Doodlebugs and railcritters undoubtedly helped some railroads survive, and because of the devastation of Georgia's cotton crops by the boll weevil during the 1920s, railroads would need all of the help they could get. In 1921, The Financial Review reported that during the previous year only ten of the nation's many railroads had entered receivership. However, four of these--the Hawkinsville & Florida Southern; the Roswell Railroad; the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia; and the Valdosta, Moultrie & Western-- were in the Peach State. Out of the 541 miles of railroad placed into the hands of receivers, 243 miles were in Georgia.349 The VM&W had already been through an earlier receivership around 1913. The H&FS had reorganized the same year. The TAG, as it was known, was the result of a 1911 reorganization of the Chattanooga Southern Railroad, which itself had reorganized in the 1890s. The Roswell Railroad was a onelocomotive, one-passenger-car, six-freight-car operation traveling a 10-mile route that did not actually reach Roswell, but ended across the river from the town. Not only were many railroads struggling, new construction had largely come to a halt in Georgia. While the Georgia & Florida would build a northern extension from Augusta to Greenwood, South Carolina, in 19271929, those new tracks would be located in South Carolina, not Georgia. Similarly, in 1928, the Atlantic Coast Line added new rails between the 126 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey HIGHWAYS AND RAILROADS Examples of highways that followed railroad routes. Highway | Segment | Railroad US 41 | Atlanta-Chattanooga | Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis (W&A) US 41 | Atlanta-Macon | Central of Georgia US 41 | Macon-Valdosta | Georgia Southern & Florida US 129 | Athens-Gainesville | Gainesville Midland US 23 | Macon-Hazlehurst | Southern Railway GA 21 & 24 | Savannah-Waynesboro | Savannah & Atlanta US 278 | Augusta-Lithonia | Georgia Railroad US 82 | Albany-Brunswick | Atlantic Coast Line US 84 | Bainbridge-Savannah | Atlantic Coast Line Florida towns of Perry and Drifton as part of a project involving ACL's line between Thomasville, Georgia, and Monticello, Florida. This new "Perry Cut-off " created a more direct route between Chicago and Florida's west coast, but, again, the new tracks were not located in Georgia. Although no new railroads were being formed, most likely because of the huge growth in automobiles and trucks, the 1920s did see several organizational changes: B In 1921, the 23-mile Collins & Glennville Railroad was established to operate the rails between those two Tattnall County towns. From 1919 to 1921, this section was part of the Collins & Ludowici Railroad; before 1919 it was the northernmost section of the Georgia Coast & Piedmont Railroad. B In 1922, the Georgia Northern Railway took over the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla Railway. B In 1924, Southern Railway sold the 10-mile Hartwell Railway to a group of local businessmen. B In 1924, the Atlantic, Waycross & Northern Railroad was reorganized as the St. Marys Railroad. The AW&N's planned extension from Kingsland to Fort Valley did not materialize. B In 1924, the Georgia & Florida Railway leased the Statesboro Northern Railway, a line from Statesboro to the G&F at Stevens Crossing. The 39mile railroad had earlier been the western section of George Brinson's Midland Railway, which entered receivership in 1922 and abandoned its Statesboro-Savannah segment in 1923. B In 1926, the Georgia & Florida Railway was reorganized and renamed the Georgia & Florida Railroad. B In 1926, the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic was reorganized and renamed the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast. B In 1927, the Seaboard Air Line Railway leased the Georgia, Florida & Alabama Railway. B In 1928, the 10-mile Milltown Air Line Railway, running between Lakeland and Naylor, was abandoned after having been operated since 1912 primarily as a logging railroad. It reopened in 1929 as the Lakeland Railroad. Although narrow-gauge common carriers had long before converted to the national standard, narrow-gauge was not entirely dead. At Fort Benning near Columbus, a small network of two-foot gauge railways began operating around 1921. Using locomotives originally built for the "trench railways" of World War I, the rail system provided a way to move men, supplies, and construction materials around the huge base. Over the years, the total length of the tracks varied between 15 and 27 miles, depending on the particular needs of the time.350 Several notable railroad-related facilities were constructed during the decade. In 1922, the Pullman Company, which built and operated most of the sleeping and parlor cars on the nation's railroads, established a car repair shop east of Atlanta.351 In 1925, at Fort Valley, the Atlantic Ice & Coal Co. built a new million-dollar ice plant; at the time it was the largest in the world, producing 50,000 tons of ice which was enough to cool 17,200 peachfilled railroad cars.352 Like the Pullman shops, though, its future would be limited. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, many ice plants closed as the railroads converted to mechanical refrigeration. In July 1927, the Central of Georgia opened an employee hospital in Savannah.353 The company's large workforce in the city was concentrated 127 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey primarily at the headquarters buildings and repair shops on West Broad Street (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.). Two major viaduct projects were completed at Atlanta during the decade. Even though the city had earlier bridged the tracks at Broad Street (1853), Forsyth Street (1891), Whitehall-Peachtree Street (1901), and Washington Street (1906), many busy crossings remained as points of conflict. The first of the 1920s projects was the Spring Street viaduct, opened in 1923. Stretching 1,900 feet beside and over the "railroad gulch" west of Forsyth Street, it cost a million dollars and was easily the city's most costly bridge or viaduct up to that time.354 The second project, completed in 1929, was a system of viaducts surrounding the 1871 Union Station. It included new elevated crossings for Pryor Street and Central Avenue, along with lateral viaducts over Alabama and Wall streets, both of which ran parallel to the tracks. After the work was done, business entrances moved up to the new street level, leaving the old storefronts underneath; so was born "Underground Atlanta."355 Union Station itself was replaced in 1930 by a new station three blocks to the northwest and was torn down shortly afterwards. Railroads and the Boll Weevil Why did several Georgia railroads fail during the Roaring Twenties, a period widely viewed as one of prosperity? The principal factors were competition from the automobile, dwindling forest resources, and disruptions caused by World War I. Another reason was the nature of Georgia's economy: based on agriculture and dominated by cotton, it was structurally weaker than that of many other states. As the boll weevil began to inflict serious cotton crop losses beginning around 1920, the economic foundation of the state was undermined. The destructive cotton pest, first reported in Texas in 1892, gradually spread eastward across the lower South. By 1917 it had extended its reach to most of the cotton-growing regions of Georgia.356 One author described the effects, "During the years 1915 through 1920, cotton production remained in its historic range, driven by high prices and apparent apathy toward the risks of insect-borne destruction. In 1920, things began to fall apart.... Damage from the boll weevil began to severely affect Georgia's cotton 128 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Fort Valley vicinity, Peach County production in 1921. The state had produced on average from 1.5 to 2.0 million bales a year between 1915 and 1920. In 1921, less than 800,000 bales were harvested, some argue that the collapse of agriculture in the state was underway before 1920 and the boll weevil just made matters worse after that year."357 Historian Donald L. Grant provides more numbers: "The boll weevil damaged 3 percent of the Georgia cotton crop in 1916, 10 percent in 1918, and 40 percent in 1923..."358 Thus, fewer and fewer rail cars hauled less and less cotton. By itself, the boll weevil may not have killed any of Georgia's railroads, but it probably tipped the balance enough to push some of them into failure and abandonment. Georgia Rail Hardest Hit If the 1920s brought the nation into a period of decline in rail development, it appears that Georgia may have been hit the hardest first. As rubber-wheeled vehicles took its dramatic toll on rail traffic, Georgia's cotton-dependent agricultural sector was staggered with the arrival of the boll weevil. The combined effects of these rapidly developing conditions led to more rail failures here than anywhere else in the nation. For all practical purposes, rail development came to an end. True, Georgia had a massive rail network, but, its expansion over, that network began to do what it had essentially never done before--shrink. The 1920s saw many Georgia rail lines abandoned; particularly affected were the shortlines that did not have the benefit of a large organization to offset losses. Abandonments during the 1920s: B Lawrenceville Branch Railroad, Lawrenceville-Suwanee, abandoned 1920. B Hawkinsville & Western Railroad, Hawkinsville-Perry, abandoned 1920. B Georgia & Florida Railway, Barrows Bluff-Relee, 1.5 miles, abandoned 1920. B Central of Georgia Railway, Lyerly-Dewey, 9.5 miles, abandoned 1920. B Valdosta, Moultrie & Western Railway, Valdosta-Moultrie, abandoned 1921 and "sold for junk." B Willacoochee & DuPont Railroad, Willacoochee to Shaws Still, abandoned 1922. B Macon & Birmingham Railway, Macon-LaGrange, abandoned 1922-23. The eight-mile section from Thomaston to the peach orchards at Crest was sold to the Central of Georgia. B Rome & Northern Railroad, Rome-Gore, abandoned 1923. Berry College purchased the south end of the line in 1925 and shortly afterwards sold it to the Central of Georgia. For a number of years it remained in operation to a point just west of the campus's former Victory Lake. B Savannah & Southern Railway, Norden-Glennville, abandoned 1923-24. B Midland Railway, Savannah-Statesboro, abandoned 1923. B Hawkinsville & Florida Southern Railway, Hawkinsville-Worth, abandoned 1923. The southern section of the H&FS, running from Ashburn to Camilla, was sold to the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla Railway. The section from Hawkinsville to Pope City had been leased to the Ocilla Southern. B Ocilla Southern Railroad, Pope City-Fitzgerald abandoned 1923. The remaining section from Fitzgerald to Nashville was abandoned in 1924. B Southern Railway, Chamblee-Roswell, abandoned 1921. The former Roswell Railroad. B Pelham & Havana Railroad, Cairo-Havana, Florida, abandoned 1924. B Statenville Railway, Statenville-Haylow, abandoned 1924. B Waycross & Western Railroad, Waycross-Lakeland, abandoned 1925. B Bainbridge Northern Railway, abandoned 1925. Passenger service had been discontinued in 1908. B Southern Railway, Villa Rica branch (a three-mile mining line), abandoned 1925. B Americus & Atlantic Railroad, Mata-Methvins, abandoned 1926. The former Americus, Hawkinsville & Eastern, it was primarily a lumber hauler. The 11-mile line had been built only ten years earlier.360 B Waycross & Southern Railroad, Waycross-Okefenokee Swamp, abandoned ca. 1927. B Union Point & White Plains Railroad, Union Point-White Plains, abandoned 1927. B Wadley Southern Railway, Rockledge-Kite, abandoned 1928; Kite-Wadley abandoned 1930; Collins-Swainsboro, abandoned 1929-30. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 129 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 20 ECONOMIC COLLAPSE: THE 1930S By 1940, Georgia had 10,740 miles of highways, including 20 U.S. highways, 44 percent of which were paved. A Georgia guidebook published that year noted that the principal bus and motor transport systems followed virtually "Any lack of confidence in the economic future or the basic strength the same routes as the principal railways.364 of business in the United States is foolish." President Herbert Hoover, November 1929. To boost operational efficiency and thus better compete with autos and trucks, the larger railroads turned to improved locomotive technology. Confident or not, Atlantans opened a new Union Station in 1930. The Neoclassical structure was elevated over the tracks at Forsyth Street, just west of Marietta Street. For years, travelers had complained about the previous Union Station, a barrel-vaulted shed built in 1871 on the site of the antebellum depot demolished by Sherman's troops. Although the new Union Station was smaller than the nearby Terminal Station, it still provided a stately entrance to the proud city. Atlanta, of course, had a long history of optimism and boosterism, which went Steam locomotives had been advancing for decades, but in the 1930s, the newer diesel-electric engine began its ascendancy in the railroad world. In 1937, diesel sales passed steam, and the gap would only widen.365 New diesels were out of the reach of the shortlines, though. The little railroads had depended on hand-me-down locomotives from the big operators, and that would have to continue. Since the 1920s, several Georgia shortlines had been using doodlebugs, the self-propelled cars that effectively shrunk a train into a single vehicle, and these too would see their use extended.366 hand in hand with its impressive record of recovering from disaster. But even there, confidence in the strength of the nation's economy became harder to maintain as businesses went bankrupt, banks failed, and unemployment soared. Because the railroads depended on the general economy, they were hit hard. By 1937, over 70,000 rail miles (almost one-third of the nation's total) were operated by companies in receivership.361 The Pullman Company lost over 40 Abandonments during the 1930s: B Georgia & Florida, Millen-Pendleton, 37 miles, abandoned 1930. Seven miles between Garfield and Twin City remained in service.367 B Smithonia & Dunlap, abandoned around 1930. B Washington & Lincolnton, 20 miles, abandoned 1932. percent of its patronage between 1929 and 1932.362 The Central of Georgia, one B Seaboard, Lawrenceville-Loganville, 10 miles, abandoned 1932. of the state's leading railroads, saw its finances deteriorate to the point that it was forced into receivership in 1932. Shortlines suffered as much or more than the larger systems, with several going out of business (see Abandonments below). B Chattahoochee Valley, West Point, Georgia, to Standing Rock, Alabama, abandoned 1932. B Elberton & Eastern, 35 miles, abandoned 1933. One struggling south Georgia line avoided abandonment, changing hands instead. In 1939, Georgia Northern acquired the 35-mile line between Albany and Cordele then operating as the Georgia Southwestern & Gulf. After the GSW&G was dissolved in 1942, the line continued in operation under its earlier name, the Albany & Northern Railway. As the Depression wore on, automobiles and buses continued to erode the railroads' passenger business. One of many examples was near Savannah where the new Tybee Road, later U.S. 80, opened with a three-day celebration in 1923.363 The Central of Georgia continued to operate trains to Tybee Island, but the loss of passenger revenue to the automobile, combined with B Savannah & Statesboro, Statesboro-Cuyler, 32 miles, abandoned 1933. B Gainesville & Northwestern, 35 miles, abandoned 1934. B Georgia & Florida, Keysville-Tennille, 57 miles, abandoned 1934. Former Augusta Southern Railroad. B Shearwood Railway, Egypt-Hagan, 38 miles, abandoned 1935-38. B Central of Georgia, Brewton-Metter, 48 miles, abandoned 1938. Former Bruton & Pineora. B Southern Railway, Atlanta-Williamson, 40 miles, abandoned 1939. The line was built as part of the Atlanta & Florida Railroad. the effects of the depression, led it to abandon the line in 1933. 130 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 131 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Flint River, Montezuma, Macon County CHAPTER 21 RECOVERY AND WAR: THE 1940S "October 1940. Electro-Motive Corporation 103, FT demonstrator, concludes 11-month, 83,764-mile tour over 20 railroads in 35 states from Portland, ME, to Bakersfield, Calif., from Seattle to Atlanta." Trains, November 1990 After its historic trip, the streamlined diesel-powered EMC 103 was sold to Southern Railway, where it became No. 6100, operating in regular service from 1941 to 1960. This first railroad freight diesel, now preserved at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation, marked the beginning of the end for steam locomotives. During the next two decades, the Mikados, Pacifics, TenWheelers, and other varieties of steam engines would be replaced by dieselpowered units that lacked the complex moving assemblage of rods, cranks, shafts, arms, bars, links, and levers that made the steam engines so fascinating. It was in passenger service, though, that the diesels first proved their worth. Sporting the streamline style that became popular during the 1930s, the first diesel trains appeared in the middle of that decade carrying such names as Zephyr, Super Chief, El Capitan, and Flying Yankee. None of those operated in Georgia, but streamlined diesel trains would come to the state in 1939 and 1940 in the form of Seaboard's Silver Meteor, Atlantic Coast Line's Champion, and the three new streamliners that debuted in Chicago-Florida service: the City of Miami, the South Wind, and the Dixie Flagler.368 World War II Even before December 1941, when the United States became directly involved in the Second World War, the railroads hauled military equipment and supplies destined for Britain and the other Allied countries. This assistance, which began in September 1940 and grew strongly after the passage of the Lend-Lease Act in March 1941, provided a strong boost to freight revenues and raised railroad investment rates of return to a level not seen for a decade.369 Even the long-ailing Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast operated at a profit during the war.370 The railroads performed exceptionally well during the conflict, as one writer noted: "In the 45 months of the war, the railroads handle 113,891 troop trains--moving 43,700,000 members of the armed forces, nearly a million men and women a month. The freight record set in 1929 is surpassed in 1941. From 1940 to 1944, the peak traffic year in the war, ton-miles increase 97 percent, passenger miles are up 295 percent."371 On the Central of Georgia, a former employee remembered the activity on the rails: "See, there wasn't nothing but train, train, train, train...During World War II, we was running all those troop trains to Fort Benning and all those tanks and all those troops and oil trains. I was a kid, but we lived alongside the track. There was a train every 30 minutes."372 On the Seaboard, the passenger streamliners Orange Blossom Special and Florida Sunbeam suspended operations during the war, but other trains were added to handle the large increase in traffic. While a check revealed that about 60 percent of the passengers were traveling on government orders, enough civilians were also carried that new records for passenger travel were set each year.373 In 1944, the total peaked at 97 billion passengermiles.374 The railroad industry was justifiably proud of its accomplishments during the war, as exemplified by the remarks of L&N president James B. Hill: "To summarize the contribution by the railroads of the United States... is but to repeat the abundant praise heaped upon them by military authorities and the public...With less equipment and fewer employees than during World War I, they carried a much greater volume of military freight and personnel, and at the same time met the standards of a large domestic commerce, all without serious delays, congestion, or embargoes."375 While the railroads were able to avoid another Federal takeover during World War II, they did not enter peacetime unscathed. The war's heavy demands wore out many miles of track and many millions of dollars of rail equipment. Economic expansion after the war helped the railroads recover, but it also gave millions of Americans the wherewithal to buy automobiles.376 And once they were behind the wheel, they became much more likely to call for government spending on roads and highways. 132 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey MILITARY BASES AND THE RAILROADS Georgia has long been home to a wide range of military facilities involving every branch of the armed services. From Fort Frederica in the Colonial period to today's Kings Bay Submarine Base with its modern high-tech weapons, the state has seen the establishment of hundreds of forts, naval bases, supply depots, training camps, airfields, military prisons, and other facilities. During World War I, more training camps were established in Georgia than in any other state.1 In World War II, Georgia built bombers and Liberty ships and trained hundreds of thousands of troops. Fort Benning near Columbus was then the largest infantry training school in the world.2 Listed below are some of the state's existing and former military facilities that had railroad service: Camp Gordon. This World War I base was established beside the Southern Railway near Chamblee. A part of its site is now in use as DeKalb Peachtree Airport. Fort Oglethorpe. Located in Catoosa and Walker counties just north of the Chickamauga Battlefield Park, this facility was in operation from 1904 until 1947. It was served by the Central of Georgia, which ran nearby to the west. Rail access from the mainline to the fort was by way of a spur that passed through Missionary Ridge at McFarland Gap. During World War I, two interurban streetcar lines from Chattanooga also ran to the fort. Fort McPherson. Established in 1885-86 in southwest Atlanta; it was served by the Atlanta & West Point and the Central of Georgia. Before it closed in 2011, it served many military functions including command post, artillery, infantry, hospital, prison, and vehicle repair and storage. Fort Gillem. Established at Forest Park in 1940 and closed in 2011, it was the home of the Atlanta Quartermaster Depot and the Atlanta Ordnance Depot. The railroad on base is connected to two different Norfolk Southern lines, the former Central of Georgia on the west, and the former Southern Railway on the east. Fort Gordon. Established during WW II alongside the Georgia Railroad west of Augusta, the 55,000-acre base now serves communications training and computer science roles for the Army. It has a rail spur south of Grovetown. Fort Stewart. Spreading over some 280,000 acres north of Hinesville, this Army facility was established in 1940 as a training site. It acquired rail service the following year when a long spur opened from the Atlantic Coast Line at Allenhurst.3 Most of the former route of the 32-mile Savannah & Southern Railway, abandoned in 1923-24, lies within Fort Stewart. Fort Benning. Established south of Columbus in 1918, the facility not only had its own standard-gauge rail connection to Columbus, it also had a two-foot gauge line that provided internal transportation of troops and supplies. Its network varied over the years, ranging from 15 miles to 27 miles. A locomotive once used on the little line is preserved at the fort's National Infantry Museum. Robins Air Force Base. The Wellston Air Depot was built in 1941-42 at Wellston on the Georgia Southern & Florida Railroad, a unit of Southern Railway. Wellston is now Warner Robins and the airfield is now Robins AFB. Air Force Plant No. 6. During WW II, this facility, better known as the Bell Bomber Plant, was established alongside the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway south of Marietta.4 Besides eight miles of spur lines to the NC&StL, it maintained a spur for the interurban Atlanta Northern Railway. After the war, the factory was leased to Lockheed Corporation. Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base. On the coast at St. Marys, this Navy submarine base, commissioned in 1978, is located on land acquired in 1954 for an Army ammunition terminal. The Army constructed a complex of earthen mounds around individual ammunition storage units, each served by a rail spur. The base had 47 miles of railroad tracks and was served by the Seaboard Air Line Railroad.5 An oddity was the narrow-gauge, remote-controlled railroad at the Georgia Nuclear Aircraft Laboratory south of Dawsonville. Also known as Air Force Plant no. 67, the facility was built in the 1950s to develop a nuclear-powered airplane. Its railroad connected various facilities on the 10,000-acre site, among them a nuclear reactor, a cooling site, and a "hot-cell" building.6 The plant closed in 1971. More information is at U.S. Army Railway Units of the Past, http:// militaryrailwayservice.blogspot.com v __________________________________________________________ 1 World War I in Georgia, New Georgia Encyclopedia, www.georgiaencyclopedia.org accessed January 24, 2015. 2 World War II in Georgia, New Georgia Encyclopedia, www.georgiaencyclopedia.org accessed January 24, 2015. 3 Wilber W. Caldwell, The Courthouse and the Depot: The Architecture of Hope in an Age of Despair; A Narrative Guide to Railroad Expansion and Its Impact on Public Architecture in Georgia, 1833-1910, Macon: Mercer University Press, 2001, p. 200. 4 NC&StL leased the Western & Atlantic in 1890. 5 Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Wikipedia. 6 Henry Zuckerman, "When the Cold War Came to Dawsonville," North Georgia Mountain Ramblings, April 28, 2010, online. 133 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey By the late 1940s, it was not only the highways that were hurting railroad revenues, air travel was also becoming a strong competitor for the passenger dollar. The Douglas DC-3, introduced in the previous decade, proved to be particularly effective.377 As the first plane that could fly from New York to Chicago non-stop, it pioneered the airline industry that would soon come to dominate long-distance travel. The future became clear in May 1949, when total airline passenger-miles exceeded Pullman passenger-miles for the first time.378 Up until the time of his death in 1945, President Roosevelt traveled to Warm Springs by train. His successor Harry Truman would also make good use of the rails, but Eisenhower and later presidents chose air travel instead (with occasional exceptions for campaign trains where politically advantageous). By the time of Jimmy Carter's presidency in 1976-1980, the only association of railroads and presidents was Carter's use of the old Seaboard depot in Plains as his campaign headquarters.379 Corporate Changes For the most part, railroad ownership and corporate structure remained stable during the decade. Among the few changes that did take place, three involved the Central of Georgia. First, in 1942, the Illinois Central gave up on its interests in the Central, writing off the substantial investments it had made in the railroad since 1907. Second, in 1944, the Central sold its half ownership of the Western Railway of Alabama to the Georgia Railroad, which owned the other half.380 The Georgia and the Central had jointly owned the WR of A since the 1870s. And third, the Central's finances improved enough during and after the war that it was able to exit receivership in 1948. A fourth change took place on January 1, 1946, when the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast lost its separate identity and became the western division of the Atlantic Coast Line. New Construction One of the decade's larger construction projects was the realignment of the Acworth-Emerson section of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis to accommodate the new Lake Allatoona. Originally built by the Western & Atlantic--that "crookedest road under the sun"--the affected section wound among the Allatoona hills in a reverse S-shape, crossing Allatoona Creek about where I-75 passes over the lake today and then curving back eastward to the pass where a bloody battle had taken place during the Civil War. The realignment took a direct course from Acworth to Allatoona, cutting off the long curve southwest of the pass (the old alignment roughly followed presentday Sandtown Road). At Allatoona, the new route was laid out to the west of the pass, well away from the lake waters. North of Emerson, a new Etowah River bridge opened in December 1944, replacing the older structure upstream. Rail historian Dain Schult summarized the results: "When the `Etowah River Cutoff ' opened June 10, 1949 with northbound #94, the Dixie Flyer, rolling through it, the end result for the NC was a 1.7 reduction in mileage and a loss of twenty-seven curves...Between this work and some other straightening projects, there were now less than 300 curves on the W&A."381 Some Relief World War II provided a momentary respite for rail interests across the country, as war time needs required extensive use of the rails. But a new conspirator joined the automobile, the passenger jet, and the post-war period resumed with a less than sanguine outlook for rail interests nationally and in Georgia. The contraction trend continued. Abandonments during the 1940s: B Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad, Dublin-Eastman, abandoned 1941. B Wrightsville & Tennille Railroad, Dublin-Hawkinsville, abandoned 1941. B Collins & Glennville Railroad, Collins-Glennville, abandoned 1941. B Greene County Railroad, Monroe-Apalachee, abandoned 1942. B Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway, Kingston-Rome (former Rome Railroad), abandoned 1943. B Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, Amsterdam-Otisca, abandoned 1944. B Flint River & Northeastern Railroad, Pelham-Ticknor, abandoned 1946. B Lexington Terminal Railroad, Lexington-Crawford, abandoned 1947. B Gainesville Midland Railway, Belmont-Winder-Monroe, abandoned 1947-48.382 B Southern Railway, Rome-Gadsden (part of the former Rome & Decatur), abandoned 1948-50. In 1951-53 the tracks between Fairbanks and Coosa were reopened to serve Georgia Power Company's Plant Hammond, then under construction. 134 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 135 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Howell, Echols County CHAPTER 22 LOSING STEAM: THE 1950S Although World War II greatly improved the railroads' financial condition, it also left them with a huge fleet of worn-out passenger equipment that needed to be replaced. Consequently, over the twelve years immediately following the war, the nation's railroads and the Pullman Company bought $1.3 billion worth of new equipment, much of it in new lightweight streamlined passenger cars and new diesel locomotives to pull them.383 The new rolling stock included many cars for coach-class travel, which saw a strong upswing early in the period thanks to the country's rapidly expanding middle class.384 In Georgia, two new Central of Georgia streamliners, both named for race horses, began service in 1947; these were Man O' War, which ran between Atlanta and Columbus, and Nancy Hanks, which ran between Atlanta and Savannah. Another new lightweight streamliner was L&N's Georgian. Introduced in late 1946, it connected Atlanta to St. Louis.385 Still running along the coast at the time was a famous heavyweight, Seaboard's Orange Blossom Special, but its days came to an end after the 1952-53 winter season.386 Unfortunately for the railroads, the boost in passenger traffic during World War II and shortly afterwards was an aberration. Americans simply preferred automobiles, and they continued their decades-long demand for better roads. The result was the Interstate Highway Act of 1956 and its remaking of the nation's landscape. As the new high-speed limited-access road system began to spread across the country late in the decade, the trucking industry expanded with it, taking away much freight formerly handled by the railroads. Even though the 1950s was a time of prosperity, railroad earnings declined. According to one observer, "The industry's rate of return on net investment averaged 3.6% for the decade of the 1950's, but fell to 2.13% in 1960--the lowest since 1938. The industry ranked at the bottom of the list of some 70 major industrial groups with respect to profit ratios, and was well under the traditional 6% rate of return allowed or earned by other regulated industries."387 At the same time that the interstate highway program was starting up, a second threat to the railroads' passenger business was making its appearance: the jetliner. The Boeing 707, introduced in the late 1950s, and the 727, which began flying a few years later, made air travel a reasonable option for millions. Going by air was expensive, but it was much faster than going by train, and for that reason it lured many away from the rails. New Construction Although rail construction between towns had ended long before the 1950s, new tracks continued to be laid to special purpose facilities such as military bases, docks, power plants, factories, and mines. Among the military facilities was the U. S. Army's ammunition depot at Kings Bay near St. Marys, constructed 1955-58; on the 7,000-acre base were 47 miles of tracks.388 At the other end of the coast, the Savannah State Docks Railroad, a switching railroad owned by the Georgia Ports Authority, opened in 1952. In southwestern Georgia, the Bainbridge State Docks on the Flint River, built in 1956-58, connected to a rail line that branched from the Seaboard near downtown Bainbridge. During the decade, a proposed Chattahoochee River navigation channel to Atlanta was being pushed by that city's mayor, William B. Hartsfield, and a few other political and business leaders.389 Around this time, Fulton County built an industrial park beside the river, and, in 1956, Atlantic Coast Line constructed its Fulco Branch to the site. If the barge docks came, ACL was ready to serve them. Another railroad, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, was similarly involved in developing the Southland Industrial District, another budding Atlanta industrial park. In 1957, the Sandersville Railroad more than doubled its length by extending its tracks five miles to a kaolin mine north of town. The white clay, used in a variety of industrial products, had become a mainstay of the local economy during the 1930s and 1940s, when several kaolin processing plants were built along the tracks. Corporate Changes A few changes in railroad ownership took place during the period. In 1951, the Central of Georgia purchased the 140-mile Savannah & Atlanta from investor Robert M. Nelson for $3.5 million. The deal, which had been in the works for a couple of years, allowed the Central to eliminate a competitor in the region between Savannah and Waynesboro. The S&A continued to operate separately as a Central subsidiary.390 136 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey RAILROAD SPURS FOR ELECTRIC POWER PLANTS Of all commodities hauled by train, coal is the single most important to the nation's railroads. In 2013, coal accounted for 39.5 percent of rail tonnage and 19.9 percent of rail revenue. Most of this coal is delivered to electric power plants, some of which, such as Plant Bowen near Cartersville and Plant Scherer near Forsyth, use so much coal that several trains travel continuously to and from the Powder River Basin mines in Wyoming to keep them supplied.1 Writer John McPhee described one of these trains: "This train had left Wyoming five days ago. Plant Scherer would burn everything in it in less than eight hours.... Plant Scherer burns nearly thirteen hundred coal trains a year--two thousand miles of coal cars, twelve million tons of the bedrock of Wyoming. It unloads, on average, three and a half coal trains a day."2 A half-century ago, coal arrived in Georgia in somewhat smaller quantities and came from closer sources such as the Matthews Mine in Claiborne County, Tennessee, which supplied the fuel for Georgia Power Company's then-new Plant Harllee Branch at Milledgeville. Beginning in the mid-1960s, this coal was hauled from mine to plant by Southern Railway "unit trains," that is, trains that handle a single commodity and that travel only from one origin to one destination. Southern claimed to have pioneered the unit train concept.3 Plant Atkinson dedication, Cobb County, 1930 (Georgia Power Archives) Early electrical generation plants were typically situated at the city edge, either alongside mainline tracks or connected by short spurs. Two examples are the former Davis Street and Butler Street plants in Atlanta; the latter was only a five-minute walk from the state capitol. These intown plants were eventually replaced by more remote facilities such as Plant Atkinson, built on the Chattahoochee River in 1930, and the adjacent Plant McDonough, built in 1964. Both stood about 6 miles from downtown between the river bridges of the Southern Railway and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway (now Norfolk Southern and CSX, respectively). The Atkinson facility was demolished several years ago, but Plant McDonough continues to operate, now using natural gas supplied by pipeline instead of coal supplied by rail. A factor in the relocation of power plants from in town to outlying areas was the need for large amounts of water to produce steam. Georgia Power Company's Plant Bowen, for instance, is located on the Etowah River near Cartersville, while Plant Scherer stands near the Ocmulgee River north of Macon. Similarly, the state's two nuclear power plants are located on major rivers: Plant Vogtle is on the Savannah River near Waynesboro, and Plant Hatch is on the Altamaha River near Baxley. While nuclear plants do not need coal, they do need water. All of these plants, coal and nuclear alike, have rail connections, with some extending for miles. The longest is at Plant Vogtle where the tracks run 20 miles from the plant to a connection with Norfolk Southern's Augusta-Millen line. Eleven miles of tracks connect Plant Hatch to a different Norfolk Southern line. Both sets of tracks were built during the construction of the two plants; work began at Plant Hatch in 1968 and at Plant Vogtle in the 1970s. At hydroelectric dams and their associated electric plants, rail lines were often used for construction but were removed afterwards. An early example is the Morgan Falls dam on the Chattahoochee River near Roswell where a 2.7-mile spur from the Roswell Railroad was built in 1902. While suburban development has erased most remnants of this line, a short section of the old rail bed can still be seen in the Big Trees Forest Preserve on State Route 9 in Sandy Springs. Rail spurs were also laid for the construction of Lake Burton (1917-19), Lake Tugalo (1917-23), and Lake Yonah (1923-25) in Georgia's northeastern corner. Lake Burton's 7.5-mile line began at the Tallulah Falls Railway north of Wiley. From the TF, the 3-foot gauge line ran west up Stonewall Creek and Slick Rock Branch, through Gibson Gap, and down Sawmill Creek to the dam site. Lakes Tugalo and Yonah were accessed by a line that began at Jarrett, on the Southern Railway near its crossing of the Tugaloo River. From Jarrett, the line ran north on the Georgia side of the river to the two dams. The northernmost three miles was narrow gauge, while the remainder was standard gauge.4 Burton, Tugalo, and Yonah lakes were part of a larger six-lake development effort that began in 1911 with the construction of Tallulah Lake and its tunnel and powerhouse at Tallulah Gorge. The overall project also included Lake Rabun (1915) and Lake Nacoochee (1925-26). Each of these also had an associated rail line. Lake Rabun's standard gauge line left the Tallulah Falls Railway near Lakemont and followed the Tallulah River to the dam site. To build the dam for Lake Nacoochee, this line was extended up a switchback route to a barge dock on Lake Rabun. Near the western end of that lake, the barges delivered materials to a narrow-gauge railway that completed the trip.5 v ___________________________________________ 1 Association of American Railroads, Railroads and Coal, July 2014, p. 1; Georgia Power Company, Plant Robert W. Scherer (brochure), online. 2 John McPhee, "Coal Train," in Uncommon Carriers, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006, p. 234-36. 3 "Tennessee Coal for Georgia Power." Ties magazine, 1968. Reprinted at southern.railfan.net/ties/1968/68-1/coal.html. Accessed January 26, 2015. 4 Thomas Fetters, Logging Railroads of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains, Vol. 2, Tallulah Falls, Anna Ruby Falls, and Jeffrey's Hell, Hillsboro, OR: TimberTimes, 2010, p. 13-29. 5 Ibid., p. 22-24. 137 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey In 1956, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway, better known as the Frisco, gained control of the Central after several years of buying its stock. The Frisco had expanded east to Birmingham and Pensacola and was attempting to gain direct access to the Atlantic seaboard. Concerned that the move would reduce competition (and annoyed that the Frisco had acquired control before receiving authorization to do so), the Interstate Commerce Commission rejected the merger. In 1954, the new Valdosta Southern Railroad began operating the former Georgia & Florida line between Valdosta and Madison, Florida. The VS was owned by Owens-Illinois, Inc., operator of a paper mill at Clyattville, 10 miles south of Valdosta. Sometime in the mid-50s, Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line began considering a merger, and in 1957 they issued a consolidation study. The two railroads had many parallel routes, especially across south Georgia, north Florida, and along the coast in Georgia and the Carolinas. It would take 10 years, however, for the consolidation to become a reality.391 In the later years of the decade, three consolidations did take place. In 1957, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis was merged into the Louisville & Nashville; in 1958, the Macon, Dublin & Savannah was merged into the Seaboard; and on December 31, 1959, the Charleston & Western Carolina was merged into the Atlantic Coast Line.392 As the decade progressed, more and more steam locomotives were retired and sent to the scrap yards. World War II had given the old machines a reprieve, but that ended after the first few postwar years. The railroads realized that diesel-electric engines were far more cost-effective and reliable than the steamers; they did not need water and coal facilities at intervals along the lines; they did not have to stop to dump their ashpans; and they did not need the frequent maintenance that was mandatory for steam engines. As new diesel units came online during the decade, the number of operating steam locomotives went from 21,747 in 1951 to 112 in 1961.393 The last Southern Railway steam locomotive run took place at Chattanooga on June 17, 1953.394 On the Gainesville Midland, steam operations ended in 1959, when that 40-mile Gainesville-Athens line was sold to Seaboard.395 By 1962, nearly all mainline steam was gone. Once the steamers departed, railroad companies no longer needed the water towers and coal towers that stood in many places along the tracks, so most of these were demolished. The steam locomotives had required frequent and labor-intensive maintenance, necessitating extensive shop complexes, but the diesels had much less need for these, so many of the shops were ultimately torn down. A few were downsized and converted for diesel maintenance. At various parks and museums around the state, steam locomotives were preserved as relics. Three of the Gainesville Midland's steam locomotives, for example, escaped the scrapper's torch and are now preserved at Gainesville, Jefferson, and Winder. A very few still travel the rails, pulling passenger cars for railfan steam excursions and exciting young and old alike who come out to see what John Stilgoe called "the magnificent complexity" of the locomotives.396 Mid-century Contraction Still the railroads shrank, Georgia's included. Still more passenger traffic was given up, now to the large jetliners that had been developed. The nation's burgeoning interstate system also took a substantial toll on rail freight, as trucks could now quickly, easily, and cheaply haul most anything most anywhere. The result was more shrinking systems and abandoned lines. Changes in rail technology affected the landscape, too. The switch from steam to diesel engines also eliminated many physical elements of Georgia's earlier railroading, including water towers, coal towers, and expansive shop complexes. Few of these structures and buildings remain. Abandonments during the 1950s: B Georgia & Florida Railroad, Stevens Crossing-Statesboro, abandoned 1950. B Georgia & Florida Railroad, Garfield to Summit-Graymont, abandoned 1950 or earlier. (Summit and Graymont later merged to form Twin City.) B Georgia & Florida Railroad, Relee- Sapps Still, three miles, abandoned 1950. B Central of Georgia Railway, Chickamauga-Durham, abandoned 1951. B Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, Brunswick-Alma, abandoned 1953. The line was part of the former Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast. 138 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey B Central of Georgia Railway, Sylvania-Rocky Ford, abandoned 1954. The 15-mile railroad had four earlier names: Sylvania Railroad (1885-1902), Sylvania Central (1903-1905 and 1916-1934), Sylvania & Girard (1906-1915), and Sylvania Railway (1935-1944). B Lakeland Railroad, Lakeland-Naylor, abandoned 1957. B Talbotton Railroad, Talbotton-Junction City, abandoned 1957. B Georgia & Florida Railroad, Sapp's Still-Douglas, 14 miles, abandoned 1958. B Central of Georgia Railway, Eatonton-Machen, abandoned 1959. The line was part of the former Middle Georgia & Atlantic. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 139 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 23 THE MANY BECOME THE FEW: THE 1960S During the first half of the twentieth century, a Georgian watching a passing locomotive would often see the insignia of one of four railroads: Atlantic Coast Line, Seaboard Air Line, Central of Georgia, and Southern Railway. In certain parts of the state, a few dozen other names might come into view, perhaps Georgia Northern or Louisville & Nashville or Georgia & Florida. But it was not long into the second half-century that most of these long-familiar names began to disappear from the rails. The first to go were the Central of Georgia and the Georgia & Florida. Both were acquired in 1963 by Southern Railway, which allowed their names to appear on locomotives and rolling stock for a time, but the two railroads eventually lost their separate identity. In 1966, Southern acquired the Georgia Northern and the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla. These two southwest Georgia names similarly faded away. Next to go were Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line; in 1967, they merged in a deal that had been in the works since the 1950s. The new combined system, renamed Seaboard Coast Line, became the nation's ninth largest as measured by assets and operating revenues, operating a combined 9,629 route miles in six Southeastern states.397 Not included in the merger was the Louisville & Nashville. Although it was controlled by ACL, it continued to operate separately for a few more years. The Louisville &Nashville, Seaboard Coast Line, and other big railroads continued to offer passenger service, but after the short period of postwar passenger train improvements, rapid decline set in, largely as a result of competition from the growing interstate highway system and jetliners. As the public abandoned trains in favor of autos and planes, another source of revenue for the railroads began slipping away--contracts to carry the mail. Fewer passenger trains meant fewer Railway Post Office cars. "By 1965, only 190 trains carried mail," wrote one historian, "by 1970, no first class mail was carried on the railroad. The last Railway Post Office, which operated between New York and Washington, D.C., made a final run on June 30, 1977."398 In 1962, abandonment befell one of the state's oldest sections of track. Built in the 1830s as part of the Savannah-Macon mainline, the Central's route between Central Junction and Oliver became redundant in 1951 when the Central purchased the parallel Savannah & Atlanta. Choosing to go with the newer S&A route, the Central constructed a four-mile link from Oliver to the S&A at Ardmore and then abandoned the track south of Oliver, leaving the Effingham County communities of Egypt, Tusculum, Guyton, Pineora, Marlow, and Eden without a railroad. A couple of new rail lines opened during the decade, one to serve an ocean terminal and the other to serve a large paper mill. The former was the 12-mile Colonel's Island Railroad, a Georgia Ports Authority-owned line near Brunswick that opened in the late 1960s. It was not the first railroad on Colonels Island; seven decades earlier the South Brunswick Terminal Railroad built a 17.5-mile line from Waynesville to the island, primarily for the purpose of shipping lumber. It had been abandoned in 1898. The paper-mill rail line was the Chattahoochee Industrial Railroad, a southwest Georgia shortline operating between Hilton on the Central of Georgia and Saffold on the Atlantic Coast Line. After securing its charter in 1961, the 15-mile line opened in 1963. It was owned by the Great Southern Land and Paper Company, which opened a kraft linerboard plant near Cedar Springs around the same time. Its location on the river allowed the company to ship its products by barge or on either of the two competing railroads. Great Southern was merged into Great Northern Paper Company in 1965. The plant is now owned by Georgia Pacific.399 Together, the Colonels Island and Chattahoochee Industrial railroads added 27 miles to Georgia's railroad network, but by the end of the decade ten times that amount had been lost. One loss long lamented by railroad buffs, even to the present day, was the Tallulah Falls Railway, the 57-mile Cornelia-Clayton-Franklin shortline that passed along the edge of Tallulah Gorge and through the fabled Rabun Gap. Abandoned by Southern Railway in 1961, it was done in by U.S. 23/441, which followed a parallel route. The TF had managed to build through Rabun Gap after many other efforts had failed. Along with the Marietta & North Georgia, it was one of the only two common-carrier railroads that ever penetrated the mountainous terrain of north Georgia's Blue Ridge. 140 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Abandonments during the 1960s: B Atlantic Coast Line, Fitzgerald-Moultrie, 53 miles, abandoned 1960. Built as the Tifton & Northeastern and the Tifton, Thomasville & Gulf at the end of the nineteenth century, the line later became a branch of the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic. B Central of Georgia, Sylvania-Waynesboro, 40 miles, abandoned 1962. The line was part of the former Savannah & Atlanta. B Central of Georgia, Central Junction-Oliver, 42 miles, abandoned 1962. B Tallulah Falls Railway. Cornelia-Franklin, North Carolina, 57 miles, abandoned 1962. B Central of Georgia, Cuthbert-Fort Gaines, 20 miles, abandoned 1966-67. This branch line was completed by the Southwestern Railroad in 1860. B Wadley Southern, Swainsboro-Wadley, 20 miles, abandoned 1964. It was the last remaining section of the Wadley Southern. B Georgia & Florida, Sparks-Adel, 3.2 miles, abandoned 1965. The line ran on the west side of the Georgia Southern & Florida. B Georgia & Florida, Nashville-Sparks, 11.8 miles, abandoned 1965-68. The line was part of the railroad's Moultrie branch. B Georgia & Florida, Hephzibah-Midville, 37 miles, abandoned 1966. The threemile section between Torbit and Gough in Burke County remained open until 1986. It was accessed by the former Savannah & Atlanta line. B Bowdon Railway. Bowdon-Bowdon Junction, 12 miles, abandoned 1963. B Milledgeville Railway, Milledgeville-State Hospital, four miles, abandoned 1960s. B Milstead Railroad, Conyers-Milstead, three miles, abandoned 1960. The line was discontinued after the closure of the textile mill that it served. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 141 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Stone Mountain, DeKalb County CHAPTER 24 THE END (ALMOST) OF THE PASSENGER TRAIN: THE 1970S Then it was time. The school band played `Auld Lang Syne,' the conductor raised his hand, the engine whistled, and in many places, the passenger train rolled out of town for the last time, with more people standing to wave good-bye than had ridden it in years. Tom Carper400 By the beginning of the 1970s, decades of cost-cutting in rail passenger service had reduced the number of passenger trains nationwide from more than 20,000 in the 1920s to less than 500 in 1970.401 With few trains to serve, the grand passenger stations in Atlanta and Augusta closed; they were torn down in 1971-72. In Macon, Terminal Station closed in 1975 and stood unused for several years before it was purchased in 1982 by Georgia Power Company. Train service at Columbus's Union Station ended in 1971, but the building was preserved for future use. Albany's Union Station became a local heritage museum in the mid-70s. Savannah's Union Station was lost in 1962 to an interstate highway ramp, but the nearby Central of Georgia passenger depot remained standing to become Savannah's visitor center. In 1971 Amtrak took over operation of many intercity routes. Not included was the Central's Nancy Hanks II; it made its last run on April 30th of that year. Also left off the new system was the Southern Crescent, running from Washington through Atlanta to New Orleans. Southern Railway president Graham Claytor tried to keep it going as an independent operation, and was successful for a few years, but on February 1, 1979, Southern conveyed the train to Amtrak. When Amtrak began, it had only one direct route from the Midwest to Florida, passing through Montgomery, Thomasville, Valdosta, and Waycross to Jacksonville. The train, named Floridian, was discontinued in 1979.402 As in the previous decade, long-established railroad names were further subordinated and some were discarded entirely. In 1971, Southern merged the Central of Georgia Railway, the Georgia & Florida, the Wrightsville & Tennille, and the Savannah & Atlanta into a single subsidiary named the Central of Georgia Railroad. In the same year, Southern purchased the Tennessee, Alabama, & Georgia Railway, the 92-mile "TAG Line" that ran from Chattanooga across the northwestern corner of Georgia to Gadsden. In 1972, Southern also merged the Georgia Northern, the Albany & Northern (the former Georgia, Southwestern & Gulf) and the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla, keeping the name Georgia Northern for the combined subsidiary. Also included as part of the Georgia Northern was the former Georgia & Florida Railway line from Moultrie to Sparks. Also in 1972, many railcars across the state began carrying a new name, the "Family Lines System." It was not a consolidation but a marketing name used jointly by Seaboard Coast Line, Louisville & Nashville, Georgia Railroad, Clinchfield Railroad, Atlanta & West Point, and Western Railway of Alabama. Two of these, the A&WP and the WR of A, which connected at West Point, operated under a second moniker: the "West Point Route." The Family Lines name would continue in use for the remainder of the decade. Abandonments during the 1970s: B Seaboard Coast Line, Abbeville-Fitzgerald, 22 miles, abandoned 1971. It began in 1889-90 as the Abbeville & Waycross Railroad. B Southern Railway, Ashburn-Sylvester, 15.8 miles, abandoned 1971. Former Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla. B Southern Railway, Boston-Barwick, 8.5 miles, abandoned 1970-71; BarwickPavo, 4.6 miles, abandoned 1976. Former Georgia Northern. B Southern Railway, Albany-Cordele, 33 miles, abandoned 1977. Former Albany & Northern. B Southern Railway, Williamson-Roberta, abandoned 1977. Built as the Atlanta & Florida. B Southern Railway, McDonough-Griffin, abandoned 1979. Built as the Georgia Midland & Gulf. B Valdosta Southern, Clyattville-Madison, Florida, abandoned 1972. Former Georgia & Florida. B Louisville & Wadley, Louisville-Gibson Junction, abandoned 1971. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 142 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 143 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Carrollton vicinity, Carroll County CHAPTER 25 RETHINKING REGULATION: THE 1980S Among Georgia railroaders, the 1980s are probably best known for the establishment of CSX and Norfolk Southern, along with the Staggers Rail Act of 1980. Named for its sponsor, Harley O. Staggers of West Virginia, the legislation removed a number of barriers pertaining to shipping rates, multimodal ownership, mergers, and line abandonments. Although some of these had been addressed in the earlier Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 (informally known as the 4R Act), the Staggers Act was considered to be more significant. It became a shorthand term for railroad deregulation. The impact of the Staggers Act was felt strongly by both labor and management. For labor, railroad jobs fell from 436,000 in 1981 to 236,000 in 1988.403 For management, the relaxed regulatory environment allowed greater flexibility in deciding, as a rail industry lobby group puts it, "what routes to use, what services to offer, and what rates to charge."404 For Georgia, the impact of the Staggers Act became most evident in the form of abandonments, which soared during the decade as railroad companies rid themselves of redundant and unprofitable lines. Among the losses were former mainlines, some of which were severed into two pieces by abandoning their middle sections. Often the remaining dead-end tracks were turned over to new shortline companies such as the Georgia Southwestern and the Ogeechee Railway. The Staggers Act also made mergers more attractive, as explained in this excerpt from a 1985 article: Because of their high fixed costs, railroads have always been most efficient on long hauls where stopping, starting and the number of interchange points are minimal. With additional mergers, railroads will be able to compete more effectively with other modes and increase revenues by handling the shipment from origin to destination on one system. Increased revenues combined with reduced costs incurred when moving traffic over longer distances should contribute to improved earnings for individual railroads as well as to the general health of the industry.405 On June 1, 1982, not long after the implementation of the Staggers Act, Southern Railway and Norfolk & Western merged, creating an 18,000-mile rail system with the new name Norfolk Southern. N&W had operated in the upper South and parts of the Midwest, but not in Georgia. Southern, of course, had been one of Georgia's leading railroads since its establishment in 1894. CSX, the state's other major railroad system, dates back to November 1, 1980, when CSX Corporation was created as a holding company for Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries, Inc. (the Family Lines). Because of various legal complications, it took several more years for CSX to absorb its affiliates and assume its later form, but essentially it evolved as follows: On November 4, 1982, Seaboard Coast Line acquired the railroad assets of the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company, the pioneering railroad that had previously been under lease.406 On December 29, 1982, Louisville & Nashville was merged into Seaboard Coast Line, and at the same time, the Seaboard Coast Line name was changed to Seaboard System, a unit of CSX.407 On July 1, 1986, CSX Transportation succeeded Seaboard System Railroad while becoming the agent for Chessie System. On August 31, 1987, Seaboard System merged into CSX.408 Finally, between April and September of 1987, the Baltimore & Ohio merged completely into the Chesapeake & Ohio, and the latter officially adopted the CSX Transportation name.409 CSX derived its name from its two principal parts. The "C" refers to Chessie System, which operated in the upper South and the Midwest, but not in Georgia. The "S" is from Seaboard Coast Line, the company formed by the July 1, 1967 merger of Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line.410 One of the two Seaboard System Railroad lines between Savannah and Montgomery was broken in 1986 when the company abandoned 72 miles of tracks from Mahrt, on the west side of the Chattahoochee River in Alabama, to the east side of Montgomery. The segment was once part of the "SAM Route," the Savannah, Americus & Montgomery Railway, built in the 1880s. Thanks to the ACL/SAL merger of 1967, Seaboard owned an alternative Savannah-Montgomery line, the old ACL route through Valdosta. Although longer, the bow-shaped line had fewer low bridge clearances and troublesome grades than the SAM route through Americus. 144 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey In 1987, CSX ended operations on its route between Marietta and Ellijay, once known as L&N's Old Line. The tracks from Marietta to Tate were sold and those from Tate to Ellijay were leased to a new shortline, the Georgia Northeastern Railroad. In mid-1989, CSX sold its Americus region tracks to RailTex, then an operator of shortlines in several states. RailTex, through its new subsidiary Georgia Southwestern Railroad, began operating 124 miles of tracks from Mahrt, Alabama, to Rhine in Telfair County, along with 128 miles of northsouth tracks that once belonged to the Georgia, Florida & Alabama Railway. These two lines intersected in Richland.413 The Georgia and The New Georgia In the early 1980s, it was still possible to travel by train between Atlanta and Augusta, although few people other than railfans took advantage of the opportunity. The service, known as the Georgia Railroad mixed train, involved a passenger car or a modified caboose attached to a freight train. The reason for this curiosity was a provision in the railroad's charter that allowed it to avoid state and local taxes as long as it maintained passenger service. After Seaboard Coast Line acquired the Georgia Railroad in 1982, the tax exemption ended. The last mixed trains ran in April and May of 1983.414 A few years later, the New Georgia Railroad, an innovative project run by the Georgia Building Authority, began operating tourist trains on the former Georgia Railroad in the Atlanta area. In 1987, the GBA built a onemile connector from the railroad at Stone Mountain Park to the mainline, allowing NGRR trains to operate between downtown Atlanta and the park. Although the trips were popular, the service ended in 1993. Track Construction The one-mile Stone Mountain connector was not the only rail construction project during the decade. Among others was a route realignment and a new bridge over the Savannah River to accommodate the new Lake Richard B. Russell east of Elberton. Constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers between 1974 and 1985, the lake project required the removal of a bridge constructed in 1928-30 by Seaboard Air Line Railway. Before it was torn down, the old bridge was documented by the Historic American TRACK REMOVALS Atlanta once had many more downtown tracks than it does now, especially in the area west of Spring and Marietta streets. Here was an extensive complex of warehouses, terminal facilities, and side tracks, as well as the passenger platforms for both Terminal Station and Union Station. Today, the former rail yards are occupied by sports arenas, convention centers, and parking lots (at both ground level and elevated). Macon once had a similar rail complex between 5th and 7th streets, but now it is nearly all gone. In Augusta, the repair shops, roundhouse, and general offices of the Georgia Railroad stood in the block between 7th, 8th, Fenwick, and Walker streets. The James Brown Arena now stands on the site.v Engineering Record as HAER SC-6. The new bridge, about one-quarter mile downstream, was completed in the early 1980s. It was also during this period that the Georgia Department of Transportation completed its first railroad rehabilitation project, the 13-mile Fort ValleyPerry line; it was improved in cooperation with Norfolk Southern in 1981.415 Abandonments during the 1980s: B Southern Railway/Central of Georgia, Lyerly-West Rome, approx. 12 miles, abandoned early 1980s. This was part of the railroad's old line from Griffin to Chattanooga. B Seaboard Coast Line, Kimbrough (seven miles south of Richland) to Dawson, 18 miles, abandoned 1981. The railroad opened in 1890 as the Columbus Southern. B Southern Railway/Central of Georgia, Raymond-Allie (five miles north of Greenville), 17 miles, abandoned 1981. At Raymond, the line once connected with the Central's branch between Griffin and Chattanooga. B Southern Railway/Central of Georgia, Chambers/Silver Creek to Relay, six miles, abandoned 1981. This section, on the former Central route between Rome and Cedartown, ran near and parallel to the Southern Railway line between Rome and Rockmart. Construction of a bypass from a point south of Relay to the Southern Railway line allowed the six-mile section to be abandoned. 145 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey B Southern Railway, Hedges, Georgia-Ewing, Alabama, approx. 50 miles, abandoned 1982. This was the former Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railway. B Norfolk Southern, Sylvester-Bridgeboro, abandoned 1982. This had once been the middle section of the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla. Most of the northern section, from Sylvester to Ashburn, had been abandoned in 1971. The southern section, from Bridgeboro to Camilla, would remain until 1996. B Norfolk Southern, Douglas-Swainsboro, abandoned 1983. Sections of this former Georgia & Florida line later reopened. B Seaboard System Railroad, Climax, Georgia, to Chattahoochee, Florida, 30 miles, abandoned 1983-84. The line was built in 1882-83 by the Savannah, Florida & Western. B Seaboard System Railroad, Athens-Union Point, 36 miles, abandoned 1984. Built by the Georgia Railroad in 1841, it was one of the oldest rail routes in the state. B Seaboard System Railroad, Macon-Milledgeville, 23 miles, abandoned 1984-85. This was once part of the Macon branch of the Georgia Railroad. B Norfolk Southern, Rome-Cave Spring-Piedmont, Alabama, abandoned around 1984. Service was discontinued in 1977, but parts of this former Southern Railway line remained in place. In 2009 formal abandonment was initiated for the section between mileposts 3.69-N and 16.00-N in Floyd and Polk Counties. B Norfolk Southern, Columbus-Rover (west of Griffin), abandoned 1984-1988. Built as the Georgia Midland & Gulf in 1886-87, the line crossed over Pine Mountain and passed through Warm Springs and Woodbury, among other towns. B Seaboard System Railroad, Pearson-Sylvester, 59 miles, abandoned 1985. The line was once part of the Brunswick & Western and the Plant System. B Louisville & Nashville, Mineral Bluff-Murphy, North Carolina, 20 miles, abandoned 1986. After flooding caused severe damage in 1980, L&N requested permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon the line. The request was filed in 1982, and the line was taken up around 1986, removing the last of the two direct rail connections from north Georgia into North Carolina (the other was the Tallulah Falls Railway).411 B CSX, Alma-Sessoms, eight miles, abandoned 1986. Former AB&A. This line originally extended to Brunswick, but it was abandoned east of Alma in 1953. B Norfolk Southern, Torbit-Gough, three miles, abandoned 1986. Former Georgia & Florida Railroad. Gough and Torbit are in western Burke County. Torbit was at the crossing of the G&F and the Savannah & Atlanta.412 B CSX, Riceboro-Seals, 62 miles, abandoned 1986-88. Seals is about halfway between Kingsland and Woodbine. The line, built by the Florida Central & Peninsular Railroad in 1893-94, was once Seaboard's mainline between Savannah and Jacksonville. B CSX, DuPont, Georgia, to Live Oak, Florida, 48 miles, abandoned 1988. Construction of this line began late in the Civil War, and it formed the first GeorgiaFlorida rail link. B Norfolk Southern, Covington-Porterdale, four miles, abandoned 1988. The former Central of Georgia line, built in 1899, served the textile mills at Porterdale. B CSX, Edna (south of Smyrna) to Rockmart, 36.8 miles, and Cedartown to Alabama line, approx. nine miles within Georgia, abandoned 1988-89. Not included in this former Seaboard line were the tracks between Rockmart and Cedartown and those from Edna to Atlanta. To preserve the corridor for future transportation needs, Georgia DOT purchased much of it, and it is currently used as a part of the Silver Comet Trail. B CSX. White Path (six miles north of Ellijay) to Blue Ridge, eight miles, abandoned 1989. Part of the former L&N Old Line, it was reopened later by shortline Georgia Northeastern. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 146 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 26 SMALLER BUT STRONGER: THE 1990S By 1990, the major railroads had largely recovered from the financial problems of earlier decades. Industry figures for that year indicated that the nation's route-miles were down 40 percent, but ton-miles were up 300 percent. Traffic consisted mainly of coal, chemicals, containers, and automotive equipment, and most of this was hauled by seven railroads that together controlled 91 percent of the business.416 As for the shortlines, their numbers began to rise after the Staggers Act permitted the major lines to shed unprofitable branch lines and redundant trunk lines. In 1985, Georgia had eight independent shortlines: Chattahoochee Valley, Chattahoochee Industrial, Colonels Island, Hartwell, Louisville & Wadley, Sandersville, St. Marys, and Valdosta Southern.417 Two decades later the number stood at 21. As the major railroads chopped former mainlines into segments, they sold or leased the remnants to shortline operators.418 An example is the former Seaboard route across coastal Georgia, the middle section of which was abandoned in 1986-88, leaving the two ends operated as separate shortlines. After a period of operation by CSX, the northern end near Savannah was leased to shortline Riceboro Southern Railway in 2004, while the southern end in Camden County was leased to First Coast Railroad in 2005. Another example is the former Atlantic Coast Line route between Albany and Waycross, the middle section of which was abandoned in 1985. Its western end from Albany to Sylvester came to be operated by Georgia & Florida Railnet, while its eastern end from Waycross to Pearson was eventually turned over to the St. Marys Railway West for railcar storage. Several lines that once had a major town at each end were shortened into little more than long spurs to isolated factories and materials suppliers. As a consequence, the new termini tended to be quite obscure for most Georgians. Augusta to Valdosta became Augusta to Hephzibah; Columbus to Albany became Columbus to Cusseta; Thomasville to Tifton became Thomasville to Coolidge; Savannah to Jacksonville became Savannah to Riceboro; McDonough to Griffin became Towalaga to Griffin; and Griffin to Columbus became Griffin to Rover. As shortlines grew in number, some came to be owned by companies with names such as OmniTRAX, RailAmerica, Rail Link, and RailTex. In 1992 for example, the Georgia Woodlands Railroad, once the Washington Branch of the Georgia Railroad, was sold to OmniTRAX, a shortline operator based in Denver. OmniTRAX would later acquire other Georgia shortlines. A more complicated arrangement developed in the early 1990s when the South Carolina Central Railroad, a subsidiary of RailTex, assumed operation of three southwest Georgia shortlines: the 258-mile Georgia Southwestern, the 99-mile Georgia & Alabama, and the 25-mile Georgia Great Southern. In 1995, RailTex consolidated the Georgia & Alabama and the Georgia Great Southern into the Georgia Southwestern Railroad. In early 2000, RailTex itself became part of a larger company when it was acquired by RailAmerica, Inc. of Jacksonville. Two years later, RailAmerica sold Georgia Southwestern to Georgia DOT and a group of local investors. The local group purchased the capital stock and eight locomotives, while the Georgia Department of Transportation bought 102 miles of track and associated real estate involving three lines: Cuthbert to Bainbridge (68.3 miles), Columbus to Cusseta (24.6 miles), and Dawson to Sasser (9.3 miles). These were then leased to Georgia Southwestern. A home-grown network of shortlines began to develop in 1990 when businessman Bennie Ray Anderson purchased the Hartwell Railroad, the 10-mile line running from Hartwell to Bowersville. In 1995, Anderson and the Hartwell Railroad Company acquired from Norfolk Southern the 48mile line between Toccoa and Elberton. Anderson also acquired the 10mile Great Walton Railroad, which began service between Monroe and Social Circle in 1987, as well as a section of former Norfolk Southern tracks through Athens that he began operating as the Athens Line, LLC. From 1989 until 2009, the Great Walton also leased from Norfolk Southern the 28-mile line between Machen and Covington. One other change among shortlines should be noted here: in 1998, the Georgia Ports Authority transferred operation of its Colonels Island Railroad near Brunswick to a private shortline operator, the Golden Isles Terminal Railroad. Along with several miles of switching tracks, the railroad operated 12.6 miles of mainline trackage between Anguilla Junction and the port authority's Colonels Island Bulk and Auto Processing Terminal. 147 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Continuing Abandonments The extensive abandonment of unprofitable and marginal lines that had begun in the 1980s continued throughout the 1990s. In southwest Georgia, Norfolk Southern abandoned its line between Moultrie and Pavo in 1990. The south end of this former Georgia Northern line, from Pavo to Boston, had been abandoned in the 1970s. Another line out of Moultrie was abandoned in 1989-90 by CSX; it extended south from Kingwood about 15 miles to Coolidge. It was once part of the Fitzgerald-Thomasville branch of the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic. Also in southwest Georgia, CSX abandoned 38 miles between Cusseta and Cuthbert in 1995. The former Seaboard Air Line Railway route passed through Richland, where it crossed another line once operated by SAL. In 1996-98, the former Seaboard route from Savannah's Hutchinson Island into South Carolina was abandoned by CSX. Once a major ocean terminal for Seaboard, the island had a large complex of docks and warehouses directly across the river from downtown Savannah. Hawkinsville lost its last remaining rail connection when Norfolk Southern abandoned the 10-mile branch line from Cochran in 1996. The rail line was the city's oldest, dating back to the Macon & Brunswick Railroad which opened shortly after the Civil War. In 1995, Norfolk Southern abandoned three sections of the former Georgia & Florida Railway mainline between Augusta and Valdosta: 19 miles from Vidalia north to Kirby (Kirby is about six miles south of Swainsboro). 24.6 miles from Vidalia south to Hester (Hester is on US 221 about three miles north of Hazlehurst). This section includes the Altamaha River bridge. 35.8 miles between Douglas and Nashville. Georgia DOT purchased parts of the old G&F between Midville and Valdosta. It leased the tracks from Midville through Swainsboro to Kirby to the Ogeechee Railway. By 2010, this section was operated by the Georgia Southern Railway. The section between Willacoochee and Nashville later reopened and is now operated by CaterParrott Railnet. In 1994, Norfolk Southern abandoned 7.4 miles of its old Warm Springs line and, in 1996, sold it to the Columbus Consolidated Government. It is now part of the 11-mile Fall Line Trace, a multipurpose trail extending north from the city to Psalmond Road. Construction of the trail began in 2009. In 1992, the Chattahoochee Valley Railway ceased operations on its last remaining tracks which ran from West Point to McGinty, near Fairfax, Alabama. Although most of the railroad was in Alabama, it was closely associated with the West Point Manufacturing Company (later West PointPepperell) and the Georgia town of West Point. Other Abandonments in the 1990s: B CSX. Fitzgerald-Ocilla, abandoned 1990. Former Seaboard. B Norfolk Southern, Lyerly-Krannert Junction, 15.2 miles of tracks removed 1993. (Operations on this section had ended several years earlier.) It was part of the former Central of Georgia line between Griffin and Chattanooga. B Norfolk Southern, Camilla-Bridgeboro, 18 miles, abandoned 1996. B Norfolk Southern, Senoia-Experiment (north Griffin), 12.7 miles, taken out of service in the early 1990s. B CSX, Mineral Bluff-Murphy Junction, 2.2 miles, abandoned 1993 (the tracks remain in place). B CSX, Blue Ridge-McCaysville, 15 miles, abandoned 1995. It later reopened and is now operated as a tourist line, the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 148 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 149 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Carrollton, Carroll County CHAPTER 27 GEORGIA'S RAILROADS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY With 4,653 total rail miles in 2012 (down from 7,591 in 1920), Georgia's railroad system is ranked seventh out of the fifty states.419 Two companies, CSX and Norfolk Southern, dominate this network; together they operate approximately 3,400 miles, comprising 70 percent of the total active trackage.420 The remainder is operated by two dozen shortline railroads that interchange with the two majors and that could not do business without them.421 During the first century and a half of railroading in Georgia, shortlines were often purchased by larger railroads to be operated as "feeder" branch lines. In a few cases, such as the Georgia & Florida, several shortlines were combined to create a new mainline. This consolidation process continued into the 1970s, reaching its ultimate point in 1971 when Southern Railway merged the Central of Georgia, the Georgia & Florida, the Wrightsville & Tennille, and the Savannah & Atlanta--each of which had absorbed earlier shortlines--into a single subsidiary. After 1980, the trend reversed, and the big railroads began selling or leasing low-density lines to shortline operators, among them the Chattooga & Chickamauga, the Great Walton, and the Ogeechee. Thus, the 318-mile Georgia & Florida, which had been created by merging several shortlines, was broken up, and its surviving trackage is once again the domain of shortlines. In the past, shortlines often operated on the margins. Unable to afford extensive cutting and filling, some had rollercoaster profiles and exceedingly crooked paths. Equipment often consisted of hand-me-downs from larger systems. The typical shortline ran short trains with older and smaller locomotives, and often used wooden boxcars long after the majors had gone to steel. Some shortlines were family operations, most notably the Georgia Northern owned by the Pidcocks and the Sandersville Railroad owned by the Tarbuttons. (The latter railroad must be the most stable shortline in Georgia, as it has been owned by the Tarbuttons since 1916.) At various times, shortlines were owned by corporations that needed to move raw materials and finished products between factory and nearby interchange points. The Valdosta Southern, for example, was owned by Owens-Illinois, Inc., operator of a paper mill at Clyattville. Similarly, the Chattahoochee Industrial Railroad was owned by the Great Southern Land and Paper Company, and the St. Marys Railroad was purchased in 1940 by the Gilman Paper Company. Since the 1980s, Georgia's shortlines have seen several changes in ownership and operation. For example, RailTex, which operated three southwest Georgia shortlines in the 1990s, was purchased by RailAmerica in 2000. In 2012, RailAmerica was bought by Genesee & Wyoming. G&W now has about half of the shortline business in the state with the other half handled by OmniTRAX, Pioneer Railcorp, Atlantic Western Transportation, B. R. Anderson, CaterParrott Railnet, Georgia Northeastern, St. Marys Railroad, and a few others. Some of these operate on lines owned by the Georgia Department of Transportation, which currently owns 490 route miles. For individual rail lines, turnover in operators is not unusual. A fairly recent example is near Covington and Madison where two lines formerly operated by Great Walton Railroad and Squaw Creek Southern are now operated by CaterParrott Railnet.422 Because of their typically backwoodsy character and older equipment, shortlines have long been beloved by rail buffs, who love the story of the little guys battling long odds as they keep the trains moving through the piney woods and over the red clay hills. Shortlines often operated the last of the steam engines. In the diesel era, shortline locomotives were sometimes hand-me-down units older than the crewmembers who operated them. The shortlines were celebrated by well-illustrated books such as Lucius Beebe's 1947 Mixed Train Daily, which introduced the reader to the Bowdon, the Hartwell, the Louisville & Wadley, the Sandersville, the St. Marys, the Sylvania Central, the Wrightsville & Tennille, the Wadley Southern, and the lines of "the Pidcock Kingdom," among others. Rails Through Dixie by John Krause and H. Reid, published two decades later, looked at some of the same lines. A more recent book, Georgia Short Line Railroad Album, by Albert M. Langley, Jr. also examines the favored operations, as well as those not included in the Beebe or Krause works. 150 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Railroads and Highways By 1990, the total mileage of surfaced roads in the U. S. reached an amount 10 to 15 times that of the railroads at their peak.423 With such an extensive highway system available to them, thousands of shippers, who once were stretched out along intown rail lines, moved out to suburban and exurban locations where they used only trucks. As a result, railroads lost whole categories of freight to trucking. The great problem for the railroads has been that highways offer a level of flexibility that railroads cannot begin to match. Rare is the location that trucks cannot reach, whereas railroads are mostly limited to their relatively ancient corridors. Because railroads cannot offer the door-to-door services provided by trucks, they have had to concentrate on hauling bulk materials, chemicals, and containers. Another disadvantage faced by the railroads is that it takes time to make up a train because railcars must be picked up at scattered spurs and sorted in rail yards. Similarly, after the train reaches its destination the cars must be transferred by switching engines that necessarily move much more slowly than the mainline machines. Continuing Abandonments Between 1965 and 2009, Georgia lost 1,144 miles of railroad to abandonment, and even more tracks have been abandoned since then.424 On top of that, dozens of miles are in uncertain status. At these places where no train has run in years, and where trees grow between the rails, it remains to be seen what will happen. A shortline railroad company might hope to reopen a line, but have inadequate funds to do so, at least at present. A major railroad company may hold on to a corridor for strategic reasons even as it lets tracks deteriorate. Abandonments since 2000: B CSX, Pearson-Waresboro, 23 miles, abandoned 2004. The tracks remain in place and are used for railcar storage. B Norfolk Southern, Columbus-Allie (five miles north of Greenville), abandoned 2007. B Norfolk Southern, Bishop-Madison, unused since 1987. A segment of the former Central of Georgia Macon-Athens line. B Norfolk Southern, Atlanta, 4.3 miles, abandoned 2009. The segment is now a part of the Atlanta Beltline. The first 2.2 miles of the Eastside Trail opened here in 2012. B Norfolk Southern, Roberta area, five miles, abandoned 2010. Extends south from Roberta, which was previously the north end of the line. Out of service for many years, this five-mile segment had been leased to Georgia Midland Railroad. It was built it in 1887-88 by the Atlanta & Florida Railroad and later acquired by Southern Railway which operated it as an Atlanta-Fort Valley branch line. B Norfolk Southern, McDonough/Locust Grove area, five miles, abandoned 2011. The tracks extended from milepost 4.80 M (south of Meredith Park Drive near the line's crossing of Indian Creek in McDonough) to milepost 9.72 M near Trestle Road in Locust Grove. The corridor was a remnant of the Georgia Midland & Gulf Railroad, built from McDonough to Columbus in 1886-87. B Norfolk Southern, Covington-Newborn, 15 miles, abandoned 2013. Former Middle Georgia & Atlantic, later Central of Georgia. B Norfolk Southern, Columbus-Ellaville, 33 miles. In 2013, Norfolk Southern, through its subsidiary Central of Georgia, filed for abandonment of its line from Columbus to Ellaville. The 33-mile segment, leased to Georgia Southwestern Railroad, begins at milepost 12 (Ochillee) and continues to milepost 45 at Ellaville, passing through Buena Vista on the way. Built by the Buena Vista & Ellaville Railroad Company and the Central of Georgia, the line dates back to the 1880s. It is one of several abandoned lines out of Columbus. Oddly, the city may be returning to its Civil War-era railroad network. B Norfolk Southern, Chattanooga-Hedges (Davis Crossroads), 19 miles, inactive since 2009. Former Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia. Passenger Rail Amtrak only offers two routes in Georgia: the Crescent, between New York and New Orleans, and the Silver Meteor/Silver Star, between New York and Miami. Stations for the Crescent are located at Atlanta, Gainesville, and Toccoa, and stations for the two Silver trains are at Savannah and Jesup.425 The Silver Meteor and Silver Star carry on a long history of passenger train travel across Georgia to Florida. In the past, much of this traffic came from Chicago and the Midwest, but today it only comes from the northeast and only travels along the coast. Not only that, only one coastal route has survived: the former Atlantic Coast Line. The old Seaboard route was broken up in the mid-1980s when its middle was abandoned, leaving only its two ends. (These are now operated by the Riceboro Southern on the north and the First Coast Railroad on the south.) 151 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Amtrak, though, is carrying more passengers than ever. During the first decade of the twenty-first century, Amtrak ridership grew by 37 percent.426 According to Railway Age, Amtrak carried a record 31.6 million passengers in FY 2013, and its state-supported corridor services set a new record of 15.4 million passengers. Amtrak's long distance routes combined had 4.8 million passengers, the best ridership in 20 years.427 Commuter Rail Commuter rail has been much studied in the last couple of decades, but not implemented. MARTA, established in the 1970s, remains the only commuter rail system in the state. Its lines have been extended and new lines have been added since its opening, but its rail system remains limited to two counties. Preserving Railroad History Although much has been lost, a significant tangible record of the state's railroad history remains in existence. Along with the railroads still in operation are old railbeds, depots, bridges, tunnels, locomotives, cabooses, railcars, coaling towers, interlocking towers, locomotive turntables, railroad office buildings, and a variety of other railroad-related sites and objects. These vary in condition from excellent to poor. Museums. Many railroad artifacts are preserved at museums around the state including the following: Southeastern Railway Museum. Duluth. In operation since 1970, the Southeastern Railway Museum houses a wide collection of railroad equipment including several steam and diesel locomotives and many railcars of various types. Georgia State Railroad Museum. Savannah. Located at the National Register-listed Central of Georgia shops complex, the museum displays many of its locomotives and railcars inside a historic roundhouse. Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History. Kennesaw. Best known as the home of the renowned locomotive General, the museum also features artifacts from the Glover Machine Works, a Marietta locomotive builder. Thronateeska Heritage Center. Albany. Exhibits include a steam locomotive and several railcars. On the grounds are two historic railroad depots and a former Railway Express Agency building. Rolling stock. Cabooses are gone from the rails, but dozens are displayed as artifacts in small towns and in museums around the state. Several passenger cars still operate on tourist and excursion trains, while others can be seen in the aforementioned museums. Some passenger cars still make occasional trips as private cars. A few railcars have been converted to private uses such as hunting lodges, fishing camps, and weekend retreats. Tourist railroads and rail excursions. In north Georgia, the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway operates between Blue Ridge and McCaysville. In south Georgia, the SAM Shortline operates between Cordele and Jimmy Carter's Boyhood Home near Plains. In Stone Mountain, the Stone Mountain Scenic Railroad operates on a 3.9-mile loop around the mountain. Other opportunities for train rides are at the Georgia Museum of Agriculture at Tifton and the St. Marys Railroad at St. Marys. In Chattanooga, the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum offers periodic excursions to Summerville, Georgia. Depots. Several former railroad depots around the state have been rehabilitated and reused as local history museums, welcome centers, and community meeting facilities. Some of these offer railroad-related exhibits. Other depots have been converted to restaurants, libraries, office buildings, residences, and storage buildings. A significant number of unrestored depots still stand, some in poor condition. Rail trails. The conversion of abandoned railroads to trails preserves historic rail corridors and keeps them in use for transportation purposes. Existing trails include the following: Silver Comet Trail. Named for a Seaboard passenger streamliner that traveled between Atlanta and Birmingham, it follows a Georgia DOTowned corridor through Cobb, Paulding, and Polk counties. Trail use has preserved not only the railbed but also historic features such as the Brushy Mountain tunnel and the Pumpkinvine Creek trestle. Atlanta Beltline. Much of this trail system is being developed on abandoned Norfolk Southern and CSX lines that once encircled downtown Atlanta. The Beltline's Eastside Trail was once the mainline of the Atlanta & Richmond Air Line Railway. 152 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey McQueens Island Trail. This six-mile trail follows part of the former Central of Georgia line between Savannah and Tybee Island that was abandoned in 1933. Rome/Floyd County Trail System. Sections of the old Central of Georgia route into town, along with two historic truss bridges, have been preserved here. Columbus Fall Line Trace. This 11-mile trail was constructed on the line built by the Georgia Midland & Gulf in 1886-87. Moultrie Trail. A 7.5-mile trail constructed on the route of the old Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic. Other trails can be found at Douglas, Tallulah Falls, Lookout Mountain, and Statesboro, among other places. In addition, new rail-to-trail projects are underway in various parts of the state. Railfan Platforms. For years, Georgia towns have been building railfan platforms to promote tourism. Most are small covered pavilions that are placed to provide good views of passing trains. The best-known of these is probably the Folkston Funnel platform in southeast Georgia. Others are at Dalton, Jesup, Locust Grove, Manchester, Millen, and Ringgold. All are alongside historic railroad corridors and within historic downtowns. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc MONUMENTS Standing in several Georgia cities are monuments to railroad leaders, among them a statue of William Wadley in Macon, a statue of L. L. Griffin in Griffin, and a monument to W. W. Gordon in Savannah. The Gordon monument, which stands in Wright Square, features not a statue but a carved depiction of a train. L.L. Griffin Statue In downtown Augusta is a statue of Patrick Walsh, a director of the Port Royal & Augusta Railway, as well as the Charlotte, Columbia & Augusta Railroad, and in Atlanta is a statue of Samuel Spencer, the first president of Southern Railway. The Spencer statue was carved by Daniel Chester French, best known for his work at the Lincoln Memorial. v 153 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey GEORGIA RAIL-RELATED RESOURCES LISTED IN THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES Rail-related sites and objects listed on the National Register can be found all across the state. Among the NR-listed railroad depots are those at Albany, Blue Ridge, Crawford, Leesburg, and Atlanta (Peachtree Station). In Savannah, the Central of Georgia Railroad shops and terminal complex is listed on the National Register, while a part of that site, the Central's passenger depot and trainshed, has the higher status of National Historic Landmark. Historic locomotives and rail cars listed on the National Register include the passenger car Superb (Southeastern Railway Museum, Duluth); the locomotive General (Southern Museum, Kennesaw); and the locomotive Texas (Cyclorama, Atlanta). Alma Depot Bacon County Winder Depot Barrow County Macon Railroad Industrial District Bibb County Railroad Overpass at Ocmulgee Bibb County East Vine Street Warehouse and Depot District Bulloch County Ringgold Depot Catoosa County Central of Georgia Depot and Trainshed Chatham County Central of Georgia Railroad: Savannah Shops and Terminal Facilities Chatham County Central of Georgia Railway Company Shop Property Chatham County Summerville Depot Chattooga County Woodstock Depot Cherokee County Albany Railroad Depot Historic District Dougherty County Union Depot Dougherty County Elberton Depot Elbert County Blue Ridge Depot Fannin County Mineral Bluff Depot Fannin County Montezuma Depot Macon County Cave Spring Railroad Station Floyd County South Railroad Historic District Mitchell County Atlanta and West Point Railroad Freight Depot Fulton County Howell Interlocking Historic District Fulton County Forsyth Depots and Baggage Room Monroe County Central of Georgia Railroad Terminal (1890s) Muscogee County Alma Depot Bacon County Peachtree Southern Railway Station Southern Railway Freight Depot Fulton County Muscogee County Southern Railway North Avenue Yards Historic District Fulton County Western & Atlantic Railroad Zero Milepost Fulton County Calhoun Depot Gordon County Greensboro Depot Greene County The Superb (Rail Car) Gwinnett County Hampton Depot Henry County Warner Robins Depot Houston County Hoschton Depot Jackson County Barnesville Depot Lamar County Leesburg Depot Lee County Crawford Depot Oglethorpe County Fort Valley Downtown and Railroad Historic District Peach County Blackshear Depot Pierce County Tallulah Falls Depot Rabun County Thomasville Depot Thomas County West Point Freight Depot Troup County Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad Company Building Washington County Western and Atlantic Depot Whitfield County Western & Atlantic Railroad Tunnel Whitfield County Summerville Depot, Chattooga County Thomasville Depot, Thomas County Note: This list is limited to individuallylisted rail-related resources or districts listed primarily for their significant role in rail transportation in Georgia. Numerous historic districts, such as the Lithonia Historic District in DeKalb County, contain rail-related resources, but do not derive their primary significance from these resources, and are therefore not included in this list. 154 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CHAPTER 28 A FINAL WORD Georgia's earliest railroads were constructed in the 1830s and 1840s to transport cotton from Piedmont plantations to Northern and European markets; to "capture the trade" of western states by routing it across Georgia; and to advance the commercial interests of Athens, Augusta, Macon, and Savannah. Canals and turnpikes quickly fell out of favor as the embryonic rail network developed. By 1850, Georgia had laid 643 miles of tracks (the most of any Southern state); had become the first Southern state to connect the Atlantic Coast to the western river system; and had formed the skeleton of a rail system that would eventually encompass some 7,600 miles. Before the coming of the railroads, all major cities were located on waterways, but that changed after the railroads began connecting to each other. One of these junctions was the result of an 1836 decision by the Georgia legislature to locate the southern terminus of the Western & Atlantic Railroad close to the Chattahoochee River. The place was first known, appropriately, as Terminus, but was soon given the name Marthasville. In 1845, it was renamed Atlanta. Atlanta's importance as a rail junction made it a primary target during the Civil War. Its capture by Sherman's troops in the late summer of 1864 helped to re-elect President Lincoln. From Atlanta, those troops marched towards the coast, ripped up the tracks of the Georgia Railroad and the Central Railroad, and twisted the rails so that the rebels could not quickly make repairs. Sherman's railroad-wrecking march across Georgia may have hastened the demise of the Confederacy, but in the long term it had no effect on the state's rail system. Railroad projects that had been delayed were restarted, and new projects were begun despite the difficulties imposed by Reconstruction and by the Panic of 1873. By 1880, railroads had propelled Atlanta past Savannah as the largest city in the state.428 Because so much of the state's capital had been sunk into land and slaves, much of the rebuilding and new construction had to be funded by Northern interests. Gradually, Northern investors gained control of Georgia's major railroads and at the end of the nineteenth century integrated them into large systems such as the Atlantic Coast Line, the Seaboard Air Line, the Louisville & Nashville, and the Southern Railway. But many small railroads were also built, leading to a peak mileage in 1918 that included dozens of lines that each served only a few towns. Hundreds of towns and villages were created by the railroads, especially during the three decades between 1870 and 1900. As new settlements were established along the rails, towns that had been bypassed by the railroads suffered, and many of them faded away. But the opposite occurred as well: sometimes the railroad disappeared but the town survived. An example is Stillmore, the Emanuel County town that once had rail lines running in six directions; it now has no railroad at all. One of the Stillmore railroads was George Brinson's Stillmore Air Line. Like so many other south Georgia railroads, it depended on lumber, turpentine, and other products of the forest, and after that forest was razed by the logging industry, the railroad lost its primary source of revenue. Many of the forest-dependent railroads failed, but others survived by being incorporated into longer lines. The western section of Brinson's Midland Railway, for example, became a branch of the Georgia & Florida, enabling it to remain operating until 1950. The Bruton & Pineora gained a few years by becoming a branch of the Central of Georgia, and the Georgia Pine Railway eventually became part of Seaboard Air Line. These are just a few examples. George Brinson's railroads are mostly gone, but what about those of his fellow rail barons? Henry Atkinson's Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic struggled for decades before being absorbed into the Atlantic Coast Line. Today, its core, a Y-shaped railroad linking Atlanta, Birmingham, and Waycross, remains in operation as a major part of the CSX system. John Skelton Williams' Georgia & Florida Railway was broken up over a long period that began in the 1930s, and today large parts of it are abandoned. His Seaboard Air Line on the Georgia coast is nearly gone as well. Today, the Altamaha River bridges of the G&F and the SAL still exist, but no trains have passed over either in decades. The histories of the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic, the Georgia & Florida, and the Seaboard Air Line involve numerous receiverships, reorganizations 155 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey and mergers, but that was the case for many railroads. It was common for tracks to be operated by companies working under receivership, often for long periods. Many miles were also operated under different names at different times as railroad ownership changed over the years. One trend that spanned most of the twentieth century was consolidation. In 1902, Atlantic Coast Line bought the Plant System. In 1926, ACL gained control of the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast, and in 1946 it purchased the AB&C entirely and absorbed it into its own operations. In 1967, Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line merged. In the 1960s and 1970s, Southern Railway acquired the Central of Georgia, the Georgia & Florida, the Georgia Northern, and the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia. In the 1980s, the Seaboard Coast Line, the Louisville & Nashville, and the Georgia Railroad and its subsidiaries were merged into CSX. These are just the big names; there were dozens of mergers at smaller scales. Late in the century, the trend towards consolidation reversed, and the two major systems began spinning off nonessential branches to be operated by shortline companies. For example, in 1987 CSX turned over its line between Marietta and McCaysville to a new shortline, the Georgia Northeastern, and in 1995 Norfolk Southern sold its Toccoa-Elberton line to the Hartwell Railroad Company. One of the steadiest components of the state's rail system is Atlanta, which remains a major rail hub. Of the dozen or so lines that have existed in the city, only two, the Atlanta & Florida line to Fort Valley and the Seaboard line to Birmingham, are gone. And of course, today the "Gate City of the South" is an airline hub as well as a rail center. Interestingly, as the railroads did decades before, the airlines have been consolidating. Atlanta-based Delta, for example, has 40 predecessor airlines in its family tree.429 Its most recent merger took place in 2008-2010, when it combined with Northwest Airlines. Savannah is still competing with Charleston to "capture the trade." Nearly two centuries after it first challenged the South Carolina city over trade routes into the interior, Savannah is at work deepening its harbor to accommodate the next generation of container ships and maintain its current lead over Charleston in container traffic. The State of Georgia's Western & Atlantic Railroad was a remarkable success, paying millions directly into state coffers and immeasurably more in developing the state's overall economy. This state investment created Atlanta, and like that city's public investment in its airport, it has paid off many times over. Although the W&A has been leased to private enterprise since 1870, it is still owned by the citizens of Georgia. Although millions of Georgians have never ridden a train, nearly all have seen one, most likely while waiting at a grade crossing. For those who live in places without railroads, having to stop for a train may not be not a concern, but that does not mean that railroads are irrelevant--the place might owe its existence to one. Perhaps evidence remains: a Depot Street or a Railroad Street, or maybe a Midland Road, Seaboard Drive, or similarly named avenue that marks the location of long-departed tracks. Perhaps nothing remains but a line of trees across a field or an unusually straight and level country road. ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc 156 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 157 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Lyerly, Chattooga County Endnotes 1 Mary G. Cumming, Georgia Railroad & Banking Company 1833-1945, An Historic Narrative (Augusta: Walton Printing Co., 1945), reproduced 1957 by Georgia Railroad & Banking Co., p. 11-12. 2 H. Roger Grant, The Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2014), p. 10-16; Linda Hewitt, Georgia's Great Undertaking; The Beginnings of the Western & Atlantic Railroad (ArbeitenZeit Media, 2014). 3 Milton Sydney Heath, Constructive Liberalism: The Role of the State in Economic Development in Georgia to 1860 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 258-60. 4 John F. Stover, The Railroads of the South 1865-1900; A Study in Finance and Control (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955), p. 4-5. 5 Forty-Sixth Report of the Railroad Commission of Georgia, 1919, p. 4-6; Georgia State Rail Plan 2015 Draft, Georgia Department of Transportation, Intermodal Division, March 2015, p. i. 6 Heath, p. 239. 7 Vicki Rozema, Footsteps of the Cherokees, 2nd ed., (Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 2007), p. 109. 8 John H. Goff, "Retracing the Old Federal Road," Placenames of Georgia: Essays of John H. Goff (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975), p. 349-60. 9 Brunswick-Glynn County Joint Planning Commission, Brunswick-Altamaha Canal Study, 1981, p. 21-24; Frederick B. Gates, Canals, New Georgia Encyclopedia, accessed June 24, 2015. 10 Russell Duncan, Freedom's Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedmen (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986), p. 3. 11 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 12-13. 12 Mark V. Wetherington, The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia 1860-1910 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994), p. 16. 13 Association of American Railroads, Chronology of Railroading in America, April 2014. 14 Eric Rutkow, American Canopy (New York: Scribner, 2012), p. 100. 15 Christian Wolmar, The Great Railroad Revolution; The History of Trains in America (New York: Public Affairs, 2012), p. 2. 16 Robert B. Gressette, A History of the Ocmulgee and Flint Railroad, Also Known as the Brisbane Railroad (Tifton, GA: RB Publishing Co.), p. 26. 17 Rutkow, p. 101. 18 Ibid., p. 100. 19 Ibid., p. 104. 20 Ibid. 21 J. R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), p. 310. 22 Ibid., p. 308. 23 Gressette, p. 30. 24 Stover, Railroads of the South, p. 56. 25 Cumming, p.12-15. 26 Robert H. Hanson, Safety-CourtesyService; History of the Georgia Railroad (Johnson City, TN: The Overmountain Press, 1996), p. 1. 27 James A. Ward, "J. Edgar Thomson and the Georgia Railroad, 1834-1847," Railroad History, No. 134, The Railway & Locomotive Historical Society, Spring 1976, p. 4-33. 28 Royce Shingleton, Richard Peters: Champion of the New South (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1985), p. 11. 29 Cumming, p. 21-22. 30 Heath, p. 270. 31 Warrenton, established about three decades earlier as the seat of Warren County, had developed along the Oakfuskee Trail, the main branch of the Upper Creek Trading Path, which ran from Augusta across Georgia to Alabama. The main line of the railroad did not pass through Warrenton because the town lay south of the stream divide which determined the course of the tracks in that area. 32 Ward, p. 20. 33 Ibid., p.4. 34 Shingleton, p. 16-17. 35 Russell Duncan, Entrepreneur for Equality: Governor Rufus Bullock, Commerce, and Race in Post-Civil War Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), p. 58. 36 Allen Daniel Candler and Clement Anselm Evans, Georgia; comprising sketches of counties, towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form, Vol. 1 (Atlanta: State Historical Association, 1906), p. 89. 37 Tom Downey, Planting a Capitalist South: Masters, Merchants, and Manufacturers in the Southern Interior, 1790-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), p. 201. 38 Heath, see pages 262-266 for a discussion of railroads with banking powers. 39 Macon, New Georgia Encyclopedia. 40 Joan Niles Sears, The First One Hundred Years of Town Planning in Georgia (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Co, 1979), p. 172. 41 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 61. 42 Ibid., p. 80. 43 Ward, p. 14. 44 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 62. Ross's Landing became Chattanooga in 1839. 45 Fulton County was not created until 1853. 46 Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs; A Chronicle of Its People and Events (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1969), originally published by Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1954, vol. 1, p. 148-49. 47 Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, "An American State-owned Railroad: The Western and Atlantic," Yale Review, 1906, p. 279. 48 Cassville, one of the few substantial towns along the W&A's route, had been established as the Cass County seat in the mid-1830s. While tradition has it that the townfolk prohibited locomotives because of their smoke and noise, the choice of rail location probably had more to do with topography. 49 Carroll Van West, Tennessee's Historic Landscapes; A Traveler's Guide (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995), p. 43. 50 Lucian Lamar Knight, A Standard History of Georgia and Georgians, Vol. 2 (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1917), p. 652. 51 James Houston Johnston, Western & Atlantic Railroad of the State of Georgia (Atlanta: Georgia Public Service Commission, 1931), p. 27-28. 158 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 52 Shingleton, p. 21. 53 Knight, p. 652. 54 Johnston, p. 29. 55 Ibid., p. 43. 56 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 156. 57 Heath, p. 268. 58 William Hedgepeth, "The Heart of Georgia," The New Georgia Guide, p. 430. 59 Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to 1860 (New York, Columbia University Press, 1908), p. 267. 60 Sears, p. 120. 61 Phillips, Eastern Cotton Belt, p. 268. 62 Cumming, p. 62. 63 From "Bishop Whipple's Southern Diary, 1843-1844," in Alan Gallay, ed., Voices of the Old South: Eyewitness Accounts, 1528-1861 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), p. 272. 64 Cowles' 1836 Greek Revival mansion still stands on a hilltop overlooking downtown Macon. Now called the Woodruff House, the NR-listed property is owned by Mercer University. 65 Mark V. Wetherington, Plain Folk's Fight, The Civil War and Reconstruction in Piney Woods Georgia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), p.39. 66 Gressette, p. 28. 67 John D. Fair, The Tifts of Georgia; Connecticut Yankees in King Cotton's Court (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2010), p. 46. 68 Phillips, Eastern Cotton Belt, p. 273-74. 69 Wetherington, Plain Folk's Fight, p. 40. 70 Gressette, p. 26. 71 Wetherington, Plain Folk's Fight, p. 40. 72 Gressette, p. 35-36. 73 Richard E. Prince, Central of Georgia and Connecting Lines (Millard, NE: privately published, 1976), p. 7; Acts of the State of Georgia, 1849-50, Milledgeville, 1850, p. 244-45. 74 Mark Cooper Pope III and J. Donald McKee, Mark Anthony Cooper: The Iron Man of Georgia; A Biography (Atlanta: Graphic Publishing Company, 2000), p. 73-76. 75 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 7. 76 Burke County, New Georgia Encyclopedia. 77 John S. Lupold, Columbus, Georgia, 1828-1978 (Columbus: Columbus Sesquicentennial, Inc., 1978), p. 16. 78 Heath, p. 263, 270. 79 John H. Martin, Columbus, Geo., from Its Selection as a "Trading Town" in 1827, to Its Partial Destruction by Wilson's Raid in 1865 (Columbus: Thos. Gilbert, 1874), p. 90, 115. 80 David E. Paterson, Frontier Link With the World: The Upson County Railroad (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998), p. 20. 81 Wayne Cline. Alabama Railroads (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997), p. 19-20; "L. C. and C. Railroad Report," American Railroad Journal and Mechanics' Magazine, vol. 11, December 1, 1840, p. 339. 82 Cline, p. 22-25. 83 Robert H. Hanson, The West Point Route; The Atlanta & West Point Rail Road and The Western Railway of Alabama (Forest, VA: TLC Publishing, 2006), p. 4-5. 84 Grant would later donate about 100 acres for the Atlanta public park that bears his name. 85 Van West, p. 40. 86 William Webb, Southern Railway System: An Illustrated History (Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 1986), p. 13. 87 Samuel Griswold Goodrich, A Pictorial Geography of the World, Comprising a System of Universal Geography (Boston: C.D. Strong, 1841), p. 312. On the Flint, steamboats could travel north to Albany, but the river was not always reliably navigable that far upstream. 88 American Railroad Journal and Mechanic's Magazine, April 29, 1839, p. 284-85; The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge, for the Year 1840 (Boston: David H. Williams, 1839), p. 250. 89 33rd Congress, 1st session, Senate Rep. Com. no. 110, February 17, 1854. 90 Ibid. 91 Kenneth Coleman, ed., A History of Georgia, 2nd ed. (Athens: University of Georgia Press), 1977, 1991, p. 161. 92 McDonald, also called Glenmore, was on the A&G about 11 miles southwest of present-day Waycross. It should not be confused with a later McDonald, now called Axson, on the Brunswick & Albany/ Brunswick & Western Railroad 23 miles northwest of Waycross. 93 Internal Revenue Record, Jan. 29, 1883, p. 37. 94 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 13. The Georgia & Florida Railroad of 1852-1859 should not be confused with the later railroad of the same name begun in 1906 and running from Augusta to Madison, Florida. 95 "Southwestern Railroad," Hill & Swayze's Confederate States Rail-Road & Steam-Boat Guide (Griffin, GA: Hill & Swayze, 1862), p. 54-55. 96 J. A. B. Besson, History of Eufaula, Alabama, the bluff city of the Chattahoochee. Online at Internet Archive. 97 H. David Stone, Jr., Vital Rails, The Charleston & Savannah Railroad and the Civil War in Coastal South Carolina (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2008), p.4-5. 98 Paterson, p. 5. 99 Pope and McKee, p. 85, 116. 100 Adiel Sherwood, A Gazetteer of Georgia, 4th ed. (Macon: S. Boykin, 1860), p. 3-4. 101 Shingleton, p. 75. 102 Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 27. 103 Association of American Railroads, Chronology of Railroading in America, April 2014. 104 Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 5, 105 Ibid., p. 14. 106 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 35. 107 Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Savannah in the Old South (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005), p. 244. 108 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 54. 109 Donald L. Grant, The Way It Was in the South, the Black Experience in Georgia (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1993), p. 280. 110 http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/02/news/ fortune500/wachovia_slavery, accessed March 12, 2015. 159 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 111 Eugene Alvarez, Travel on Southern Antebellum Railroads 1828-1860 (University of Alabama Press, 1974), p. 27-28. Alvarez's book contains dozens of travelers' descriptions of their rail-riding experiences, including the favorable reaction of Frederick Law Olmsted to the Central of Georgia line between Savannah and Macon. For more on antebellum railroads in Georgia, two books are recommended. In his Railroads of the Old South; Pursuing Progress in a Slave Society, Aaron Marrs examines the social and cultural history of early Southern railroads. Railroads in the African American Experience by Theodore Kornweibel, Jr. provides a detailed examination of slavery and the railroads. 112 Wetherington, The New South, p. 33. 113 Richard E. Prince, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad; Steam Locomotives, Ships, and History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966), reprint 2000, p. 22. 114 Shingleton, p. 81. 115 Wolmar, p. 61. 116 Stover, Railroads of the South, p. 5. 117 Wolmar, p. 100. 118 Robert R. Hodges, Jr., American Civil War Railroad Tactics (Osprey Publishing, 2009), p. 15-16. 119 Barry L. Brown and Gordon R. Elwell, Crossroads of Conflict; A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), p. 19-21. 120 Shingleton, p. 1. 121 Brown and Elwell, p. 98-99. 122 To see the battlefield area as it exists today, visit the Inman Park-Reynoldstown MARTA station and look east from the pedestrian bridge over the CSX rail line. 123 Brown and Elwell, p. 91-92. 124 Garrett, vol. 1, p. 633-34. The rolling mill stood alongside the tracks just east of Oakland Cemetery. 125 Michael K. Shaffer, "Civil War in Georgia, October 1864: The Battle of Allatoona Pass," ajc.com, October 4, 2014. 126 Hodges, p. 32. 127 Noah Andre Trudeau, Southern Storm: Sherman's March to the Sea (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 533. 128 Hodges, p. 39. 129 While dozens of factories and mills lay along the state's railroads, many did not. Examples are the factories at New Manchester and Roswell near Atlanta and Planters Factory on the Ocmulgee near Jackson. Their locations had been chosen because of the available water power. Sherman's men wrecked these too. 130 Trudeau, p. 533. 131 Ibid., p. 144. 132 Hal Steed, Georgia: Unfinished State (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), p. 135-36. 133 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 11. 134 Alan Conway, The Reconstruction of Georgia (University of Minnesota Press, 1966), p. 22. 135 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 12. 136 Van Wert, about a mile southeast of Rockmart, was established in 1838 as the seat of Paulding County. When Polk County was carved from Paulding and Floyd counties in 1851, Van Wert lost its county seat status to Dallas (Paulding County) and Cedartown (Polk County). 137 Pope and McKee, p. 87. 138 Alice E. Reagan, H. I. Kimball, Entrepreneur (Atlanta: Cherokee Publishing Co., 1983), p. 32-34. 139 George W. Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 76. 140 Reagan, p. 56. 141 Wetherington, Plain Folks Fight, p. 61. 142 Reports of Cases in Law and Equity, Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Georgia at Atlanta, vol. 43, 1872, p. 17. 143 Wetherington, The New South, p. 55. 144 Thomas Fetters, The Charleston & Hamburg: A South Carolina Railroad & An American Legacy (Charleston: The History Press, 2008), p. 144. 145 Report of Cases in Law and Equity, Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Georgia at Atlanta. Part of September Term, 1881. Volume LXVII, 1883. 146 J. C. Swayze, Hill & Swayze's Confederate States Rail-Road & Steam-Boat Guide (Griffin, GA: Hill & Swayze, Publishers, ca. 1863), p. 53. 147 Poor's Manual of the Railroads (New York: American Bank Note Company, 1872-3). 148 Paterson, p. 117-146. 149 Richard E. Prince, Georgia Railroad and West Point Route; Steam Locomotives and History (Privately published, Green River, Wyoming, 1962), p. 16. 150 Reagan, p. 110. 151 Duncan, Entrepreneur for Equality, p. 162. 152 Eric Foner, Reconstruction; America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988, Perennial Classics edition, 2002), p. 395. 153 Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 131. 154 Ibid., p. 125. 155 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 125. 156 Peter S. McGuire, "Athens and the Railroads: The Georgia and the Northeastern. Part 1," Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 1934), p. 13. 157 Cline, p. 75; Hanson, West Point Route, p. 12-13. 158 Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 149-50. 159 Ibid., p. 237. 160 Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 61. 161 Poor's Manual, 1889, p. 573; Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads, p. 377. 162 Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads, p. 375. 163 Ibid., p. 303. 164 Hanson, Georgia Railroad, p. 14-18. 165 Cumming, p. 90. 166 Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, 1877, p. 228-32. 167 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 18. 168 Wetherington, New South, p. 125. 169 Ibid. 170 Rutkow, p. 181. 171 Scott Reynolds Nelson, Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), p. 61. 172 Maury Klein, History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (New York: Macmillan, 1972), p. 76-77. 173 C. Vann Woodward, Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Louisiana State University Press, 1951), p. 122. 174 Nelson, p. 6, 180. 160 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 175 Maury Klein, The Great Richmond Terminal; A Study in Businessmen and Business Strategy (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1970). 176 Fairfax Harrison, A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company (Washington, D.C., 1901), p. 403. 177 The A&G consisted of a 237-mile main line from Savannah to Bainbridge, a 48-mile branch from DuPont (formerly Lawton) to Live Oak, Florida, a 58-mile branch from Thomasville to Albany, and extensions in Savannah to the Savannah & Charleston Railroad and to wharves on the Savannah River. 178 Peter McGuire, "Athens and the Railroads, Part 1," p. 25. 179 Peter S. McGuire, "Athens and the Railroads: the Northeastern Extension; the Macon and Northern; and the Georgia, Carolina, and Northern. Part 2," Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 18, no. 2 (June 1934) p. 118-124. 180 Broken Arrow was renamed Coal City and later renamed Wattsville. 181 Railway News, December 11, 1886. 182 Garrett, vol. 2, p. 160. 183 Robert Scott Davis, Jasper, New Georgia Encyclopedia, accessed December 26, 2014. 184 S. W. McCallie, A Preliminary Report on the Mineral Resources of Georgia, Bulletin no. 23 (Atlanta: Geological Survey of Georgia, 1910), p. 140. 185 Cary Franklin Poole, A History of Railroading in Western North Carolina (Johnson City, TN: Overmountain Press, 1995), p. 121; Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads, p. 375. 186 Wetherington, New South, p. 57. 187 Chipley was renamed Pine Mountain in 1958. 188 Commonwealth of Georgia, Vol. 11, part 2 (Atlanta: Georgia State Department of Agriculture, 1885), p. 302. 189 Wilber W. Caldwell, The Courthouse and the Depot: The Architecture of Hope in an Age of Despair; A Narrative Guide to Railroad Expansion and Its Impact on Public Architecture in Georgia, 1833-1910 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2001), p. 459. 190 Poor's Manual, 1889. 191 Ibid., 1891. 192 Klein, The Great Richmond Terminal, p. 173. 193 Poor's Manual, 1891. 194 Ibid., 1892. 195 Ian R. Bartky, Selling the True Time: Nineteenth-century Timekeeping in America (Stanford University Press, 2000), p. 261. 196 Stewart H. Holbrook, The Story of American Railroads (New York: Crown Publishers), 1947, p. 354. 197 Wolmar, p. 219. 198 The new Seaboard Air Line Belt Railway ran parallel to and north of the earlier belt line that was built to link the Georgia Pacific and Atlanta & Charlotte railroads. The section of line that ran south from Belt Junction to the Georgia Railroad at Inman Park, originally part of the main line, eventually became known as the Seaboard belt line while the Seaboard Air Line Belt Railway became part of the mainline. 199 Harrison, p. 1081-89. 200 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 19. 201 The M&NG's Blue Ridge-Murphy branch did not change gauge until late in 1897. 202 Burke Davis, The Southern Railway; Road of the Innovators (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), p. 197. Poole, p. 24. 203 Ronald D. Eller, Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880-1930 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982), p. 100; Gordon Sawyer, Northeast Georgia: A History (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2001), p.106. 204 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston, p. 149. 205 Poor's Manual, 1893, p. 118. 206 Stover, Railroads of the South, p. 202; Burke Davis, Southern Railway, p. 184. 207 Poor's Manual, 1895; Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, vol. 103 (L. K. Strouse, 1926). 208 Sears, p. 81. 209 Larry Goolsby, Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast (Atlantic Coast Line & Seaboard Air Line Railroads Historical Society, 2000), p. 2-3. Acts Passed by the General Assembly of Georgia, No. 465, approved October 24, 1887. 210 Sears, p. 72. 211 Cumming, p. 16-17. 212 E. Merton Coulter, p. 11. 213 Coulter, p. 52-63. 214 Steed, p. 274-75. 215 Coulter, p. 68. 216 Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name; the Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (New York: Anchor Books, 2009), p. 90. 217 Poor's Manual, 1893, p. 822-23. 218 Poor's Manual, 1893, p. 321. 219 John F. Stover, The Railroads of the South, p. 208. 220 Steed, p. 112. 221 Wolmar, p. 249. 222 Wetherington, New South, p. 57. 223 Stover, Railroads of the South, p. 250-253. 224 Burke Davis, p. 30. 225 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 42. The banking department was excluded from the new company and was liquidated in February 1896. 226 Harvey A. Levine et al., Small Railroads (Association of American Railroads, 1982), p. 238. 227 Railroad Commission of Georgia annual reports, 1895-1903. 228 Frank Pidcock, III, Rails, Quail & Ashburn Hill (privately published, 1988); Moultrie Observer, March 2, 2013. 229 C. T. Trowell and Lorraine Fussell, Exploring the Okefenokee; Railroads of the Okefenokee Realm (Douglas, GA: South Georgia College, 1998), p. 27. 230 Poor's Manual, 1889. 231 Brunswick, Georgia, and Glynn County 1895 (Brunswick: H.A. Wrench & Sons, 1895), Online at Internet Archive. 232 Sherwood, 1860, p. 92. 233 Mart A. Stewart, What Nature Suffers to Groe; Life, Labor, and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, 1680-1920 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2002), p. 209. 234 Buddy Sullivan, Early Days on the Georgia Tidewater: The Story of McIntosh County and Sapelo (Darien, GA: McIntosh County Board of Commissioners, 1990), p. 467-68; Poor's Manual, 1895, p. 407. 161 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 235 Alex LIchtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South (London: Verso, 1996), p. 112-13. 236 McNeill, p. 293. 237 www.census.gov/population/censusdata/ urpop0090.txt 238 Cumming, p. 90-91. 239 Klein, Louisville & Nashville, p. 307-08. 240 Railway Age, Feb. 23, 1900, p. 167. 241 Folks Huxford, History of Clinch County, Georgia (Macon: J. W. Burke Co., 1916), p. 85-86. 242 Goolsby, p. 12. 243 Ibid., p. 16. 244 Railroad Commission of Georgia, Annual Report, 1903, p. 11. 245 Railroad Gazette, December 1900, p. 806. 246 Bruton was an alternate spelling of Brewton. Pineora was in Effingham County on the Central mainline. 247 Les R. Winn, Ghost Trains & Depots of Georgia (1833-1933) (Chamblee, GA: Big Shanty Publishing Company, 1995), p. 246; Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 46; Railroad Commission of Georgia, 1902, p. 81. 248 Tom Gallo, Chattahoochee Valley Railway (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1999), p. 6. 249 Railway Age, March 15,1901, p. 252. 250 In 1896, the 58-mile Savannah & Western line from Meldrim to Lyons was leased from the S&W's parent Central of Georgia to the Georgia & Alabama Railway, soon to be incorporated into the Seaboard Air Line Railway. 251 Sears, p. 141. 252 Donald L. Grant, p. 214-15. 253 Glenn Hoffman, Building a Great Railroad; A History of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company (CSX Corporation, 1998), p. 10-11. 254 William E. Griffin, Jr., Atlantic Coast Line; Standard Railroad of the South (Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 2001), p. 4. 255 Griffin, p. 5-6. 256 Robert Wayne Johnson, Through the Heart of the South; The Seaboard Air Line Railroad Story (Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 1995), p. 17-22; Poor's Manual, 1902. 257 Roger Strauss III, Ed Breslin, and Hugh Van Dusen, America's Great Railroad Stations (New York: Viking Studio, 2011), p. x. 258 When Terminal Station was demolished in the early 1970s, the monument was moved to Atlanta's Peachtree Station. It stood at Peachtree Center for a time and now stands in front of Norfolk Southern's offices in midtown Atlanta. 259 Poor's Manual, 1903, p. 246, 284. 260 H. Roger Grant, Rails through the Wiregrass; A History of the Georgia & Florida Railroad (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006), p. 14. 261 Railway World, Sept. 8, 1905, p. 727. 262 Goolsby, p. 10. 263 Ibid., p. 14. 264 Ibid., p. 15-17. 265 Twenty-Ninth Report of the Railroad Commission of Georgia, From October 15th 1900, to October 15th, 1901, Atlanta, 1901, p. 9, 17; H. Roger Grant, Rails Through the Wiregrass, p. 15-16. 266 Pidcock, p. 11. 267 Railroad Gazette, July 1, 1904, p. 104-06. 268 Operating in Walton County in the early twentieth century, the Monroe Railroad should not be confused with the earlier railroad of the same name operating in Monroe County from 1833 to 1845 269 McGuire, Athens and the Railroads, Part 1, p. 14. 270 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston, p. 135-36. 271 Complicating the situation somewhat are two Southern Railway lines. The Southern Railway Belt Line on the northeast side of downtown Atlanta was originally the mainline of Southern predecessor Atlanta & Richmond Air-Line Railway. Another Southern predecessor, the Georgia Pacific Railway, constructed a belt line parallel with the Seaboard belt line on the north side; it later became Southern's main line. 272 Kincaid Herr, Louisville & Nashville Railroad 1850-1963 (Louisville: L&N Public Relation Department, 1964), p. 144-150. 273 Richard L. Hillman, Glover Steam Locomotives: The South's Last Steambuilder (Forest Park, IL: Heimburger House, 1996), p. 11. 274 Poor's Manual, 1890. 275 George W. Hilton and John F. Due, The Electric Interurban Railways in America (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1960), p. 8-9. 276 H. Roger Grant, Rails Through the Wiregrass, p. 38. Grant notes that when the Sparks Western Railway was chartered in 1908 "rumors flew that the project would be an electric interurban." The Dahlonega venture began with the Gainesville & Dahlonega Electric Railway, incorporated in 1901, which reportedly managed to complete a few miles of tracks at Gainesville and New Holland but failed soon afterwards. 277 H. Roger Grant, "Traction Odyssey," Railway Quarterly, Winter 1982. 278 Mary Beth Reed et al., Historic Streetcar Systems in Georgia; Context and Inventory (Stone Mountain, GA: New South Associates, for Georgia Department of Transportation, 2012). Online at GDOT website; See also Streetcars in Georgia at www.railga.com. 279 Edmund Keilty, The Short Line Doodlebug: Galloping Geese and Other Railcritters, Interurbans Special 99 (Glendale, CA: Interurban Press, 1988), p. 39-43. 280 Goolsby, p. 16. 281 The Thomasville branch consisted of the former Tifton, Thomasville & Gulf and the former Tifton & Northeastern. 282 Woodward, p. 300. 283 Still standing, the office building is around the corner from the statue of Henry Grady, prophet of the New South. 284 Goolsby, p. 44. 285 Ibid., p. 23. 286 Ibid., p. 40-43. 287 "Georgia & Florida Railroad," The Historical Guide to North American Railroads, 2nd ed. (Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Books, 2000), p. 174-75. 288 H. Roger Grant, Rails through the Wiregrass, p. 6-22. 289 Pinebloom was a flag station on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad a mile east of Willacoochee. Its population in 1896 consisted of about 200. The Gray Brothers saw mill was its largest enterprise. 290 Caldwell, p. 444-45. 291 Railway Review, February 2, 1918, p. 182. 292 Sullivan, p. 552. 162 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 293 John E. Lancaster, Judge Harley and His Boys: The Langdale Story (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003), p. 61. 294 Railway Age Gazette, Sept. 8, 1911. 295 Interstate Commerce Commission Reports, Vol.119, 1927. Summary at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/ICC valuations/Hawkinsville and Florida Southern Railway, accessed Feb. 14, 2015. 296 Cline, p. 235-38. 297 James Ira Deese Miller, A Guide Into the South, Vol. 1 (Atlanta: Index Printing Co., 1910), p. 345. 298 Moody's Manual of Railroads and Corporation Securities, 1914, p. 495. 299 Sears, p. 104. 300 Federal Reporter, Volume 251, October 1918, p. 161-162. 301 http://www.georgiagenealogy.org/ wilkinson/irwintonrailway.html 302 Lucius Beebe, Mixed Train Daily (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1947), p. 46. 303 "Our Past Locations in Waycross," Childers YMCA in Waycross, http:// ymcawaycross.com/our-locations. Accessed Aug. 30, 2014. 304 John F. Stover, American Railroads (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961, Midway Reprint, 1976), p. 177. 305 Ibid., p. 179. 306 Thomasville Daily Times Enterprise, July 29, 1926, p. 8. 307 Poor's Manual, 1922, p. 1659. 308 Ibid., 1923. 309 New York Lumber Trade Journal, July 15, 1915, p. 35. 310 The Excavating Engineer, April 1917, p. 265. 311 Fabian Lange et al., "The Impact of the Boll Weevil, 1892-1932," The Journal of Economic History, 69(3), p. 685-718. 312 Stilgoe, Metropolitan Corridor; Railroads and the American Scene (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 85. 313 Mildred Gwin Andrews, The Men and the Mills: A History of the Southern Textile Industry (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1987), p. 233-34. 314 Stewart, p. 251. 315 Albert A. Montgomery and Robert L. Chaffin, The Pulp and Paper Industry and Georgia's Forest Resource: An Economic Outlook, Georgia Forest Research Paper no. 26 (Georgia Forestry Commission, 1982), p. 5. 316 The American Fertilizer Hand Book (Philadelphia: Ware Bros. Co., 1917), section 2, p. 11-13. 317 Wolmar, p. 290. 318 William D. Middleton et al., Encyclopedia of North American Railroads (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), p. 1119. 319 U. S. Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Return of the Railroads to Private Ownership, p. 2726. 320 The Etowah community connected with the E&D RR should not be confused with the antebellum factory town on the Etowah RR, which was about 15 miles to the east. 321 Garrant was later renamed West Green. 322 Fincher was just south of the state line. 323 Goolsby, p. 18. 324 This section was abandoned when the Brinson Railroad purchased the SVRR. 325 H. Roger Grant, Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston, p. 136-151. 326 Middleton, Smerk, and Diehl, Encyclopedia of North American Railroads. 327 A ruling grade is usually the steepest grade, but not always. Other factors such as train momentum and the availability of helper engines also come into play. 328 Vintage Rails, July/Aug 1998, p. 84. 329 The "Eye," near Farner, Tennessee, is a loop where the railroad passes over itself. It still exists. 330 Among the many victims was Southern Railway president Samuel Spencer, killed in a Virginia train collision in 1906. 331 George Bibel, Train Wreck: The Forensics of Rail Disasters (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012); Ruddy Ellis, "Gwinnett Rail: A Different Type of `Air Line,'" Southeastern Railway Museum, at http://www.srmduluth. org/Features/gwinnettrail.htm. Accessed Sept. 1, 2014. 332 Hanson, West Point Route, p. 3-4. 333www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/ features/timeline/streamliners/. Accessed May 29, 2015. 334 John F. Stover, American Railroads, 2nd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997, p. 78. 335 Coleman, p. 274. 336 Wolmar, p. 300. 337 Joyce Shaw Peterson, American Automobile Workers, 1900-1933 (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1987), p. 2. 338 Tammy Ingram, Dixie Highway: Road Building and the Making of the Modern South, 1900-1930 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014), p. 155, 160. The Georgia Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, and the Georgia Historical Society are currently (2015) partnering on a historical context study for the Dixie Highway. The project is being coordinated by New South Associates. 339 Writers' Program, Work Projects Administration, Georgia; A Guide to its Towns and Countryside (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1940), p. 81. 340 Beebe, p. 49. 341 "Railroad Receiverships since 1876," in The Financial Review, Annual-1921 (New York: William B. Dana Company, 1921), p. 133. 342 A surviving locomotive from the railway can be seen at the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning. 343 Pullman's Atlanta facility, now known as Pullman Yard, it is at the time of this writing, vacant. 344 www.fortvalleyusa.com/peach-capitol. cfm 345 McQuigg et al., Central of Georgia Railway (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1998), p. 65. 346 Garrett, vol. 2, p. 796. 347 In the 1970s, the almost forgotten original street level was resuscitated as an entertainment district called Underground Atlanta. 348 The 8-mile section from Thomaston to the peach orchards at Crest was sold to Central of Georgia. 349 Mata was a mile south of Byromville; Methvins was in eastern Sumter County. 350 A Short History of U. S. Freight Railroads, Background Papers, Association of American Railroads, May 2015, p. 2. 351 Welsh et al., The Cars of Pullman (Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2010), p. 6. 163 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 352 Robert A. Ciucevich, Tybee Island: The Long Branch of the South (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2005), p. 62. 353 Writers' Program, Georgia, A Guide, p. 81. 354 Railway Quarterly, Fall 1982. 355 Keilty, p. 39-43. 356 At the time, Twin City was two separate towns: Summit and Graymont. 357 Mike Schafer and Joe Welsh, Streamliners: History of a Railroad Icon (St. Paul, MN: MBI Publishing, 2002), p. 10-15; Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 22. 358 John F. Stover, American Railroads, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 201. 359 Hoffman, p. 209. 360 Vintage Rails, Jan-Feb 1999, p. 31. 361 Ed Kelly, "A Life in the Day of the Central: James Deason," The Right Way, Central of Georgia Railway Historical Society, July-Sept. 2005, p. 8. 362 William E. Griffin, Jr., Seaboard Air Line Railway; the Route of Courteous Service (Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 1999), p. 108. 363 W. Graham Claytor, Jr., "The Stage is Set," Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 74. 364 Louisville & Nashville Railroad president James B. Hill, quoted in Klein, Louisville & Nashville, p. 459-60. 365 Wolmar, p. 324. 366 Ibid., p. 303. 367 Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 24. One passengermile equals hauling one passenger one mile. 368 Association of American Railroads, Chronology of Railroading in America, April 2014. 369 McQuigg et al., p. 7. 370 Dain L. Schult, Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis; A History of the "Dixie Line" (Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 2002), p. 164. 371 Belmont was a coaling station at the present-day intersection of GA 60 and GA 332, about three miles up the line from Talmo. 372 Kevin EuDaly et al., The Complete Book of North American Railroading (Minneapolis: MBI Publishing, 2009), p. 296. 373 Bob Johnston et al., The Art of the Streamliner (New York: MetroBooks, 2001), p. 54. 374 Jim Cox, Rails Across Dixie: A History of Passenger Trains in the American South (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2011), p. 151. 375 Ibid., p. 186. 376 Charles F. Phillips, Jr., "Railroad Mergers: Competition, Monopoly and Antitrust," 19 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1 (1962), http:// scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol19/ iss1/2 377 Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Wikipedia, accessed January 15, 2015. 378 Harold H. Martin, William Berry Hartsfield: Mayor of Atlanta (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978), p. 62. 379 Prince, Central of Georgia, p. 50. 380 "Coast Line + Seaboard 1957 Consolidation Study," Trains, February 2005. 381 Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 28. 382 Robert M. Soule and Timothy R. Andrews, "The Parked Locomotive," Rail Classics, July, 1981. 383 Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 26. 384 Vintage Rails, July/Aug 1998, p. 77. 385 Stilgoe, p. xii. 386 Vintage Rails, July/Aug 1998, p. 31. 387 History of the Railway Post Office, http:// www.eiu.edu/eiutps/clerks/TeachRPO_ History.php. Accessed 8/30/2014. 388 Great Northern Nekoosa Corporation, Lehman Brothers Collection, Harvard Business School, http://www.library.hbs.edu/ hc/lehman/company.html?company=great_ northern_nekoosa_corporation. Accessed 9/2/2014. 389 Tom Carper, Foreword in Amtrak; An American Story (Washington, D. C.: National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 2011), p. 6. 390 Cox, p. 241; Griffin Smith, Jr., "Waiting for the Train," Texas Monthly, August, 1974. 391 Cox, p. 376; 1971 System Map, http:// history.amtrak.com/archives/system-mapjuly-1971. 392 James W. McClellan, "Change," Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 71. 393 Association of American Railroads, The Impact of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, May 2015. 394 Henry W. Vanderleest and Karolina Bota, "Railroad Deregulation," in The Freeman, Freeman Foundation for Economic Education, October 1, 1985. 395 Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 44. 396 Ibid. 397 Ibid., p. 47. 398 www.csx.com, accessed June 23, 2015. 399 The meaning of the "X" is a matter of dispute. Some say it means "multiplied," while others say it refers to a crossing of two railroads. Officially it stands for nothing in particular. 400 Poole, p. 126. 401 The line originally ran through St. Clair; it was re-routed by a few miles to run through Torbit instead. 402 Frank Crowe and Tommy Thornhill, "Pig Trails of Southwest Georgia, Part I," Lines South, the Publication of the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line Railroads Historical Society, Inc., Vol. 18, No. 4, 4th Quarter 2001. 403 Trains, Nov. 1990, p. 44; Jim Boyd, Outbound Trains; In the Era Before the Mergers (Erin, Ontario, Canada: Boston Mills Press, 2005), p. 128; "GA Mixed Nixed," Rail Classics, November 1983, p. 4. 404 State Rail Plan, 2009, p. 28. 405 McClellan, p. 71. 406 Georgia Department of Transportation, Georgia Railroads (Map), 1985. Independent shortlines are those not owned by any of the majors. Not included here are switching lines such as the Savannah State Docks Railroad, industrial lines such as those operated for Georgia Power Company, and lines on military bases. 407 In some cases, the lines were sold to Georgia DOT, which leased them to shortline operators. 408 Association of American Railroads, State Rankings, www.aar.org/data-center/ railroads-states#state/GA, accessed July 17, 2015. 409 Georgia Statewide Freight and Logistics Plan, Rail Modal Profile (Office of Planning, Georgia Department of Transportation, 2013), p. 2-1. 410 For legal reasons, various railroad companies continue to exist, mostly on paper, as subsidiaries of larger companies. Examples are the Central of Georgia Railroad, Alabama Great Southern Railroad, and Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railway, each of which is part of Norfolk Southern. 164 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 411 During most of their history, the two lines belonged to Central of Georgia, followed by Norfolk Southern. 412 McNeill, p. 311. 413 State Rail Plan 2009 (Atlanta: Georgia Department of Transportation, 2009), p. 25. 414 A third route, the Palmetto, runs from Savannah to New York. Savannah is its only station within Georgia and the route has little mileage within the state. 415 Amtrak: An American Story (National Railroad Passenger Corporation, 2011), p. 86. 416 Railway Age, October 14, 2013. 417 John C. Inscoe, "Georgia in 1860," New Georgia Encyclopedia. 418 Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 12, 2014. 165 | Georgia's Railroads: 1833 to 2015 | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey VISUAL GLOSSARY 166 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey BASIC RAILROAD ANATOMY This study generally refers to an ALIGNMENT as the precise, physical location of a given railroad's railbed, comprised of its built-up embankment which carries or carried the rails, ties, and ballast. A railroad's CORRIDOR is generally referred to as the rights-of-way through which it passed, and LINE is generally referred to as the combined physical and corporate entity that is or was a railroad company. Tie Plate Railbed Rails Ties Ballast 167 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Commerce, Jackson County (Photo courtesy of Library of Congress) The following terms are used in this study and/or may help investigators understand railroad operations or physical components they are viewing in the field. Visual Glossary A ABANDONMENT: The complete cessation of service, operations, and maintenance of a railroad (usually a branch line) for which discontinuance permission has been granted by an appropriate federal or state agency (such as the U.S. Department of Transportation's Surface Transportation Board). Timber abutment of trestle in Eatonton (Putnam County) ABUTMENT: The structural foundation supports at the ends of a bridge, supporting the bridge superstructure and typically also serving, at the same time, as a retaining wall for the built-up railbed and sometimes for a stream embankment. These supports can be in the form of piers, beams, or retaining walls, can be variously constructed of timbers, bricks, stones, or poured concrete, and they may also consist of a variety or combination of these materials elements. Bridge abutments are often designed and built with integrated wing walls. ASH PIT: A pit, located below track level in a locomotive servicing area, which is used for receiving residue coal ash and cinders from a steam locomotive's firebox and ash pan. Most ash pits were lined with brick or concrete. Also called "cinder pit." Concrete abutments for bridge over Dry Creek, Oakman vicinity (Gordon County) Ash Pit ASPECT: Most railway semaphores (see below) and signal lights have the ability to display several different positions or colors (for example, red and green). An "aspect" is the term for any one such possible color or position. Masonry abutment of ashlar stone blocks, McCaysville vicinity (Fannin County) Aspect, Wray vicinity (Irwin County) AUTOMATIC BLOCK SIGNAL (ABS): A system of trackside signals activated by the movement of trains over or past a mechanical or electronic detecting device. 168 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Automatic Block Signal, Gay vicinity (Meriwether County) Remnant ballast of abandoned Central "R-line" near Pine Mountain (Harris County) Bents of approach trestle to Altamaha River bridge (Jeff Davis County) Automatic block signals, Fairburn vicinity (Fulton County) B BALLAST: Material placed on a railroad roadbed to hold the ties in place, and to aid in uniform drainage. Crushed rock (from a quarry) is used on routes with the heaviest traffic. Gravel ("pit-run ballast") is also frequently used, and cinders were often used as ballast during the steam locomotive years. BALLOON TRACK: A reverse loop of track, occasionally constructed in yards or at the ends of branch lines to allow a locomotive to be turned around. BELT/BELTINE: A relatively short railroad alignment within and/or around an urban area and connecting with one or more mainline railroads. BENT: An intermediate support pier of a trestle, typically consisting of a row of vertical timber piles, with cross-bracing and a horizontal cap. BLIND SIDING: A railroad siding without a method of communication to a dispatcher. This condition rendered such sidings "blind" within larger rail system operations and potentially limited their usefulness. The advent of radio communications largely eliminated this situation. BLOCK: On railroad lines equipped with signals, a "block" is generally the segment of track between two signal placements. Traffic control systems (manual or automatic) work by authorizing trains to occupy specific blocks. BLOCK SIGNALS: A light or semaphore signal or series of signals, which control the movement of trains through a block. Automatic block signals (ABS) are most common. BOARD: A fixed signal indication (such as a "red board" to order a stop) that regulates railroad traffic. Some of the other types of boards are called slow boards, order boards, and clear boards. BRANCH LINE: A secondary railway line, usually diverging from a main line and extending to a terminus at a town or industrial site. BUGGY TRACK: In a yard, a short holding or storage track for locomotives or other specialized rolling stock or equipment that does not carry freight, such as a caboose. Quarry branch line junction from Central of Georgia, Junction City (Talbot County) BUNKER: A bin, usually elevated above track level, used for storing and dispensing coal for steam locomotives. Combination board in Coolidge (Thomas County) 169 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Locomotive at left on buggy track near entrance to Albany yard (Dougherty County) C CLASS: For industry reporting purposes, railroads in the United States are categorized according to size, or class. Class I railroads are the largest and, as of 2014, have operating revenues above $289 million. Class II railroads have operating revenues between $23 million and $289 million, and Class Ill railroads have operating revenues of less than $23 million. CLASSIFICATION YARD: A freight yard where trains are made up or broken up by moving cars from track to track with a switcher locomotive, or by means of a hump. A "hump" is a built-up rise or hill that enables utilization of the force of gravity to assist with directing train cars and sorting trains. Hence, a rail yard that employs a hump is often referred to as a "hump yard". COALING STATION: A structure for storing coal and transferring it into steam locomotive tenders. COMMON CARRIER: A rail company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport. 1926 Central of Georgia concrete coaling tower in Raymond (Coweta County) CONSIST: A term referring to the aggregation of cars making up a particular train. CONSOLIDATION: The merger, acquisition, or union of corporate railroad entities. CONTINUOUS RAIL: Rail lengths which have been welded together to form a very long single rail, allowing the virtual elimination of rail joints. Also known as Continuous Welded Rail (CWR) or Ribbon rail. CROSSING: An intersection between two railway tracks on the same level. Welded rail on main line track at Dry Branch (Twiggs County) CROSSOVER: An arrangement of trackwork and switches to enable trains to cross from one parallel track to another. CTC (CENTRALIZED TRAFFIC CONTROL): A system of train dispatching using remotely-controlled signals and track switches, allowing one central location to control train movement over substantial distances of track. Crossover between double tracks, Carterville vicinity (Bartow County) Crossing at Helena (Telfair County) CUT SPIKE: The most common type of rail fastener in use. It is a steel, nail-like device with a flat shank, a chisel end that is driven into a wood crosstie, and a head that hooks over the rail base to hold it in place on the crosstie. CUT: An excavated section through a hill so the tracks can remain as level as possible. Cut Spikes 170 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Concrete pipe culvert, Mt. Vernon vicinity (Montgomery County) Brick culvert, The Rock vicinity (Upson County) Concrete arched culvert in Willacoochee vicinity (Atkinson County) CULVERT: A passageway or pipe beneath a track grade that allows for water drainage. A culvert may be constructed of concrete, brick, stone, or metal. Concrete culvert near Barin Quarry in Columbus vicinity (Muscogee County) Brick and concrete culvert, Forsyth vicinity (Monroe County) Stone and timber culvert, Griffin vicinity (Spalding County) Stone culvert, The Rock vicinity (Upson County) 171 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Antebellum stone culvert at Pecan in Fort Gaines vicinity (Clay County) D DEPOT: A building used as a station for rail passengers and/or freight; the term is typically used for relatively small facilities. A variety of factors influenced the design and appearance of these iconic buildings. (a) (a) Combination depots: Most of the state's depots are located in small towns (or in towns that were small before suburban growth). Small towns usually had so-called combination depots, which combined freight and passenger functions in a single building. Typically these included a freight room, passenger waiting rooms, and an office for the depot agent. The buildings were almost always rectangular with the long side parallel to the tracks. The freight rooms had large sliding doors on both the track side and street side. In south Georgia there was often a covered open-air freight platform attached to the freight room. An example of a combination depot at Lavonia. Freight room is on left. Depot agent's office and passenger waiting rooms are on right. (b) Separate freight and passenger depots: Larger cities often had separate buildings for passengers and freight. In some cities served by two or more railroad companies, a "union" passenger depot might be built. Not all railroads participated in these arrangements; some continued to maintain their own stations. (b) (c) Two-story depots: Two-story depots are rare in rural Georgia. Depending on the location, the upper floor was used as living quarters for the depot agent, offices for railroad officials, a telegraph office, or as an "interlocking tower" to control switches and signals. Multi-story depots were most common in the largest cities and those medium-sized cities with more than one railroad line, such as Waycross, Thomasville, Tifton, Fitzgerald, and West Point, where examples still exist. (d) Materials: Most Georgia depots were constructed of wood or brick. Stone was also used in the northern half of the state, with examples found in Ringgold, Tunnel Hill, Chickamauga, Crawford, Forsyth, Jonesboro, and Stone Mountain. This 1899 Central of Georgia depot at Forsyth accommodated passengers only; a separate building handled freight. (c) (e) Standard Designs: To minimize expenses, railroad companies frequently used standard designs for their depots, especially those in small towns. There might be different sizes or classes to fit the particular city size or the expected volume of shipments, and some variation in materials and ornamental features might be allowed, but most communities received the standard depot. A visitor traveling to all of the existing depots along a particular rail line today, however, may find that most do not appear to follow a single standard. This can be due to the line having some of its depots inherited from a predecessor road, from replacements based on a later standard, or from major alterations (or accumulated minor changes) to particular depots. Two-story Georgia Railroad depot at Conyers. Many depots were replaced after fires, and the new buildings typically reflected the architectural fashions of the period in which they were built, not a standard design that may have become outmoded. A number of buildings were expanded in ways that obscured the earlier appearance, and the opposite also occurred when buildings became smaller due to partial demolition. The depot in Cartersville is an example; it lost its huge freight warehouse in the 1970s which resulted in a radical change in appearance. 172 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey In larger cities, the railroad companies did not attempt standard designs, preferring to work with architects to produce distinctive stations that would become landmarks. Often joining with other railroads to construct union depots, they created the monumental passenger stations still seen in a few Georgia cities today. (f) Style and Function: For the most part, large railroad terminals and union stations were individual and relatively monumental building projects. Therefore, although these prominent buildings incorporated elements and functionality common to all railroad stations, they were in fact local or regional landmarks designed by notable architects, rather than simply utilitarian railroad buildings. As such, they are unique, architect-designed, high-style public building projects rather than representative examples of typical railroad depot types and styles once commonly found throughout Georgia. As individual projects, these larger stations often conformed to the architectural styles popular during the building's period of construction. The stylistic influences and typologies of more basic depots are more reflective of typical railroad depot architecture in Georgia, and illustrate the details and forms that were repeated at numerous locations around the state, particularly since they were usually constructed from or adapted from one of the rail company's standard template designs. The architectural traits of these buildings are primarily functional and utilitarian but often incorporated some applied ornament, such as brackets, if not a particular identified style. One stylistic trend is notable. At the end of the nineteenth century and during the first two decades of the twentieth, several railroads used a depot design approach sometimes called Mission-style or, more preferably, Spanish Revival. Appearing on depots in towns as small as Barnesville and as large as Atlanta, it celebrated the Spanish colonial heritage of the southernmost states. (g) Segregation: Beginning in the 1890s, railroads were forced by southern states to maintain separation of the races in stations and passenger cars. It was not until November 25, 1955, when the Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation on buses and trains and in railroad stations, that the separate facility policy began to crumble. Desegregation was not immediate. While the "White" and "Colored" signs over the doors might have been removed, African-Americans were often wary of entering the white waiting room. Old procedures remained in use for a time. Evidence of the decades of segregation is sometimes obvious on exteriors, especially where there are two doors when one would suffice. The two doors may be on the same facade or around a corner, depending on the station design. Because some depots were extensively remodeled over the years, it may be difficult to see the former double waiting-room configuration inside the building. (g) ABC depot at LaGrange. (From: Sanborn map of LaGrange, 1921. Full map is online at Digital Library of Georgia, Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps). 173 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey (d) The 1840s Macon & Western depot at Forsyth is constructed of stone. (e) ABC depots: (L) Montezuma depot; (R) Mauk depot (f) Macon Terminal Station (f) Thomasville depot D Former rail docks at west end of Gloucester St. in Brunswick (Glynn County) Derail device, Elko (Houston County) DERAIL: A device placed over the rail near the beginning of a siding or spur, to derail a car that would otherwise inadvertently roll from the siding and out onto the main line. DIVISION: An operating sub-unit of a railroad, managed by a "superintendent." DOCK: A platform extending from shore over water and used to provide rail access to a boat or ship; a pier. DUAL GAUGE: Track laid with three or more rails, to accommodate both standard and narrow-gauge equipment. E ENGINEHOUSE: A building in which locomotives are serviced. F Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse, Savannah (Chatham County) FLAG: To have someone (not part of the train crew) cause a train to stop by waving a flag or one's arms. FLAG STOP: A station at which trains stop only when signaled. FREIGHT HOUSE: A station facility along a rail line for receiving and delivering freight. ACL freight depot in Tifton (Tift County) 174 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Rail grade at Chula (Tift County) Remnant rail grade at Vanceville (Tift County) G GAUGE: The distance between the rails measured between the inside edges of the running rails. GRADE: The rate of elevation change of a track's surface over a given distance and usually expressed as a percentage of rise or fall from level. The term is also generally used to describe a rail alignment at a given location that consists of cuts, built-up sections, and/or follows natural contour. GRADE CROSSING (ALSO LEVEL CROSSING OR CROSSING AT GRADE): An intersection between a roadway and a railroad line at the same level. GRADE CROSSING SIGNAL: The familiar warning device for vehicles utilizing roadways at select railroad grade crossings. The signal typically comprises a crossbuck which reads "RAILROAD CROSSING" and flashing red lights. Dependent on roadway and rail traffic conditions, grade crossing signals may also incorporate a gate and/or a mast arm that contains additional warning lights. Grade crossing at Richland (Stewart County) Typical grade crossing signals with gates, Cuthbert (Randolph County) 175 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Typical grade crossing signal with gate and mast arm, Fort Valley (Peach County) Head house of Central of Georgia passenger station in Savannah (Chatham County) Atlanta Terminal Station interlocking tower (Fulton County) Double-stacked Intermodal transport, Rebecca (Turner County) H HEAD HOUSE: The part of a train station which does not house tracks or platforms. Typically refers to a large passenger terminal containing ticket counters, waiting rooms, and baggage facilities. HIGH IRON: Slang term for a railway main track; so called because the rail used on this track is generally heavier than that used for sidings or yards. I INTERCHANGE: A junction point among two or more railroads and where cars may be transferred from one line to the other. INTERLOCKING: A manually or automatically controlled mechanical or electrical system to control switches and signals at a siding or junction, once used at busy locations to ensure smooth train movement and prevent collisions. The arrangement Interchange at Arlington (Calhoun County) of switches, signals, and signal appliances are interconnected so that their movements must succeed each other in proper sequence. INTERLOCKING TOWER: A building used to house the operator of a manually controlled interlocking; the signals and alignments were controlled by levers in the tower. INTERMODAL: A term used to describe the carrying of non-rail transportation equipment-such as highway truck trailers and overseas shipping containers--on freight trains. The transport of truck trailers on trains is called "piggyback" service. INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION (I.C.C.): The U.S. Government regulating body which had jurisdiction over railroad matters. Superseded by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Surface Transportation Board in 1996. INTERURBAN: A streetcar/trolley-style car used for (generally) passenger service between cities and towns, as opposed to streetcar service within a town. The term is also applied to such transportation systems and service in general. 176 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey L LADDER TRACK: A track connecting a number of parallel sidings or stubs in a yard or terminal. LOW IRON: Slang term for yard or siding tracks, as opposed to "high iron." M Ladder track, Blakely (Early County) MAIN LINE: Term describing a through line of railroad trackage, typically hosting longer-distance trains and a greater traffic density than branch lines. Double-tracked main line with concrete ties, Waycross/Hebardville (Ware County) N NARROW GAUGE: Term for railroad track having a rail gauge of less than the North American standard of 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches- -typically mining, industrial, and scenic railways using a gauge of either 3 feet or 2 feet. "Low iron" siding alongside "high iron" main line, Osierfield (Irwin County) P PAPER RAILROAD: A railroad company which exists as a legal entity but does not own any track, locomotives, or rolling stock. Historically, a paper railroad referred to a prospective railroad company in the process of incorporation and seeking capital to begin construction. Passing siding, Lynn vicinity (Decatur County) PASSING SIDING: A siding used to allow trains to pass one another, in the same or opposite direction. PIER: Term for an intermediate support substructure in a multispan bridge; see also bent. Also a platform extending from shore over water and used to provide rail access to a boat or ship; a dock. Ashlar stone piers of Western & Atlantic's old Etowah River bridge (Bartow County) PLATFORM: Any raised or supported flat surface designed to serve some specific purpose. An additional explanatory term is used with the word to identify the rail use; for example: brake platform, end platform, passenger platform, etc. 177 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Concrete freight platform at Arlington Depot (Calhoun County) Embankment of active railbed at Nankipooh in Columbus vicinity (Muscogee County) Remnant of abandoned railbed through Kirkland community (Atkinson County) R Remnant cut of abandoned railbed south of Hurricane Creek (Jeff Davis County) RAILBED (OR ROADBED): The graded surface (usually raised) upon which railroad track is laid. RAIL ANCHOR: (1) a device attached to the rail that bears against the side of the crosstie to control longitudinal rail movement. Certain types of rail fasteners also act as a rail anchor and control longitudinal rail movement by exerting a downward clamping force on the upper surface of the rail base. (2) A track component driven or clipped on the base of the rail and against the side of a crosstie that resists longitudinal rail movement. Rail anchor RED BOARD: Slang term for a "stop" signal. RESTRICTED TRACK: A track section where train speeds are reduced by orders, often temporarily. RIGHT-OF-WAY: Term describing the linear parcel of railroad-owned land containing the track, roadbed, stations, and other features. RIP TRACK: A yard track where equipment is stored while awaiting repairs, or where minor car repairs are performed. Central of Georgia Railway roundhouse in Savannah (Chatham County) Red board at crossing in Hazlehurst (Jeff Davis County) ROUNDHOUSE: A building (usually arc-shaped) designed to house locomotives during servicing. The roundhouse customarily faced a turntable which was used to direct a locomotive to and from the appropriate roundhouse track. 178 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Former section house for railroad crew housing at Rehobeth (Harris County) Disused semaphore at West Point (Troup County) S SECTION HOUSE: A typically small building or house-like structure located near or next to a section of railroad used either for housing railroad workers or for storing and maintaining equipment. Section houses were used mainly from the 1890s to the 1960s. SEMAPHORE: A trackside signal which uses a movable arm to convey track occupancy information to the train crew. SERVICE TRACK: A yard track equipped with facilities to provide locomotives coal, water, sand, or other services. SHOO-FLY: A temporary track laid around an obstruction (such as a wreck or washout) while the primary track is under repair or being replaced. SHOPS: Structure or building(s) where fabrication and repair of railroad equipment (i.e. locomotives and cars) is performed. SHORT LINE: Generic term for a small railroad. SIDING: A length of track accessed from the mainline by means of a turnout. A dead-end siding connected to the mainline by a turnout at one end only is called a "spur." A siding connected by turnouts at both ends is called a "passing siding." SIGNAL BOX: A structure which houses train signaling, switching, and/or communication devices. Pullman Company Atlanta Shops at Kirkwood (Fulton County) Siding at Andersonville (Sumter County) 179 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Signal box for crossing signal at Vaughn Dairy Road in Rydal (Bartow County) Union Station in Waycross (Ware County) Switch at Abbeville (Wilcox County) Switch stand at Newborn (Newton County) Spur track diverging to right, Cartersville vicinity (Bartow County) Central of Georgia signal tower at coaling station in Raymond (Coweta County) S SIGNAL TOWER: An upright building or tower where signals are displayed to train crews. SPOTTING: Placing cars in a desired location, as in a yard or industrial spur; also called shifting. SPUR: A divergent track (siding) having only one point of entry; the term is also sometimes applied to short branch lines. STANDARD GAUGE: In the United States and numerous other countries, track measuring 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches between the inside edges of the running rails; this is the most common track gauge in use today. STATION: A named point along a railroad line, typically provided with a siding, depot, or other facilities for train use. Also, a trackside building housing facilities for railway passengers or freight. The term "station" is sometimes used interchangeably with "depot," although relatively large buildings are more likely to be called stations. STUB STATION: A railroad station at which the tracks terminate. SWITCH: A mechanical installation enabling trains to be guided from one track to another at a railway junction or where a spur or siding branches off. SWITCH STAND (also Ground Throw or Points Lever): A lever and accompanying linkages that are used to operate a switch manually. 180 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Northern throat of yard at Clearview in Oglethorpe vicinity (Macon County) Sections of removed rails & ties at Durand (Meriwether County) Terminal shed at Central of Georgia's Savannah passenger station (Chatham County) T TANGENT: Straight track. TERMINAL: Principal point of origination or termination of trains for one or more railroads; generally located in or near major cities. The terminal could include a station building, turnouts, towers, associated buildings, and other equipment. THROAT: The entrance tracks to a terminal or yard. TIE: The heavy wood or concrete cross pieces to which the rails are spiked. TIE PLATE: The steel shoes in which the rails sit when they are spiked to wooden ties. Disposed tie plates alongside tracks at Bucks in Fort Valley vicinity (Peach County) Tie plates alongside tracks in downtown Hazlehurst (Jeff Davis County) 181 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Timber trestle bridge in Wilcox County Through-truss bridge over Ocmulgee River, south of Lumber City (Telfair County) T TRESTLE BRIDGE: A bridge type consisting of longitudinal stringers (or a deck) supported by a series of bents (see above). Most trestles are wooden, although concrete trestles also exist. Concrete trestle bridge over Kettle Creek, near Jamestown (Ware County) TRUSS BRIDGE: A bridge type where the span is supported by paired truss assemblages of various designs. Most truss bridges are of steel; the trusses may be either above track level ("through truss") or below track level ("deck truss"). TUNNEL: A passageway made through or under an obstacle, such as through a mountain, or under building, other track, or bodies of water. TURNTABLE: A large, pivoted circular apparatus which rotates in a pit and is used to turn locomotives or rolling stock around. Usually seen in association with a roundhouse. Warren type deck-truss bridge at Hard Labor Creek near Apalachee (Morgan County) Chetoogeta Mountain tunnel on Western & Atlantic at Tunnel Hill (Whitfield County) 182 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Turntable at Central of Georgia roundhouse in Savannah (Chatham County) Terminal Station in downtown Macon (Bibb County) Viaduct of poured concrete at Palmetto (Fulton County) Water column U UNION STATION: A passenger terminal or depot in a city or town utilized by more than one railroad service. V VIADUCT: A bridge-like structure, historically comprising a series of arches, carrying a railroad across a valley or other low ground. Water tower at Hogansville (Troup County) Wye junction into Rice Yard, Waycross (Ware County) W WATER COLUMN: A standpipe adjacent to the track and connected to a water supply for filling steam locomotive tenders. WATER TOWER: A structure that stored and supplied water to steam engines. WYE (SOMETIMES "Y"): A track configuration comprised of three switches and three long legs of track which enables, amongst other benefits, an entire train to turn around as a unit. A wye plan junction is also commonly constructed at the intersection of two perpendicularly aligned railroads, in order to enable the connecting train to select either direction of travel on the new rail line. 183 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Y YARD: Tracks used exclusively for the classification of freight cars according to commodity or destination, the assembling of cars for train movement, the assembling of cars and locomotives, or the repair of equipment. YARD OFFICE: A building in terminal yards that provides office accommodations for the yardmaster and office personnel. Central of Georgia yard office at Albany (Dougherty County) Central of Georgia yard at Albany (Dougherty County) Central of Georgia yard office at Fort Valley (Peach County) 184 | Visual Glossary | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey NATIONAL REGISTER REGISTRATION GUIDELINES Historic narrative GEORGIA STATEWIDE HISTORIC RAIL RESOURCES NATIONAL REGISTER REGISTRATION GUIDELINES Cover photo: Raymond, Coweta County I. INTRODUCTION The following guidelines were used to complete the determinations of National Register eligibility for railroad resources included in this study. They are intended to be used primarily for compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (as amended). The guidelines should be referenced and used in the course of any additional GDOT determinations of eligibility for railroad resources or their components during future cultural resources investigations. During the course of this study, the investigators grappled with a variety of cultural resource issues that seemed simple on their face but proved more complex when applied to historic railroads. Viewed through the perspective of a longstanding de facto consensus in Georgia, the relative historic significance of the state's railroads initially seemed fairly apparent: on the national, state, or local level, all railroads--successful or not, longstanding or not--were typically important components of and contributors to the communities through which they passed, and represented important trends in Georgia's state and regional development. However, the picture muddies from there when applying the cultural resources regulatory framework. First and foremost, the question arises: Just what is the definition or composition of a railroad, when thought of as a cultural resource? There are further questions to contemplate. How does one organize and evaluate hundreds of components that are all part of the incredibly tangled web of rail development, with its scores of mergers, numerous consolidations, joint ventures, paper companies, bankruptcies and reorganizations, outright failures, abandonments, and so on? And, after the resource is defined, how does one evaluate, assess, and define the present state (or status) of the resource in the physical world? Historic railroad corridors exist today in almost every conceivable physical state: from lines that are fully maintained, intact, and in use; to ones that appear to have vanished from the face of the earth (or, at least, ostensibly, without aboveground traces); and seemingly everything in between. The reality is, in the world of American and Georgia railroad history, very little is clear cut or can be easily "tracked." This "morass," as rail historian Steve Storey has called it, necessarily informs this effort's broad scope to make determinations of eligibility for all Georgia's railroad lines. The following guidelines explain the basic process through which this study's investigators evaluated railroad resources and made determinations of eligibility, and outline the steps that should be followed to evaluate other railroad resources that may yet be identified or were outside the scope of this study. In general, the guidelines define railroad resources, consider their significance, and offer a prescription for testing their physical integrity. The guidelines have been informed by National Register Bulletins How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation and How to Complete the National Register Registration Form, as well as a limited number of existing state rail contexts that are listed in the annotated bibliography. II. DEFINING A RAILROAD RESOURCE The Morass Defining what makes a railroad-related historic resource eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and providing guidance for 186 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Central of Georgia shops, circa 1939, Savannah (Library of Congress) determining such eligibility, is a complicated effort, as there are so many different factors, as well as component parts, to consider. When beginning to analyze and evaluate a specific rail resource, the first factor to address is the critical question, what comprises this particular railroad resource? Building Georgia's railroads circa 1900 (Library of Congress) Although critical to any assessment, this question is unlikely to elicit a simple answer. Railroads are built of iron or steel, wood, concrete, stone, gravel, and earth, but the histories of their roadways almost mirror those of living organisms. These rail roadways are constantly changing, growing older and deteriorating, being serviced and repaired, and some of them even eventually die (or, more aptly, are killed off). Of course, historic buildings and other resource types go through many similar changes, such as additions, remodeling, and alterations. However, railroads are different in that they are also typically connected to other routes and systems that are also continually expanding or downsizing. For the purposes of this statewide context and survey, the word "railroad" is typically too general and unspecific, and thus not the most definitive value for analysis in its singular, individual form. Instead, it should be used as a modifier for other, more meaningful words, such as alignment or corridor, line, route, belt, segment, or system. A researcher must first try to delineate which of these categories or subcategories a particular railroad resource constitutes. 187 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Fort Oglethorpe, Catoosa County In general, a route is a plotted or mapped course by which to travel from one specific point to another, or from the point of departure to the destination point. As applied to railroading and some other modes of transportation, such as shipping by boat, a route might incorporate one or another number of transitions between vectors, which, for purposes of this contextual document, will be referred to as individual lines. Georgia's earliest railroad entities can perhaps most accurately be considered as lines, for they consisted of relatively straight runs of track stretched from point A to point B, generally from one important city to another. The rail companies were, in a de facto sense, essentially one and the same as the rail lines for which they were chartered and funded. For instance, the Central Railroad & Banking Company of Georgia (the Central of Georgia) was chartered in 1833 for the express purpose of constructing a railroad line from the Atlantic Coast port of Savannah to one of the state's inland ports on the Ocmulgee River, Macon. Similarly, the Georgia Railroad Company, the state's second, was chartered at the close of 1833 to build a line between Augusta's Savannah River port and Athens. However, the Georgia Railroad also illustrates how quickly the scope of railroading was expanding, and also how the concept of routes, or linked lines, quickly came to the forefront. First, the Georgia Railroad was envisioned to connect at the Savannah River to the South's earliest railroad line, the Charleston to Hamburg line of the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company, thereby providing a through route from South Carolina's Atlantic Coast port of Charleston all the way to Athens. Second, the charter of the Western & Atlantic Railroad, which was organized in late 1836 to construct a rail line linking Chattanooga (on the Tennessee River) to the Chattahoochee River, quickly generated a revised western destination point for the Georgia Railroad, shifting from Athens to the new city of Atlanta beside the Chattahoochee. This had the effect of making the Georgia Railroad's already existing trackage from Athens to Union Point, the junction with the mainline westward into Atlanta, perhaps the state's earliest example of a branch line. Also, it created a connected railroad route all the way from the port of Charleston to the Mississippi River port in Memphis, by way of the now interconnected lines of the South Carolina Railroad, the Georgia Railroad, the Western & Atlantic Railroad, and, finally, the Memphis & Charleston Railroad through Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Apart from the Athens Branch Line and the Charleston to Hamburg, South Carolina line, all of these above-described early lines are still in use today, but these lines and routes are now part of much larger rail systems, operated, for the most part, by large railroad conglomerates. In fact, the entire state of Georgia is now provided operational rail service primarily by two railroad companies classified as Tier 1 by the federal government. Rail service on less highly trafficked lines is provided by a few so-called Short Line operators. 188 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey So, in brief, rail lines can be classified as mainlines (in some situations also referred to as trunk lines) or branch lines, either connected through or dead-ended, and they may be connected together to form routes. In many cases, these, in turn, have been assembled and integrated by modern rail companies to develop grand rail systems of regional and even national scope and scale. For management and operational purposes, many of these larger rail systems are separated internally into designated divisions or even smaller sections, which may consist of an assemblage or network of a few branch lines. At the other end of the scale, even the state's first branch line, the Union Point to Athens branch line, could be divided into multiple segments, such as from Union Point to the next stop in Woodville at the south end, or from Athens back to the next stop in Winterville, at the north end. Moreover, this 39-mile long branch line was later connected to an even shorter, dead-end spur line managed by a Georgia Railroad subsidiary, the Lexington Terminal Railroad, which tied Lexington to the Athens branch line at Crawford. To belabor the point, the Lexington Terminal Railroad branch then offered an even shorter, purpose-built spur line down to the Blue Granite Company quarry, a half-mile south of Lexington. As one can see, just defining what constitutes a particular historic railroad resource and by continuation, naming it can be a complicated task, which may reasonably produce many justifiable approaches. There is not necessarily one right answer: an assessor may decide to focus on one period or phase of a specific railroad line or company. Making Sense of the Morass As part of this ambitious study, the investigators grappled with how to efficiently organize the tangled web of Georgia's historic railroad development into a logical, workable, and reasonable approach for cultural resources evaluation. The most obvious potential solution, chronology, quickly becomes unworkable. Beginning at the beginning yields hundreds of individual resources as they were originated and would generally neglect the evolution of the larger and arguably more important historic systems that developed. As indicated, railroads were and remain amorphous in numerous ways: quickly created, quickly killed; soon acquiring or soon acquired; and, ultimately, almost all were conglomerated. As such, reverse chronology is not historically meaningful either, at least in terms of cultural resources evaluation. Today, Georgia's railways are predominantly, although certainly not exclusively, components of the CSX and Norfolk Southern systems. And, since many acquisitions resulting in the two predominant systems occurred in the late twentieth century, the current CSX and Norfolk Southern systems are not intrinsically potentially historic per National Register guidance. In cultural resources parlance, these two massive rail systems, in their current forms, do not yet meet the fifty year rule. The investigators' chosen solution was to organize the majority of the state's known historic rail lines according to their status within Georgia's ten mainline systems that had developed by the early twentieth century. Although not known as such historically, these "Big Ten" systems identified by the investigators included: the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic/Coast; the Atlanta & West Point; the Atlantic Coast Line; the Central of Georgia; the Georgia Railroad; the Georgia & Florida; the Georgia Southern & Florida; the Louisville & Nashville; the Seaboard Air Line; and the Southern Railway. This period was railroading's historic heyday in Georgia, and the reality is that most of the state's lines had, by one way or another, been historically absorbed into these larger systems by this time (see Sidebar). Therefore, by evaluating these larger systems for National Register eligibility, the investigators adopted a meaningful approach that necessarily incorporated historic rail conglomeration, a critically important aspect of historic rail development in Georgia and throughout the United States. In addition, this method provided for a manageable approach and process, by considering all of Georgia's extensive historic rail mileage, yet doing so in a meaningful organization and efficient manner. Thus, these systems were evaluated for National Register eligibility as entities within the context of the state's rail development. Their component parts, which typically included mainlines, branch lines, and other subsidiary lines that the entity acquired or was otherwise combined with, were evaluated for historic significance within the context of the system to determine their potential to contribute to that system's eligibility. 189 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey These ten mainline systems are evaluated and documented in Appendices A through J. Each appendix includes a property information form that includes the system's developmental history, description, and National Register evaluation. Attached to the system forms are the system feature inventory forms that similarly describe the accessible component parts of the system and evaluate their status, for the purposes of this context, as contributing features to the larger National Register-eligible system. As these systems are all critically important within the context of Georgia's historic rail development, all ten systems were determined eligible for the National Register as linear historic districts. However, depending on historic associations and physical conditions, component features such as branch lines or subsidiary lines may or may not have been determined to be historically significant contributing features to the relevant historic system. A number of so-called short lines or industrial lines, including logging and mining railroads, remained independent or failed so quickly that they were never absorbed into a larger system. These lines remained or remain separate and have been evaluated individually. For these smaller railroads, lines that were known to be common carriers have been grouped in Appendix K as Short Lines, and those lines that were known to or thought to primarily serve an industrial function are included in Appendix L as Industrial Lines. Each railroad has been documented on a property information form that includes a brief developmental history, description, and National Register evaluation. About the Railroad Codes Used in this Study Organizing this study and compiling its considerable documentation necessitated the use of codes for the various rail lines studied. Existing rail industry codes proved insufficient; although some were intuitive, others were not. Some seemed useful in narrative text, but others, including single-letter codes, did not. And, ultimately, the study's "Big Ten" system framework and organization begged a different approach. Therefore, three-letter codes were assigned to the historic rail systems, as well as to separate groupings for independent short lines and industrial lines. Fourletter codes were then assigned to system subsidiaries. Users will see these codes utilized henceforth and throughout the remaining components of THE BIG TEN The last two of the ten selected major railroad systems to be developed within Georgia were the Georgia & Florida Railway and the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic (later reorganized as the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast, but otherwise, for all intents and purposes, the same company). With acknowledgment that all organizational aspects of railroading history are complicated and resist simplification, it could be argued that these two essentially constituted the last large-scale, long-haul rail routes or networks to be developed or assembled within the state's history of railroading. The full lengths of both were basically completed by 1909; this also happened to be the first full year of production of the Ford Motor Company's Model T, which would remain in production until 1927. The period of the Model T's production coincides with what many regard as the heyday of railroading in North America and in Georgia, in particular. Railroads planned and constructed during the 1900s and 1910s were undertaken during the last years of almost unchecked enthusiasm and opportunity for railroads and new rail projects. This unbridled optimism for and accompanying investment in railroads was based on the nation's heavy reliance on them during this time frame, since no other forms of transportation for passengers and goods were then as fast, as efficient, or as capable. However, as quickly as the industry in Georgia and across the country achieved new heights of coverage, service, and predominance in the first two decades of the twentieth century, it reached the peak of these heights in the decade of the 1920s. continued 190 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey A confluence of factors during the 1910s and 1920s led to this climax, in terms of the peak mileage totals of railroad track and, as a corollary, the number of new railroad developments. The course of World War I affected railroads greatly, even though they were heavily relied upon to Georgia Northern No. 107, Albany (S. Storey) move men and materials. Yet, the war effort resulted in a brief takeover of all railroad management by the Federal government, and it also facilitated great advancements in the technology and reliability of automobiles, trucks, and airplanes, in a very concentrated span of time. The war expedited the use of and reliance on these new vehicles and other wheeled machines, such as tractors and road-graders, and it increased the exposure of American troops to the abilities and usage of the improving machines. Last, during this same time frame, the national Good Roads Movement began to reach prominence and have real impact, particularly with President Wilson's signing of the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916. In concert with these factors and influences, the falling prices of automobiles such as the Model T, coupled with the U.S.'s generally expanding economy (effects of the Boll Weavil aside) enabled more citizens to purchase cars. Although there had always been many bankruptcies and reorganizations throughout railroading history, new trends towards the winding up and final abandonments of rail lines and routes, particularly of short lines, began to first really take hold around 1920 and continued into the Great Depression. Thus, this project's researchers felt these ten rail systems, all well established by and during the 1920s, individually and collectively represent the highest point of the influence, scope, and prevalence of the major railroad systems in the state, in the time period when they had the most dominant impact on everyday life for Georgians. Soon after, the Great Depression led to the accelerated cessation of operations over many lines and the abandonment of many miles of track. World War II briefly generated a boost in demand for train transport, created by the needs of wartime, along with strict rations on gasoline for private automobiles. Afterwards and through the middle of the twentieth century, the increasing consolidation throughout the nation's railroad industry, and the mergers and takeovers amongst these ten railroad organizations in the state, led to elimination of duplicate or parallel routes. Along with the effects of the exponentially growing competition from automobiles, trucks, and airplanes in the second half of the twentieth century, supported by the development of the Interstate highway system, this ongoing contraction of railroad companies led not only to the further reduction in total track miles in Georgia, but also to the accordant loss of rail service by many of the state's cities, towns, and rural communities. For example, the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast was acquired by and fully merged into the Atlantic Coast Line soon after the end of World War II, in 1946. The ACL already had a long-established mainline path from Waycross to the Atlantic Ocean port at Brunswick. The ABC's main route to the Georgia coast traveled directly from Nicholls to Brunswick, but it also offered a mainline branch from Nicholls southeast to Waycross. To avoid the expense of maintaining the two roughly parallel sets of tracks to Brunswick, the ACL abandoned the ABC's Nicholls to Brunswick course as early as 1953, and the small, Pierce County communities of Mershon and Bristol lost their only rail access. h 191 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey this study, particularly the property information forms and system feature inventory forms. The systems and independent short and industrial lines are identified through their three-letter codes as follows: ABC Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast AWP Atlanta & West Point ACL Atlantic Coast Line COG Central of Georgia GAR Georgia Railroad GAF Georgia & Florida GSF Georgia Southern & Florida LAN Louisville & Nashville SAL Seaboard Air Line SOU Southern Railway SHO Short lines IND Industrial lines II. HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE AND THE NATIONAL REGISTER Historic Significance When evaluating historic significance, railroad resources should be first considered as the original entity, essentially as a linear historic district, and thus assessed for National Register eligibility as a whole: original alignments at their fullest extent and with associated support facilities. In assessments for National Register eligibility, a railroad resource should be evaluated first for significance under Criterion A, for its associative linkage to important historic events, and under Criterion C, for its value as a physical representation of historically important developments and trends in design and construction. As the National Park Service states in National Register Bulletin 15 How to Apply the Criteria for Evaluation: "The key to determining whether the characteristics or associations of a particular property are significant is to consider the property within its historic context" (NR Bulletin 15, p. 11). In this regard, the most obviously pertinent areas of significance for application under both Criteria A and C are in the areas of Architecture, Engineering, and Transportation. After all, railroad systems, consisting of the locomotives, AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE Architecture: The practical art of designing and constructing buildings and structures to serve human needs. Many a traveler entered a city through a grand railroad station such as Macon's Terminal Station. Often designed by prominent architects, these gateways promoted their cities as superior places to live, to work, and to join in civic life. If an impressive train station could give the traveler a favorable first impression of a city, so much the better, believed local leaders, for that could attract outside investment and improve the community's prospects for a prosperous future. For small towns, the railroads typically provided a standardized "combination" depot. Architectural treatment varied widely; many of these buildings were plain with little or no embellishments, but others boasted such features as turrets, dormers, and carved roof brackets. Usually the structure had a freight room at one end, one or two passenger waiting rooms at the other end, and a depot agent's office in the middle. In some towns, separate passenger and freight depots were built. As a general rule, the passenger structures showed a little more attention to style than was found in the combination stations. As communities grew, citizens lobbied for improved depots, and sometimes they got them, especially if the town was growing rapidly. If a second or third railroad came to town, a new structure might be built as a Union or Terminal passenger station serving several different railroads. The largest cities had two or more passenger stations. For instance, between 1905 and 1971, Atlanta had a Terminal Station as well as a Union Station, and, after 1918, it also had a Southern Railway passenger station on Peachtree Street north of downtown. Savannah had a Union Station and a separate Central of Georgia Station. As well as passenger and freight stations, the railroads constructed office buildings to house their administrative employees. Surviving examples are in Albany (Central of Georgia, 1926), Atlanta (Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic, 1908, and Southern Railway, 1911), Brunswick (Brunswick & Birmingham, 1899), Savannah (Central of Georgia, 1856 and 1887), and Tennille (Wrightsville & Tennille, 1903). continued 192 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Detail of Georgia Southern & Florida timetable, 1918 (S. Storey) train cars, and the rail infrastructure they rolled along, are a nineteenthcentury technological development that was born out of the human capacity for accomplishments in engineering, all for the express purpose of advancing the speed, capacity, and reliability for transportation of people, animals, materials, and products over great distances. At each of Rail worker housing in 1941, Greene County (Library of Congress) the distant destination points that were enabled to be reached by newly built rail lines, there were always buildings and structures constructed to Commerce: The business of trading goods, services, and commodities. Georgia's railroads were initially built to "capture the trade" of the Piedmont and move it to coastal ports, but once the superiority of railroads over canals and turnpikes became clear, rail builders turned their attention to the fast-growing states and territories to the west. Georgia achieved a trans- Appalachian rail link well before its southeastern competitors in the Carolinas and Virginia, thus gaining an advantage that accrued in particular to Atlanta. The city became the leading rail hub in the Southeast, overshadowing Savannah, Charleston, Charlotte, and all others in the region. Homerville, Clinch County Because of their immense capital requirements and their large workforces, railroads became the nation's first big businesses. At a time when most companies operated only locally or within a state, several railroad companies operated across state lines. Railroads propelled the Industrial Revolution. By the time that automobiles came along, America was already an industrial powerhouse, thanks to the railroads. Railroads carried scores of agricultural products as well. Although railroads are most associated with manufacturing and heavy industry, they also gave birth to many other sectors of the modern economy such as tourism and package delivery. Beginning in the 1870s, the larger railroads promoted tourism as a way to boost passenger revenues, and several railroads purchased hotels, steamboats, and passenger ships so that they could further develop and profit from the tourist trade. Similarly, today's FedEx, UPS, and other package delivery services follow in the paths established by railroad shippers such as the Railway Express Agency, Adams Express, and Southern Express. continued 193 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Fitzgerald, Georgia in 1939 (Library of Congress) Iron City depot, Seminole County, circa 1938 (Library of Congress) serve a railroad-related purpose, such as storing the goods and materials transported by the train, or sheltering passengers waiting for the arrival of the train. These purpose-built buildings would then have potential significance in the area of architecture. Although their design for a specific railroad function means that they almost all have certain inherent characteristics or parts in common, such Community Planning and Development: The design or development of the physical structure of communities. The railroads' impact on the physical development of many towns is often readily observable. Where the historic commercial center consists of a row of storefronts facing the tracks, one can be fairly certain that the town was created by the railroad. Even where the tracks have been removed, this pattern often remains. Unfortunately, many of these old commercial rows are largely gone, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to see some of the smallest railroad towns as they once existed. Railroads not only created towns, they also killed them. Georgia has several examples of towns that either were greatly diminished or ceased to exist after citizens moved to a newer town on the railroad. One such example is the move of many Crawford County residents from Knoxville to Roberta after the Atlanta & Florida Railroad bypassed the county seat. Notably, railroads established the street pattern of downtown Atlanta, where three differently aligned street grids each run parallel to the city's first three railroads. Engineering: The practical application of scientific principles to design, construct, and operate equipment, machinery, and structures to serve human needs. Civil engineering: Early railroad routes were surveyed by civil engineers Etowah River bridge, Bartow County such as J. Edgar Thomson and Stephen Harriman Long, who had to consider train capabilities (for example, trains cannot climb steep slopes, and even moderate slopes increase operating costs) while also finding a reasonably direct path from origin to destination. They also had to answer such questions as whether or not a short route involving an expensive bridge or tunnel would be more cost-effective than a longer route without continued 194 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey as waiting rooms for passenger depots and freight platforms for freight depots, railroad depots and other contributing buildings of potentially significant railroads may be architecturally significant due primarily to their standardized form and design. Such buildings or structures may constitute examples of template-based plans, repeatedly constructed by a certain railroad numerous times, since railroad companies were some of the pioneers of the practice of building standardization. On the other hand, they may be notable, and National Register eligible, for their unusual or distinctive, site-specific designs, as was frequently the case for union passenger stations in large cities and metropolises. As large, expensive, and conspicuous buildings that once held great functional and visual significance for a community, some of these monumental, high-style railroad stations may be regarded as among the masterpiece design efforts in the career portfolios of prominent architects and architectural firms. Beyond or in addition to these three principal areas of significance (architecture, engineering, and transportation), by which to evaluate railroad resources under Criteria A and C, railroad-related districts, buildings, and structures may also be determined National Register eligible for their significance in a number of other historic contexts, including Commerce, Community Planning and Development, Entertainment/Recreation, Exploration/Settlement, Ethnic Heritage, Social History, and Military. It could even be argued that some railroads in Georgia offer ancillary significance in the area of Maritime History, for a number of specific railroad lines had a direct and substantial impact on the strength and continuance of steamboat commerce on the state's inland rivers. Before the completion of railroad lines and networks through the state, steamboats and other packets or barges transported many goods and agricultural products from the interior of Georgia to the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and vice versa; the prevalence and eventual predominance of railroads greatly reduced the extent of this river traffic, made largely obsolete by the construction of nearby and roughly parallel railroad routes. Commerical routes largely switched from waterways to steel rails, and industrial development followed suit. Similarly, the development of the railroad network in Georgia played a critical role in the state's commercial agricultural development or, those features. Cost considerations went hand in hand with topographic considerations. Structural engineering: Because engineers had to design railroad bridges that could handle increasingly heavy locomotives and carloads, they had to devise strong but affordable structures that could resist weathering, flooding, and high winds. Many streams could be crossed using trestles made of numerous individual wooden pieces (some were so seemingly insubstantial that Abraham Lincoln called them "beanpoles and cornstalks"), but others needed long clear spans. The solution was most often the truss, designed in many varieties and configurations. Improvements in metals and other materials eventually resulted in the plate-girder bridges that replaced many trusses. An engineering landmark in Georgia is the Wells Viaduct over the North Fork Broad River, near Toccoa, thought to be the first bridge to use hollow concrete piers. Also, the state has examples of each of the three types of movable bridges that allowed trains and steamboats to occupy the same sections of river. Mechanical engineering: To improve efficiency on their lines, railroads developed mechanical equipment such as coaling towers, locomotive turntables, and interlocking switch systems. For locomotives and railcars, mechanical engineers devised numerous incremental improvements that resulted in trains that could run faster and haul far more tonnage than their predecessors. Although the major locomotive builders were located in other states, Georgia was home to the Glover Machine Works, a Marietta firm that manufactured steam locomotives in the early twentieth century. Rebecca, Turner County continued 195 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey perhaps more precisely, expanded greatly the areas of the state and acreage of lands that were newly viable for growing certain crops. For instance, the Piedmont lands above Georgia's Fall Line became much more appealing and potentially lucrative for cotton farmers once they had ready access to nearby rail lines, which more efficiently transported their bales to markets and mills in larger cities and then on to other regions, such as the northern states. Prior to the coming of the railroads, the lack of navigable waterways in these northern parts of the state required reliance on moving cotton bales by wagons, a slow and tedious means of transport that greatly constricted output, giving competitive advantage to areas near navigable rivers or near and below the Fall Line port cities. In the same manner, the growth of agricultural production of fruits and vegetables for which the state is now well known peaches, Vidalia onions, etc. was enabled by and thus originated with the development of railroad lines. The rapid and reliable transport afforded by these new rail lines opened up other regions around the country as new markets, for these fruits and vegetables would likely have spoiled if sent by the slow, laborious, and indirect waterborne routes. Although the earliest railroads in Georgia did not play a notable role in the explorations of any unknown areas of the state, they did have an enormous impact on settlement patterns, frequently and repeatedly leading to "the establishment and earliest development of new settlements and communities" (National Register Bulletin 16a, p.41). Along the same lines, Georgia's then new railroad routes were significant to the planning and development of many specific places throughout the state. Of course, railroads played no more significant role in the areas of Exploration/ Settlement or Community Planning and Development than in the initial siting and creation of the City of Atlanta at the Western & Atlantic Railroad's southern terminus and its junction with the Georgia Railroad and the Macon & Western. Although they may have developed on a much smaller scale, many other communities, towns, and cities around Georgia developed originally and expressly as railroad stops or junctions, and thus would not have been planned or realized without the survey, engineering, layout, and construction of the railroad route or routes that later served the growing community. These towns and cities took a number of identifiable spatial forms (see Georgia's Community Development and Morphology Entertainment/Recreation: The development and practice of leisure activities for refreshment, diversion, amusement, or sport. Before the automobile came to Georgia, trains carried pleasure- seekers to parks, resorts, picnic grounds, chatauquas, and natural wonders. At Savannah, for example, railroads connected New Etowah River Bridge, Bartow County the city to coastal resorts such as Isle of Hope, Thunderbolt, and Tybee Island. In various parts of the state, railroads enabled the growth of resort hotels such as those at Tallulah Falls, Tallapoosa, Thomasville, Indian Springs, Lithia Springs, and Warm Springs. Millions of passengers have traveled across Georgia to resorts in Florida, and even today many take Amtrak to the same destination. Ethnic Heritage: The history of persons having a common ethnic or racial identity. In antebellum Georgia, African-American slaves graded the rail beds, excavated the cuts through hillsides, and did much of the other work of building a railroad. They were either owned by the railroad company or by planters who contracted them out to the railroad. After emancipation, many African Americans continued to do the same types of work, in some cases as prisoners who were often convicted on flimsy charges and then leased out for railroad construction work. More fortunate were the Pullman car porters who first began appearing on the rails around 1867. They were the forerunners of the modern African American middle class. Exploration/Settlement: The investigation of unknown or little known regions; the establishment and earliest development of new settlements or communities. Georgia's earliest towns were laid out on the coastal mainland and along the Savannah River. Savannah was the first to be established, in 1733, and others such as Darien and Augusta followed soon afterwards. continued 196 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey A Climax engine, used by logging railroads in Georgia mountains (S. Storey) of Community Types). Railroads may thus also constitute historically significant and contributing components of listed or potentially eligible historic districts within the communities through which they pass; indeed, railroad lines and depots have been identified as contributing features within many National Register-listed historic districts in Georgia. Georgia's antebellum railroad routes also possess potential significance within the context of black ethnic heritage and in the area of military history. The physical construction of the state's antebellum railroad routes, including the grading, construction, and laying of ballast, ties, and tracks, was performed by enforced slave labor. Therefore, they may constitute artifacts of the efforts and craftsmanship of African Americans in the decades before the American Civil War. Almost all of these earliest railroad routes were later involved, in some way or another, in the developments, operations, and confrontations of the Civil War within the state's environs. For example, the Western & Atlantic Railroad is inextricably linked to the so-called "Great Locomotive Chase" begun by Andrews' Raiders, and it played the central role, both tactically and geographically, in the southern approach from Chattanooga towards Atlanta of General W. T. Sherman's Union Army. The Battle of Over the following century, the century before the railroads, a series of land cessions by the Creek and Cherokee Indians gradually moved Georgia's border westward, to the Oconee River, then the Ocmulgee, and then the Flint and the Chattahoochee. After each land cession, the State laid out new counties and designated a location for each county seat. As whites, who had worn out the lands to the east as a result of poor agricultural practices, moved into the former Indian lands, they established small settlements at such varied places as trail crossings, ridge tops, and mineral springs. Sites with water power for mills and places convenient to stream fords Macon and ferries were also favored. Beginning in the 1830s, railroads pushed into the interior: west from Augusta, northwest from Savannah, and north from Macon. At intervals along the tracks, generally ten miles or so, the railroad would put up a locomotive watering station. Each facility would have a water tank, a pile of wood for fuel, and a "turn-out," the last being a section of side tracks about 800 feet in length that allowed trains to pass. At a number of these stations, stores and other businesses were built either along the railroad or along a road that crossed the tracks. Some of these places grew into towns. As more railroads were constructed during the remainder of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century, towns became established along each new line. From each town, roads radiated from the railroad depot into the countryside, where settlers established new farms. The impact of the railroads on settlement patterns was perhaps most felt in the central Coastal Plain, the piney woods area generally consisting of lands between Macon and Waycross and between Savannah and Albany. During the continued 197 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Potential Contributing Features and/or Elements of a Railroad Linear Historic District Associated railroad or railroad-related resource types, for purposes of assessment and consideration of eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places. These features may also be considered part of a larger cultural landscape. RAILROAD ROADWAY AND ROUTE ALIGNMENT/RIGHT-OF-WAY Cuts Fill/embankments Grades Ditches/trenches RAIL BED Ballast Sub-ballast (top) layers/cinders Ties Tracks RAILROAD GRADE SEPARATION STRUCTURES Railroad bridges - Trestles and viaducts Culverts RAILROAD STATIONS Passenger depots Freight depots or warehouses Combination depots Flag depots Platforms Train sheds Railroad office buildings Commercial buildings and structures Water tanks/water stations Coaling facilities/coal stations Ice houses Interlocking tower Section houses RAILROAD YARDS Maintenance and repair shops Engine houses Transfer tables and turntables Power houses Yard offices Worker shelters Interlocking towers Water tanks Coaling facilities Ash pits ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES Subsurface deposits associated with one or more rail-related feature or occupation antebellum period, it had few railroads. It was a sparsely populated land of self-sufficient farmers, livestock herders, and timber raftsmen quite different from the cotton-plantation economy of the Piedmont. After the railroads came, beginning in the 1870s, its economy became one of cotton monoculture and industrialized sawmilling and turpentining. The region where the railroads had the least impact on settlement patterns was the Blue Ridge area of north Georgia. Only two common-carrier railroads--the Marietta & North Georgia and the Tallulah Falls Railway--ever entered the area, and only two others--the Gainesville & Northwestern and the "New Line" of the Louisville & Nashville--ever reached its borders. That is not to say, however, that the railroads did not have a severe environmental impact. The logging railroads that reached far into the mountains devastated the ancient forests there, and the railroad at McCaysville-Copperhill made possible the large-scale copper smelting and sulfuric acid industry that denuded the countryside for miles around. Maritime History: The history of the exploration, fishing, navigation, and use of inland, coastal, and deep sea waters. Georgia's earliest railroads were built to funnel trade to the seaports of Savannah and Charleston and to the inland riverports of Augusta and Macon. While these were still under construction, additional railroads were being chartered to connect ports such as Brunswick, Columbus, Rome, and Chattanooga. Connections between railroads and steamboats were also made at Abbeville, Albany, Bainbridge, Dublin, and Hawkinsville, among other places. Even in rural areas, short line railroads built tracks to small-scale river landings such as those at Jacksonville, Barrow's Bluff, and Garbutt's Landing on the Ocmulgee River. On occasion, railroads became directly involved in maritime trade by purchasing their own boats. The Americus, Preston & Lumpkin Railroad owned four or five steamboats operating on the Ocmulgee and Altamaha rivers, and the Central of Georgia owned steamboats plying the Chattahoochee River. Several railroad companies owned ocean steamship lines, among them the continued 198 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Atlanta was conducted over the axis of the Georgia Railroad line between Decatur and downtown Atlanta. Sherman's "March to the Sea" followed and purposefully destroyed the Central of Georgia's railroad route between Macon and Savannah. The Confederate prison site at Andersonville would not have been selected without its adjacency to ready railroad transportation provided by the Southwestern Railroad between Albany and Macon. Also, it has been argued that, in the latter years of the war, this line and the other routes to the south of Atlanta and Macon, including the Atlanta & West Point, provided transport for and access to food and supplies to sustain the Confederate armies in Georgia. Due to these railroads' critical role of supplying the Confederate war effort, their capture and destruction was just as critical to the Union's success in weakening the Confederacy and forcing eventual surrender. Some aspects of Georgia's social history are also reflected by the railroad industry's use of prison labor through the state's convict leasing system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Georgia's few tourism lines developed during this same period potentially convey significance in the area of Entertainment/Recreation. Generally, this study did not identify many resources that are potentially significant under Criterion B for historic associations with individuals, Henry B. Plant's association with the Atlantic Coast Line system being a notable exception (see Appendix C). Although numerous railroads are associated with the lives of persons significant in Georgia history, per How to Apply the National Register Criteria for Evaluation, railroad resources are essentially linear historic districts and typically associated with multiple important persons of potential local or state significance. Although considered under Criterion B in this study, few identified resources were documented where a specific individual's historically significant contributions would be best demonstrated through a subject railroad. A railroad resource's historic significance is typically and more appropriately conveyed under Criteria A and C as addressed above. Archaeological deposits, when identified, should be evaluated under Criterion D for their information potential and significance (see Archaeology section below). Central of Georgia, the Plant System, and the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic. The major railroads built sea docks to transfer freight between train and ship. In Savannah, Seaboard Air Line Railway constructed an extensive dock complex on Savannah's Hutchinson Island. The Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic built similar docks at Brunswick. In 1952, the Georgia Ports Authority opened the Savannah State Docks Railroad to handle rail switching for a dock complex in Savannah, and in the late 1960s, the state constructed the Colonel's Island Railroad in Brunswick as part of a port expansion project in that city. Military: The system of defending the territory and sovereignty of a people. During the Civil War, railroads sustained the military forces of both sides by moving troops, armament, and supplies to the ever-shifting battlefronts. In Georgia, the rails became especially important when Sherman invaded the state in 1864. Atlanta's Confederate defenders relied on rail shipments by way of the Atlanta & West Point, the Macon & Western, and the Georgia Railroad, while Union troops moving down the Western & Atlantic depended on that fiercely contested railroad as a supply line. Railroads not only transported troops to the battlefront, they also took captured soldiers to prison compounds at Andersonville, on the COG line near Americus, at Fort Lawton, on the GOG's Augusta branch near Millen, and at a dozen other places in Georgia. Throughout the war, railroads were targets. Troops burned locomotives, railcars, and depots, intending to curb the other side's ability to fight. Destruction of a railroad bridge could delay enemy supply trains for weeks. In 1864, Union forces attacked the bridges over the Altamaha River at Doctortown, the Oconee River near Toomsboro, the Oostanaula River at Resaca, and Brier Creek near Waynesboro, among other places. After the war, railroads continued to haul troops and equipment to various parts of the nation, in both peacetime and wartime. Because of their critical importance to military logistics, railroads determined the locations of many army and navy bases. Even some army airfields were located near railroads, continued 199 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Cedartown vicinity, Polk County Discontiguous and Individual Property Consideration As these guidelines indicate, railroad resources should be first considered as the original entity, essentially as a linear historic district, and assessed for National Register eligibility as a whole: original alignment(s) at its (their) fullest extent and known support facilities, including buildings and structures. For an eligible resource, depending on historic significance and conditions, these features may be contributing or non-contributing. However, a railroad line that is no longer intact and so does not meet the National Register criteria or integrity thresholds does not preclude an individual remnant property thereof, such as a building (e.g. a depot), a structure (e.g. a bridge), or another facility (e.g. a yard), from National Register consideration as a discontiguous contributing feature to an eligible system or, conceivably, as an individual railroad resource. In fact, this study identified several examples of discontiguous resources, including, by way of example, the former ABC Montezuma Depot, now located at the Georgia Agrirama in Tifton. Discontiguous features are documented and evaluated within system feature inventory forms for whichever alignment they were originally associated with and as included in the relevant system appendix. such as the Bainbridge Army Airfield, which was located adjacent to the Atlantic Coast Line in Decatur County. During World War II, railroads supplied not only military bases, but also the Bell Aircraft bomber factory at Marietta and shipyards at Brunswick and Savannah where dozens of Liberty ships were constructed. Social History: The history of efforts to promote thewelfare of society; the history of society and the lifeways of its social groups. Some of Georgia's railroads are also significant for their role in the state's social history. An example is the railroad industry's use of prison labor through Georgia's convict leasing system in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Intact lines can be important physical representations of that era's state-sanctioned forced labor system. Transportation: The process and technology of conveying passengers or materials. Railroads revolutionized transportation in Georgia, as in the nation as a whole. For passengers, travel could be completed in hours rather than days. For farmers, crops could be shipped for long distances at far less cost than by wagon. For lumbermen, new regions could be opened up for exploitation. For merchants and manufacturers, new markets could be established and expanded. Before the railroads, Georgia's internal transportation network was based on primitive roads and navigable rivers. Travel on these routes was slow and often hindered by unfavorable weather. In contrast, trains could operate during droughts that made boat trips risky or impossible and during rain storms that turned roads into quagmires. Tilford Yard, Atlanta continued 200 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Such resources should be evaluated within the appropriate context, whether as a system feature or short line, and a determination made regarding the significance of that individual and physically disconnected resource. Generally, these types of discontiguous resources are important for their association with a significant but now physically destroyed railroad, and, as such, are also important as a physical remnant of that now otherwise vanished railroad resource. Depots For the purposes of this study, the investigators determined that all extant depots are contributing features of a given National Register-eligible system or line. Depots are a comparatively rare and dwindling resource within the state of Georgia, and their importance within the framework of railroad operations is inarguable. Thus, even depots that are in poor or altered condition, or even relocated, were deemed significant; and, as all remaining depots, at a minimum, at least retained their overall form and massing, they were also all determined to be intact enough to convey their historic rail association. Long-distance roads such as the Unicoi Turnpike existed at the time, but they handled little freight traffic because most farmers could not afford to pay the haulage costs. On those roads, wagons mostly carried low-volume goods that had a high enough value to justify the expense of transporting them. The rails provided a much more efficient alternative, and they also changed the patterns of trade. Rather than trying to haul their crops overland on long journeys to market, farmers could just take them to the nearest railroad depot. Over time, new towns grew up along the railroads, and local roads radiated from their depots. Railroads not only vanquished the turnpikes, they also ended all talk of constructing canals. They eventually squeezed steamboats out of the picture as well. But they were expensive to build, and for that reason alternatives to the standard steam railroads were developed, first in the 1870s with narrow-gauge railways, and then in the mid-1890s with electric interurban lines. h Rolling Stock Rolling stock, such as engines, cars, and cabooses, were routinely encountered during this study as museum exhibits. Although rolling stock could potentially be counted among a historic railroad's contributing features, this study did not endeavor to research and confirm the provenance of each engine or car displayed. Although some, or even most, of this rolling stock could be authentic to the rail line portrayed, multiple instances of engines and rail cars being re-liveried by a community to match its former local route were identified. Therefore, rolling stock is not further addressed or evaluated as part of this study but should be further researched and evaluated as encountered in the field for specific projects. Railroad-Related Development in Urban Areas The already tangled web of historic rail development grows still more complex in urban areas. Numerous junctions, wyes, yards, industrial sidings and spurs, and instances of abandoned and new alignments are located in Georgia's cities where various historic rail lines connect or terminate. To add to this complexity, railroads commonly collaborated when developing and constructing urban alignments and junctions, and the frequent privately developed spurs emanating from them only cloud the picture still further. Unravelling this profoundly tangled historic milieu, and to do so for each of Georgia's larger cities, was beyond the scope of this effort. System mainlines were identified and located, as well as documented junctions, wyes, associated spurs, beltlines, and yards, but, nonetheless, numerous short rail segments in Georgia cities were not positively identified. Furthermore, undoubtedly, some abandoned rail segments and other facility locations were not fully documented, and newer alignments were not called out as non-contributing. As encountered, these undocumented lines and segments will require further study, evaluation, and documentation. Railroad Spurs, Industrial Sidings, and Tramways Railroad spurs, industrial sidings, and other very short rail alignments providing certain properties access to rail service are typically owned by a local interest. Therefore, they are elements of a specific property or collection of properties rather than a component of a rail system. As such, they are not identified or considered as part of this study, and would be 201 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey more appropriately evaluated within the context of the property that they serve or served. In addition, tramways, as frequently utilized in the mining and timber industries, are also not considered in this study. By their nature ephemeral, tramways were temporary, small-gauge railways that were dismantled and relocated as resource extraction demanded. Typically constructed with limited ground preparation, such as cuts or grades, these lines often left little or no physical traces following their removal. Cultural Landscapes Although this study focuses on assessing railroads as linear historic districts, it should be noted that railroad lines and historic districts may also be components of a broader cultural landscape, as recognized by the National Register (see National Park Service Preservation Brief 36, Protecting Cultural Landscapes: Planning, Treatment and Management of Historic Landscapes). The impact of rail transport on community development, agriculture, and industry, among other areas, shaped the land along the lines. Although many cultural features along a rail line may not be specifically rail-related, they are nonetheless likely to be historically and spatially connected. Archaeology Railroad resources are typically recorded as aboveground structures and evaluated for the National Register under Criteria A and C. However, archaeological investigation may also contribute to our understanding of the historic significance of this resource type. While an in-depth archaeological investigation is not included in the present study's scope, consideration should be given for archaeological survey and testing to identify subsurface deposits with the potential to provide data that may contribute to the understanding of a resource's historic significance under Criterion D. The Georgia Archaeological Site File maintains a list of all recorded archaeological sites throughout the state, including numerous examples associated with Georgia's historic railroads. Railroad related archaeological sites throughout the state include those associated with the Civil War, historic mills, mines, and logging operations, as well as Detail of 1914 Georgia Railroad system map (S. Storey) many documenting fragments of abandoned and remnant rail lines. While previously recorded archaeological site examples do exist, railroads and railbeds themselves are not typically recorded as archaeological sites. Archaeological excavation of these rail features however, has the potential to provide data on construction techniques that may not otherwise be known. Additionally, many contributing features of a railroad linear historic district may have archaeological components that would be recorded as archaeological sites and may contribute to the overall eligibility of the district as part of its evaluation under Criterion D. With the exception of railbeds, archaeological deposits associated with railroad features, such as depots, stations, and yards, would be recorded as archaeological sites and evaluated for the National Register, as well as for their contribution to the railroad district. In general, any rail-related archaeological deposits encountered should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. This study should be utilized to determine any changes or additions to the National Register eligibility determinations and boundaries documented herein, or if a new resource has been identified that requires separate evaluation. 202 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Levels of Significance National Register-eligible resources can be significant at the national, state, or local level. Given their geographic scale and undeniable and obvious economic import to the state of Georgia, the ten main-line systems were all determined to be significant at the statewide level. Indeed, given that all these systems extended beyond state lines as either a multi-state system or by way of connection to other systems, many or all of these systems are arguably of national significance. However, given the Georgia-based scope of the present study and the relatively limited research conducted regarding rail development outside of the state, the investigators did not employ determinations of national significance. For the smaller short lines and industrial lines that were determined National Register eligible, the investigators determined these local or regional lines were historically significant at the state or local level depending on their geographic scale and scope of operations. III. HISTORIC DISTRICTS AND INTEGRITY Historic Districts and Boundaries Consideration and evaluation of a railroad as a linear historic district is the most fully inclusive and, therefore, the most comprehensive representation of a historically significant railroad resource in Georgia. As such, this all-encompassing district type is the most valuable in terms of the amount and quality of tangible information that it imparts to the public about a particular railroad and its historic context and significance. A railroad linear historic district, and thus its National Register-eligible boundary, should encompass the right of way within which a railroad has historically operated or once did operate, and any and all of the remaining buildings, structures, objects, and sites that have together been utilized for the purpose of running trains to transport freight and passengers. The contributing elements of a railroad corridor historic district are, for the most part, organized within narrow, linear rights of way that may extend for hundreds of miles. Numerous elements and features of a railroad could potentially contribute to the historic significance of such a historic district. These linear districts may thus be expanded in width at specific places, as needed and justified, in order to include geographically larger contributing elements, such as depots and rail yards. The linear, miles-long nature of the railroad corridor historic district is not only necessary to take in the full length, scope, and context of the route or system, but it is important as an associative characteristic that conveys the sense of the corridor connecting multiple points along a route, and is thereby expressive of a train traveling from one point of departure to another, distant destination. A National Register-eligible railroad linear historic district may be comprised of a combination of contributing elements. Yet, to warrant its status as a representative linear corridor, it must offer, by definition, an intact length of corridor between at least two points or stops along the rail route that were once named, recognized locations. This can be determined and corroborated not only from the constructed rail corridor and its component buildings and structures, but also from historic literature, such as maps or railroad timetables. It is not required that a specific rail route or system remain in active operation to be determined eligible for the National Register as a linear historic district. The line may have been mothballed, with ties, tracks, and ballast still in place within the rail right-of-way, but just lying unused and untraveled, or it may even have been abandoned. The status of abandonment may have progressed to the extent of removal of trackage, or even conversion to a rail trail. Though a loss of these physical features does, without question, constitute an alteration that will reduce the degree of integrity of the rail corridor in the areas of design, materials, workmanship, and even feeling, this diminishment is not necessarily significant enough, on balance, to disqualify the linear historic district from National Register eligibility. Instead, the essential, uninterrupted linearity of the corridor, along with its retention of some other character-defining elements, such as the railbed, cuts, tunnels, fills, and embankments, and trestles and bridges (or even just bridge piers), are still sufficient to convey the corridor's presence and intrinsic status as a former railroad route. The higher the number of these contributing elements that are still in place along the length of the uninterrupted rail corridor, the more likely it is that the loss of trackage is overcome, and 203 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey the National Register eligibility of the linear historic district exhibited. In cases where the trackage of a formerly operational railroad route has been removed and the abandonment has Barrows Bluff, Coffee County (Vanishing Georgia) progressed fully to the extent that the right-of-way has been broken up and segmented, either through selling to adjacent property owners, or through enactment of reversionary clauses in the original acquisitions of land for the rail right-of-way, then it will be critical to carry out on-site surveys and ground-truthing analysis of the physical and visual linearity of the railroad roadway. Even though the ownership and cohesiveness of the corridor may have been disrupted, such developments do not necessarily indicate that a rail corridor cannot be determined to be National Register eligible as a linear historic district if it is still substantially physically intact. If the railbed has not been built upon and if obvious physical features, such as raised beds, berms, and embankments, remain visible and distinct as nothing less than a former railroad corridor, then the route may, even still, be determined eligible for the National Register. In this regard, there may be some unavoidable discrimination against such abandoned rail routes in the flat coastal plains and piney woods of southern Georgia, in comparison to routes through the state's areas where undulating terrain is prevalent. The curving embankments and deep cuts that were developed to construct railroad lines across varied, rolling topography leave more of a long-lasting and discernible physical trace than do long, straight runs of tracks and ties laid directly and with ease over mostly flat, sandy plains. If a railroad route has been abandoned and vacated, and the corridor has been segmented or chopped up by developments or agricultural practices, in which the former right-of-way has been plowed over, over-graded, or built-upon, long sections of the corridor may have simply disappeared, with no physical traces still evident. In such instances, perhaps more likely in urban areas around Georgia's faster growing cities, the railroad line may now be too disconnected to be National Register eligible as an intact linear historic district. Nonetheless, as indicated above, discontiguous or isolated extant features of an otherwise disrupted railroad corridor may still retain historic significance. Such resources may be present in instances where a longer, multi-station or multi-stop rail corridor has been broken up and disturbed too substantially to support National Register eligibility for the overall corridor or even long segments of a component route. Despite such losses of contiguousness and connectivity, a specific feature along a formerly intact corridor, such as an isolated depot, may be historically significant and retain a high degree of integrity. Although no longer connected to an intact rail corridor, these isolated resources may be representative of the impact that the former railroad line had on development or growth in a given area. As vestiges of construction fueled by and during the local railroad's period of operation, they also may simply constitute good, intact examples of the variety of buildings and structures that were built as part of a rail alignment, or a station or yard development. Integrity As described above, railroad resources must convey their relevant historic significance and do so through substantial retention of integrity. As this study indicates, the vast majority of Georgia's rail systems and lines, whether measured as entities or miles of track, are historically significant and, therefore, potentially National Register eligible. Thus, the integrity test becomes crucial to determine if a rail system, line, or feature is National Register eligible as a resource or as a contributing element. Integrity is measured in the literal terms of location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. For evaluation of a railroad resource's integrity, and, most particularly, the typical linear railroad corridor, this integrity test is a measure of the resource's physical presence in the aboveground environment. Active and/or maintained lines typically pass this test easily; however, for long-abandoned lines that are in poor condition or have seemingly vanished, the test becomes complex. 204 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey ASPECTS OF INTEGRITY ,QWHJULW\LVWKHDELOLW\RIDSURSHUW\WRFRQYH\LWVVLJQLFDQFH7KH1DWLRQDO 3DUN6HUYLFHZKRDGPLQLVWHUVWKH1DWLRQDO5HJLVWHUSURJUDPKDVLGHQWLHG seven aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. While all aspects must be assessed when evaluating resources for National Register eligibility, each aspect will be weighed GLIIHUHQWO\GHSHQGLQJRQLWVDELOLW\WRFRQYH\WKDWUHVRXUFHVVLJQLFDQFH LOCATION A railroad retains integrity of location if its alignment remains and is discernible along its original location. Segments of a railroad that have been relocated less than 50 years ago are generally not considered contributing. FEELING AND ASSOCIATION A railroad retains integrity of feeling and association if the resource is physically intact, as discussed above, and therefore conveys its linearity as a current or IRUPHUUDLOURDGOLQHDQGLVGLVWLQJXLVKDEOHVSHFLFDOO\DVDUDLOFRUULGRU WORKMANSHIP AND MATERIALS +LVWRULFUDLOURDGVW\SLFDOO\KDYHGLPLQLVKHGLQWHJULW\RIZRUNPDQVKLSDQG materials due to the replacement of rails, ties, and ballast due to maintenance DQGXSJUDGHVRYHUWLPHDQGRUGXHWRDEDQGRQPHQW+RZHYHUDVEXLOW features, components such as intact railbeds, cuts, grades, bridges, and other structures may retain integrity of workmanship and materials. K DESIGN A railroad retains integrity of design if the railroad is physically intact enough to be visually present within the landscape at multiple points along its route. Given the relative differences in select railroad lines, including current condition, length, and local topography, this assessment must be tailored to WKHVSHFLFUHVRXUFH)RUDEDQGRQHGOLQHVZKHUHUDLOVWLHVDQGEDOODVWKDYH been removed, other substantial physical evidence of the alignment, in the form of remnant bed, cuts, grades, and other built physical features, including structures and buildings, must be located at multiple points along the extent of the former rail route to retain design integrity. Although a preponderance of the line need not be evident, enough extant physical features are required relative to the scale of the resource to indicate that the resource still substantially exists aboveground. Few and isolated traces of railbed, cuts, and/or grades do not equate to retention of integrity of design. SETTING Setting is not a critically important DVSHFWof integrity for railroad resources. Given that railroads were intended to be and remain economic infrastructure, developmental changes over time in their vicinities are not out of character with railroad's historic and present intended purpose. A physically intact railroad generally retains integrity of setting barring unusual circumstances. Leary, Calhoun County 205 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey To a certain extent, at least in terms of National Register eligibility, historic significance, and physical integrity, there is no inherent and substantive difference between active and abandoned rail corridors and so no default difference in the integrity test. Although casual consideration of any given railroad would suggest that the integrity assessment would rely on retention of its rails, ties, and ballast, these features are arguably of negligible historic importance. For active lines, these features have been continually and typically comprehensively upgraded for a variety of reasons, including safety, maintenance, and technological or material improvement purposes. These basic elements when present are therefore not typically historic material. Thus, if rails, ties, and ballast have been removed from a longabandoned line, as is typical, such a line does not necessarily retain more or less historic material or features than an active railroad. A railroad's most important material components are those that compose its constructed railbed, grades, and support facilities. The critical integrity test for a rail line is thus retention of its linearity and that linearity's presence in the landscape as distinguished by its extant, historic physical features. The questions become: Are the historic railbed and its cuts and built-up grades physically distinguishable in the landscape? Are historic structures and buildings still present? Are other significant facilities present? As mentioned, for an active line, the answers are typically yes, and so the integrity test is passed. As such a line is intact, and typically with few if any changes to its original alignment, that resource retains integrity of location, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association because the line clearly conveys its historic significance as a railroad through its extant physical features. For a long abandoned and/or deteriorated railroad, field investigation and an evaluation of remnant features was and is required to determine integrity. Notably, access to railroad corridors, whether active or inactive, can hinge on specific conditions and situational circumstances regarding local geography and terrain, routing and proximity of nearby roads, ownership of surrounding lands, and, all together, the availability of public rights-of-way at particular locations. Therefore, the investigators for this study made judgments based on field survey at accessible points along a given rail alignment and, to the extent possible, use of publicly available web-based aerial photography. Abandoned and inactive lines were surveyed in a myriad of conditions, from nearly fully intact examples to corridors that had seemingly vanished without a trace. Dependent on their relative conditions and accessibility, then, railroads passed or failed the integrity test accordingly. For the numerous lines in between the two conditions intact and disappeared, those that were legible in the landscape due to retention of substantial sections of railbed, cuts and grades, and other structures or facilities, were typically deemed to retain enough integrity to convey their historic associations. Based on the available evidence, those lines that were vanished or seemed to retain only few and isolated traces of alignment or other features were typically deemed not to retain historic integrity. Generally, the railroads considered by this study--the majority of which were determined to be potentially historically significant--were ultimately found to be National Register eligible or contributing features of an eligible system as a result of the integrity test. Abandoned Railroads, Engineering, and Integrity Although there is of course an undeniable physical and visual disparity between an ongoing, active railroad line and one that is abandoned, with removed rails, ties, and ballast, there are perhaps more substantive similarities than differences, particularly with regard to significance in the area of engineering. In truth, the present material components of active trackage on a historic line are not the most contributory elements, or perhaps more pointedly, they are not the most representative or important features of the railroad's historically significant engineering works. Rather, the originally selected corridor route in the horizontal plane (comprising the x & y axes), composed in concert with original engineering decisions made about the vertical alignment or grade (the z-axis), are the aspects that are most reflective of the knowledge, implemented practices, and ongoing evolution of railroad engineering at the time of a rail corridor's development. These alignment decisions, and the technological limitations of the era, are not revealed or materially manifested most explicitly by the tracks and ties and the gravel of the bed, but instead by the gradients, slopes, cuts, and built-up beds and embankments. 206 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey For example, even though most of the Central of Georgia's original antebellum mainline from Savannah to Macon has remained in active service throughout its duration, other than the brief interlude following its partial Civil War-era destruction, perhaps its most prominent significance in the area of engineering is the fact that much of its length was laid out not as the crow flies, along the shortest distance between the two cities, but instead by following the course of the Ogeechee River. Its resultant winding alignment made use of the level terrain offered alongside the river's banks. Hence, the numerous curves of this historic route are the most defining components in effectively illustrating the limitations of railroad building in the 1830s and 1840s, when almost all the grading work had to be accomplished by men and animals using relatively simple hand tools. As the nineteenth century progressed into the twentieth, Georgia's railroad lines became more and more straight, seemingly with each successive project. Some of these railroads were, of course, constructed through the level terrain of south Georgia's piney woods, but other such long, straight runs are expressive of the advancements in road building efficiency afforded by the machine age. Therefore, as long as an abandoned bed is still evident in its setting and landscape, and its linear continuity is still, for the most part, intact and unbroken, it may present nearly as much, and sometimes even more, integrity and value to the historic engineering record than an active line that has been subjected to continual updates, rebuilding and regrading, all to the newer standards that are part of the ongoing advancements in railroad technology. Relocations Although relatively rare, examples of realigned or relocated railroad lines in Georgia are extant; given the magnitude of cost and complexity a rail relocation entails, they appear to be typically short and associated with major public works. Examples include tunnel realignments at Chetoogeeta Mountain (Tunnel Hill) for the Western & Atlantic Railroad and at Brushy Mountain (Rockmart vicinity) for the Seaboard Air Line Railway, realignments due to the construction of Lake Lanier, and relocations due to interstate construction. When encountered and requiring evaluation, a bypassed segment's and its realignment's age and the context of the change should be considered when determining those segments' significance and contributing status. Much more common are depot relocations; however, given the relative scarcity of this important architectural type, this study found all depots significant regardless of present location under Criterion C and Criteria Consideration B, which indicates relocated properties are typically not eligible for the National Register. Identifying Material Age Although a railroad's grade often dates to its original construction, determining the age of certain physical features can be difficult. For example, a historic-period trestle can be nearly identical to more recent construction. When required for evaluation, in-depth research on a specific feature, coordination with a railroad entity, if possible, or an educated guess becomes necessary. However, substantial bridges may of course be marked with a date or could possibly be identified in past aerial photography. The evolution of railbed technology can lend further clues. Rails were initially bolted (though this connection method is still in use); welded rails became popular in the 1950s. Concrete ties came into regular use in Europe after World War II. Less popular in the United States due to the abundant wood resources found here, concrete ties in Georgia are relatively rare and generally of recent installation on heavily trafficked rail corridors. v ___________________________________________________________ 207 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey IV. CASE STUDIES The following case studies briefly illustrate and indicate the typical rationale for National Register determinations of eligibility as documented in this study. The selected railroads are more fully evaluated in their respective property information forms and system feature inventory forms (see Appendices). Case Study: GEORGIA RAILROAD MAINLINE (GAR MAIN) Historically significant railroad, intact and in use, National Register eligible Development: The Georgia Railroad (GAR) is inarguably one of the most important historic systems developed in Georgia. Its mainline (MAIN), one of the state's earliest lines, ultimately connected Augusta to the infant rail hub and city of Atlanta. Mainline branches connected Athens and Washington. The GAR MAIN subsequently played a critical role in the development of east Georgia and the growth of Atlanta into a major rail center and industrial city. Conyers, Rockdale County Thomson, McDuffie County Physical status: The GAR MAIN's central spine, or "Main Stem," as it was internally referred to, between Augusta and Atlanta remains in-service. Therefore, its historic alignment is physically intact, as so too are its most historically significant physical features: its railbed and associated cuts, grades, and embankments. The MAIN's Athens branch has been abandoned and its rails, ties, and ballast removed; nonetheless, its railbed remains physically present and is routinely discernable in the landscape. Further, the MAIN's Washington branch remains in-service and its alignment is intact. Numerous GAR MAIN depots are also extant. Greensboro, Greene County Social Circle, Walton County Pullman Yard, Kirkwood, Atlanta Downtown Augusta Eligibility: Because it is generally intact and retains integrity, the GAR MAIN is considered eligible as a contributing element of the GAR system under Criterion A in the areas of Commerce, Community Planning and Development, Exploration/Settlement, Transportation, and Military, and under Criterion C in the areas of Architecture and Engineering. The MAIN's "Main Stem" and both branch lines are considered contributing to the GAR system. Although the Athens branch line has been abandoned and its rails and ties removed, because the railbed is routinely identifiable within the landscape, it still substantially retains integrity. All depots are also considered contributing. v 208 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Mountville, Troup County Woodbury, Meriwether County Thomaston vicinity, Upson County Thomaston, Upson County Thomaston, Upson County Dyas, Monroe County Thomaston, Upson County Pickard, Upson County Case Study: GEORGIA SOUTHERN & FLORIDA RAILROAD MACON & BIRMINGHAM RAILROAD (GSF MCBH) Historically significant railroad, no longer in service, partially intact, National Register eligible Development: The Macon & Birmingham Railroad (MCBH) developed as a link between Macon and LaGrange, with ambitions to reach its namesake Alabama city. Opened between Macon and LaGrange in 1891, the MCBH was a project of the Georgia Southern & Florida Railroad (GSF), although the entities were maintained separately. The MCBH connected to the GSF mainline just south of Macon. The MCBH did not complete construction west of LaGrange; the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic acquired the MCBH's incomplete Alabama road and finished it as part of its own growing system. Never profitable, the MCBH was reorganized in 1895 and abandoned 1922-1923. Physical status: Long abandoned, the MCBH's rails, ties, and ballast have been removed. Nonetheless, the alignment can be routinely located along its long route between Sofkee, south of Macon, and LaGrange as intact segments of railbed, cuts, and embankments. Further, in many locations that were not accessible during field survey, the alignment is clearly discernable on available aerial imagery. Two small intact but dilapidated depots are extant at Thunder and Dyas. Eligibility: Because substantial portions of its alignment are generally intact and retain sufficient integrity, the GSF MCBH is considered eligible as a contributing element of the GSF system under Criterion A in the areas of Commerce, , Community Planning and Development, Exploration/Settlement, and Transportation, and under Criterion C in the areas of Architecture and Engineering. Although in multiple locations the alignment could not be positively identified and located, because numerous instances of intact railbed could be confirmed, the MCBH alignment is still substantially physically intact and present within the landscape. Its essential linearity is substantially maintained, and thus its integrity is sufficiently intact. As such, the MCBH, inclusive of intact sections of alignment and extant depots, is considered a contributing component of the GSF system. v 209 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Flovilla, Butts County Flovilla, Butts County Possible cut, Indian Springs, Butts County Indian Springs, Butts County Case Study: FLOVILLA & INDIAN SPRINGS RAILROAD (SHO FLOV) Historically significant railroad, few or no physical remnants, not eligible Development: An independent short line (SHO), the Flovilla & Indian Springs Railroad (FLOV) was a three-mile line connecting the Southern Railway at Flovilla to the Indian Springs resort community in Butts County. Historically, the mineral springs were thought to have medicinal properties, and a resort sprang up around them including inns and recreational amenities. The FLOV was a local commercial venture to improve tourist access to the resort and thus increase business. However, the line was relatively short-lived: opened in 1890, the line shut down in 1918. Physical status: Abandoned in 1918 and likely dismantled immediately or shortly thereafter, no extant traces of the FLOV were positively identified during field survey. The tie-in into the Southern Railway at Flovilla has been erased, and no segments of railbed were confirmed between Flovilla and Indian Springs. No structures or buildings identified with the railroad are known to exist. Eligibility: Due to its intended purpose and operation, the FLOV indicated potential significance under Criterion A in the areas of Commerce, Transportation, and Entertainment/Recreation, and under Criterion C in the area of Engineering. However, because the resource appears to have substantially physically vanished from the landscape, and no extant traces of the railroad were positively identified through field survey and review of available aerial photography, the FLOV does not retain integrity. Therefore, the FLOV is considered not eligible for the National Register. v USGS map showing FLOV's approximate route 210 | National Register Guidelines | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey PRACTICAL METHODOLOGY FOR SECTION 106 APPLICATION Historic narrative GEORGIA STATEWIDE HISTORIC RAIL RESOURCES Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application Cover Photo: Morven Depot, Brooks County OVERVIEW To assist cultural resources professionals with the identification, evaluation, and consideration of rail-related historic properties within the framework of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the Georgia Department of Transportation has prepared National Register guidelines and a proposed, general methodology for resource evaluation and assessment. As part of the present study, GDOT has also used the guidelines to survey, document, and make determinations of eligibility for historic railroad alignments across Georgia. This effort is intended to document and evaluate all the known historic railroad corridors in the state for National Register eligibility, and, therefore, substantially reduce future documentation efforts. Thus, the intended purpose of the guidelines, methodology, and statewide survey is to simplify evaluations and documentation when historic railroads are encountered through compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. Because of the vast scope and reach of the state's rail system, GDOT determined it would be beneficial and more efficient to make definitive determinations for all identified rail systems. Further, with this information in hand, a simplified methodology could be developed for including that documentation in cultural resources reports or to direct any needed future identification efforts. The statewide survey and methodology would then largely eliminate the current practice of railroad identification through a piecemeal, project-by-project approach. In addition, given the nature of rail systems, and the frequency with which historic railroads were not adversely affected by typical transportation projects and their impacts, GDOT has also developed a basic methodology intended to dispense with redundant project effects assessments for routine and basic impacts to historic rail properties. This proposed methodology is intended to inform a future programmatic agreement between relevant transportation and review agencies. The present study is intended to foster a better understanding of the state's historic rail development and its remaining historically significant physical characteristics. As indicated, it is also intended to eliminate redundant determinations of eligibility for rail resources; to eliminate unnecessary or redundant documentation; and to efficiently consider routine impacts to historic rail properties. Although this study and its tools should greatly reduce documentation and improve process efficiency, it will eliminate further identification efforts and effects assessments under specific circumstances outlined in this proposed methodology and following its implementation as policy. Furthermore, this study, including the historic context, guidelines, methodology, and the statewide survey, is intended to be as comprehensive as possible given available resources and the limitations of access to, and even inaccessibility for, many linear miles of the active and abandoned railroad corridors throughout the state. However, this study cannot contemplate the whole universe of Georgia's historic rail resources and all their features, nor consider every possible project situation regarding potential impacts thereto. The scope of this study, for example, does not include in-depth examination of rail-related archaeological sites and features leaving an avenue for future study and expansion. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the user of this study to understand its limitations, to follow its general methodologies, to recognize when a circumstance falls outside of its application, and to use his or her professional judgment in lieu of specific guidance in this document. 212 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey I. IDENTIFY HISTORIC RAILROADS A. Identify Historic Railroads in Project Area of Potential Effects (APE) Following establishment of a project APE, the researcher should utilize this study and associated mapping on GNAHRGIS to identify documented railroad resources within the APE. If a rail resource included in this study is located in the APE, that resource's property information form and system feature inventory form (as applicable) should be included in the project's Historic Resources Survey Report. The resource(s) should be referenced and/or listed in the survey report summary, and the relevant survey form(s) should be included in the report's appendix with other previously identified resources (i.e. Georgia Historic Bridge Survey findings and documentation). Although the present study is intended to comprehensively include the state's historic railways, the investigator should be cognizant that there may be undocumented rail-related resources in a project APE, including abandoned lines or grades, relocated buildings or structures, industrial spurs, and other features or elements. If such undocumented resources are encountered, they should be evaluated according to the National Register Registration Guidelines included herein (Chapter VI), and documented in a standard GDOT Property Information Form (PIF) per current GDOT procedure. If a feature or component of a documented system is identified and requires evaluation, a PIF may also be utilized (see sidebar this page). Documenting Additional Features In the event additional features of a rail resource require supplemental documentation, a Property Information Form (PIF), based on the current GDOT property information form template and its categorization (resource identification, location, development, description, National Register evaluation, integrity, and boundary), should be utilized. The form should clearly indicate the relationship between the features documented and the historic railroad of which they are a component. The PIF should focus on features of concern and be adapted accordingly to include the relevant information and contributing-status evaluation. Include mapping, photographs, and other supporting materials as applicable. As necessary, a PIF could be used to clarify the status of any particular rail feature. For example, a prominent but non-historic bridge along an eligible alignment could be documented in a PIF to officially record its Section 106 status. The PIF should be noted in the Historic Resources Survey Report and attached to the historic rail property's survey form in the report's appendix. v P.I. No. 0000000 ABCD RPrAoIpLoRseOCdoANuDGnatD,ytisCOoeaTnOtaPvMl.iIcR.PiAnNeOiBtoPgCyc.NDi,i0srSoAdREt0Feoaen0umeNiiry0lovrpnrn0ToLCBrp0Caavceto90domOwooiulelruSao0fnuutFFcynntatilouy9taDdyedoa.aeeXifon.tpaRndirntonYRfeaorndtdmiriPduWIgyrrtyZsrotetosgeoeaeediapefsenloDSfvc9nottgaoRasneide(0eaeeeYhrca:t9i1dsddaTpfndeahrdtoNSiett)wrPsoaiddithstreTthhieeasdots.IuooestcninLaiietEoodnodenedneheoftitnoaasrrgGlplmLMiniBlifoeo,tloRveittautiooneccetr(frsAglhagopgdchpdehetN2oyrieeDavtennsecohntioubrnheeyenRtaNnrtsstalcraatoetaeimhefuamrbe.aNti,uBroyhttolllecoeinaosctvelirotisuromcsSnewAsfgneniiotreoeatal3sniseAePdCsfoistucekiya,aadniniinlnt4t:nurtolteeh:Btynnlaasdnlddl-wtrsiBooorgtttwafddyenhotpiett,eohgteceyTaCoupehcecneueCayi,aeapniadorewelnblnorPtrnhodhemnmrTsDeel'smrnotaca-nDmorenrtsueh-iondRReAcihriatyolitnriasvedsRd.snieejlbnaoanwfoltXre,sfeengRteiOBaeSufiehogIaariterdregrnegtpcnirttcaitAlYpt,ruumredhCegGohiieiaaiPahe:itoilaesuscicblngcngs/esalisninerZstoi,nDafricegEaosltluttcindsdcwlcir.deilveabtetoeoaastaCtccSAhacare,ooelaaRePeshctnearlpretcarnaTtfiXttRDlonroeedeaBrtepirbgestCteisoraiptT-dboeruuhodrgeaR1YlrieyetpSrCdarrt9uacaAceapewrrmniYdnmnolv9heCeemssameaycntZiodi0pdaD'eo.mxesu6nBeegnitciesedtnn9grrntIcepenTlarikr5,SiiisoasteCoiomt'rleNnbnolbedrtyloeisytirbRhemusaonafnluinpsrnlgonroeDdeintosnaaaoFderltpeictboainIrCgmirccsrtw.htddmusdrtn-nevneapreueniOs.lieltiwstFreeroligseddeetafuisetXllmtt-leeBrbeoaioenno1tieohraiuvn,ey,RddeooelgrnlnuEfalraYnbmctr9r.neaenetseveonwksaimimmlg,a8tdMhenesn5trabisCidieiZcedSrhate0aetcenEaimcldag2elceaeasenwSscswodomdreeArrngtiit;atxlttnaf,.oteaiumninaiSLwueieaednaeipstpooauooaoTmpblFntevfAdhrsey1ledee-taahnllnnrnneet)neaeetanu,uIlofts8tvvwhpllB.yad:ewr.rPohatOltlrtsrwls3CFteaewoaiiatsesneh1tgooarC-h,rneBouellCl3hemnomtrsNoreit9runooaseacTAgnrhsDati-eeoioaerirop6reChatogdonte1c.,fmthreescnfuieBcFose,ti4n-dd,uo9e(kroeeifeetatiCufSrpfRXricC-/,rOhnltnd8tkofdrltnataScrthfohloiltidyCaSesa3u,franDrYgfdartnahaeeRaneftomrefyaioem:rcoddnasadntlloiott'Zna1nm1IsuetiraMuhtriulAnseidRnurlaglthoiHnlt92Aa)fr1reenlddneelfsaAfn.i-Bedaigve5oSN9mlorciotddoBlefovmd.eAsyeob0aae6CyaptT.rrvaNtCaotieCvyrdsHuonmeho5bsnoeneBtcieDehfne(es,rtgiatalenDr.unrfocrosAaoeeoeaaatlCAatarthiwi-itt,oeBnnwhmiebttndcmcAiftlll,tBloDi.:SBpsoldedkashoeiilyAa-oaepadneTBetaCmnyriTmeul,CCsnrFvlanlassBaenbtpdhseourCshDRhaorteresDoeglan,tdrdaieCcecaFeoesFerinuaDitmni.Teo)r-Rasastcn,adeindfmtDtatoabitcognSsrttrtIous,rhdgeodaeoieorlltieraeaatninigtmenrlshe,cxecnmiusgahordgnctFnecoecaiatctttoilbitettftdalesosreeecfaadsasahnohhsismawFilpIlinoranntaAtnpadsbeedirilsrpXnaageeaotttsnStddontpecdca-ouepuissvCdgraaaeecirhtYsnionudAAtrnl-lcitipXribtrerrhnoahiitdtirisuegnneaignneBBtueiigsnnZhnneletasgoohacliYntfnessghCCotiSeemaiitnetepgirIolrunuouetgbagoesoftDDAartnk8iZslglryrtglarRetsosrbitieprancAayBhthmvhot,albeSsRRsnytsub'tnuohtil,oCseheeeuotXralseBaSaatitwRoreattewoteueiDygwsancaiinmfFrasibeesmllntClYSCtscnetneirrtdnthidt,eomeiaooezmiXtoo9toaoioedargddillmDoasvZloCoaargeietos0randtnnoen,ge.wlYdd(mnyahlyddnrnlecu9dool.rdSs::rctaaaem,ssaiCiZnatn.,iimePPwobRogpnnCn.reodnretrdthhcdwfuyAeneiheddncdin)mdroooosenettocdcttnyoetthksyhluritrraooatfetooeito.,wodoitishlbmh21rrbrokCst.ntsesltTtcedleeeehusnh,eeicretohsmtelctethi-rre,eaiintedotoeoned.niCNnosoourgetThtiomofnahsasaomfhretesuieihesCtdoameoa-ntrXuuiuaensrnYleeit,sZthye 213 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Acto, Bartow County 214 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey B. Verify National Register Boundary Per the registration guidelines, the National Register-eligible boundary for eligible railroad linear historic districts is understood to be the historic rail rights-of-way. Within a project's limits, the investigator should confirm applicable rights-of-way and, based on general background research of the project area, determine if the historic boundary is accurate, logical, and justifiable at the relevant location(s). If the boundary based on historic and/or current rights-of-way is sufficient, no further action regarding the boundary is necessary. If this presupposed district boundary is determined inadequate at a specified location, the investigator should complete the relevant portions of a PIF explaining and justifying the proposed boundary at the specific location. The inclusion of supplementary information should be noted in the survey report's summary, and the PIF should be attached to the historic rail property's survey form located in the Historic Resources Survey Report's appendix. C. Identify Contributing Features For National Register-eligible rail resources, the present study has identified select contributing features through background research and/ or field survey; these features are included in the appropriate survey form and are generally but not exclusively limited to alignments and prominent buildings and/or structures, as applicable. Therefore, the inventory of contributing features is not in any way exhaustive. The investigator must review existing documentation (i.e. the survey form from this study) and conduct field survey within the project area to determine if additional features require identification and documentation. Refer to the potential contributing features list in the registration guidelines for assistance. i. Previously identified contributing features If all contributing features within the APE are included in the survey form, no further action regarding contributing features is necessary. Typical previously documented contributing features will include the alignment and depots. Caution!!! About Approximate Rail Locations Due to the systematic abandonment of railroads throughout Georgia's rail history, a significant number of railroads and/or segments thereof are no longer discernible in the landscape and could not be positively located during the course of the present study. Therefore, the mapping associated with these resources is both approximate and indeterminate. The approximate locations indicated show the known general course of these alignments, but their exact locations are unknown. The approximate routes shown could be off by hundreds if not thousands of feet, and conceivably even by miles. As a rule, these alignments and segments thereof are not considered National Register eligible based on current information. Nonetheless, investigators should use their judgment and include appropriate documentation from this study in cultural resources reports when an indeterminately located rail resource is located in or in relatively close proximity to their project APE. In addition, that investigator should also be cognizant that elements of an abandoned rail line could conceivably be located within that project area and, if so, would require documentation and evaluation. v ii. Undocumented contributing features If, based on background research and field survey of the project area, the investigator identifies intact, historic, rail-related features that were not included in the survey form, the investigator should identify, evaluate, and documents these features in the relevant sections of a PIF. This form should explain and justify why the proposed feature (e.g. a feature 50 years of age or older) contributes to the resource's historic significance. The inclusion of supplementary information should be noted in the survey report's summary, and the PIF should be attached to the historic rail property's survey form located in the Historic Resources Survey Report's appendix. 215 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey iii. Non-contributing features In select instances, non-contributing features within a rail resource's boundary have been identified and included in the resource's survey form. Generally, such determinations were made for major features only, such as portions of altered alignment or non-historic replica depots. If the investigator identifies a rail-related but non-contributing feature within the rail resource's boundary and APE, and the investigator believes its documentation as a non-contributing element is warranted, then the investigator may complete the relevant portions of a PIF explaining and justifying the non-contributing feature. The form may also be used for this purpose if the investigator believes a previously documented contributing feature has been altered in such a way that it no longer contributes to the resource's historic significance. The inclusion of supplementary information should be noted in the survey report's summary, and the PIF should be attached to the historic rail property's survey form located in the Historic Resources Survey Report's appendix. or yards, may contain subsurface deposits that would be recorded as archaeological sites, with official state site numbers, and evaluated for their eligibility for the National Register, primarily under Criterion D. Consideration should also be given to whether or not these recorded archaeological resources contribute to the overall National Register eligibility of the railroad linear historic district. In both instances, collaboration amongst historians and archaeologists iv. Archaeological features Archaeological survey and testing may identify archaeological deposits associated with railroad features that have the potential to provide new or additional historical information. Examples of archaeological sites with rail-related components include mills, mining operations, 1899 timetable, Waycross Air Line (S. Storey) and lumber camps, as well as Civil War engagements. Archaeological investigation can also aid in identifying long-abandoned rail alignments and associated features that are no longer visible aboveground. Cultural resources investigators, both historians and archaeologists, should collaborate in cases where both aboveground and archaeological features have been identified and determine how such features should be evaluated and documented. Typically, railroads and railbeds on their own are not recorded as archaeological sites, although they may be recorded as features within a larger site boundary. Theyare instead considered linear historic resources. Important data, however, derived from archaeological investigation could be used to support, inform, and supplement aboveground information, such as the National Register evaluations, boundaries, and other documentation included in this study. Additionally, features of a railroad district, such as depots 1944 ABC system map 216 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Jimmy Carter Boyhood Farm, Archery, Sumter County 217 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Durand, Meriwether County 218 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey should take place to determine the appropriate method of documentation. Resources identified as archaeological sites will be recorded and evaluated in an archaeological survey report that refers to and builds upon the existing cultural resource documentation for the railroad. If archaeological fieldwork is used to gather information regarding the railroad or railbed itself, for example construction techniques, a PIF may be the most appropriate method to supplement the existing cultural resources documentation (i.e. existing property information forms and/or historic resources survey report). The PIF would reference archaeological data and documentation as applicable and may be co-authored by the historian and archaeologist conducting the work. In both instances, the information obtained from archaeological investigations would be evaluated to determine if it contributes to that resource's significance under Criterion D. D. Evaluate any Unidentified Resources As stated, the present study is intended primarily to understand the historic significance of the state's rail systems as entities. Although it is intended to be comprehensive in that regard, there are likely some rail resources that were not identified and evaluated. The investigator should utilize the present study for the identification of historic rail resources in a project APE; however, it should not be relied on exclusively. If field survey and/or background research on a project area indicates the presence of a historic rail resource not included in this study, the investigator should document and evaluate that resource per the registration guidelines and include a standard PIF in the appropriate documentation. E. Complete Historic Railroad Identification Historic railroad resource identification is complete following utilization of this study to identify previously documented railroad resources, when any required supplementary information has been documented, and when background research and field survey do not indicate the presence of any other rail-related resources. All relevant information should be included in the appropriate Section 106 management document, typically the Historic Resources Survey Report. F. Present Findings in Applicable Section 106 Documentation To comply with Section 106, the investigator's findings must be adequately incorporated into the appropriate management document, typically the historic resources survey report, to complete rail resource identification and satisfy Section 106 historic property identification requirements. Dependent on the identification efforts and the findings' complexity, this documentation may range from the simple inclusion of prior documentation to more involved, original documentation under certain circumstances, as described above and below. i. Report front matter Regardless of complexity, if any rail-related resources are located within a project APE, the identification effort should be summarized in the survey report summary and any previously or newly identified rail resources and/or historic rail-related properties (i.e. National Registereligible railroad linear historic districts) should be included in the general resource summarization, either in narrative or table format. Relevant documentation, including applicable survey forms from this study and any PIFs with supplementary information, should be attached in the report appendix and referenced in the report summary. ii. Previously identified resources For all previously identified rail-related resources included in this study and located within a project APE, the applicable property information form from this study and, as applicable, the relevant system feature inventory form should be attached in the report appendix and referenced in the report's summary as indicated above. If the investigator identified no other resources or resource features or components within the APE, the discussion and inclusion of previously identified rail resources in the report front matter and by attachment in an appendix is adequate. Resource identification documentation is complete. iii. Additional features If the investigator identified additional features or elements for a resource(s), the investigator will complete a PIF for those elements, 219 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey utilizing the registration guidelines, and include the form in the survey report, by way of attachment in an appendix. This will provide the SHPO the opportunity to comment on the feature's (features') recommended contributory status. If associated archaeological features are identified, the historian and archaeologist should consult to ensure adequate and appropriate documentation and evaluation (see I. C. iv). iv. New discovery In the event the investigator identifies a previously undocumented rail-related resource (i.e. independent of any prior identification effort or documentation), then the resource would be evaluated per the registration guidelines and documented in a standard PIF. This new resource identification would be described in the survey summary, per standard GDOT procedures, and the new survey form would be included in the survey report. If associated archaeological features are also identified, the historian and archaeologist should consult to ensure adequate and appropriate documentation and evaluation (see I. C. iv). II. ASSESSMENT OF EFFECTS Typically, rail-related historic properties are not subject to as many transportation project-related adverse impacts as other types of resources. Frequently spanning many miles, and by their linear nature as a transportation resource, an economic development tool, and often an ongoing concern, rail corridors are subject to routine and typically minor impacts from roadway and other rail crossings, adjacent development and setting alterations, and ongoing expansions and upgrades. Because of the magnitude of cost related to realigning railroads, this sort of impact occurring due to a roadway project is unusual, although not unprecedented. Due to the frequent number of repetitive and typically minor impacts to railroad resources that have resulted in no effect and no adverse effect determinations under Section 106 regulations, GDOT, in coordination with FHWA and the SHPO, proposes to lead an effort to establish a programmatic agreement (PA) to streamline effects evaluations for routine, low-impact project activity that may or may not affect rail-related historic properties. This PA would be based on the effects methodology outlined below, which includes routine impacts that may have no effect or no adverse effect when applied to a rail-related historic property. In theory, it should reduce documentation by investigators, GDOT, FHWA, and the SHPO, and streamline the Section 106 process when evaluating routine transportation impacts to railroads. Regardless, the nature of project-related effects to a rail-related historic property will continue to require evaluation by an investigator to determine if the below methodology and the potentially forthcoming PA would apply, to provide justification if that PA is applied, and to consider circumstances that would nullify application of the PA. NOTE: The information below is intended to inform development of a PA and is not current policy. Should a PA be formally executed, it will supersede all information provided in the section below. A. Programmatic No Effect Determinations Certain project types or project features, based on their scope and magnitude, and which do not occur within a rail-related historic property's National Register-eligible boundary, may have no effect to railrelated historic properties, particularly long linear historic districts that extend many miles. Visual/Vicinity Project-related visual changes may have no effect to rail-related historic properties if they do not alter or obscure existing visual relationships between contributing features or other rail-related historic properties (i.e. between depot and rail alignment; potentially between commercial centers and rail alignment; between features of a depot and/or rail yard). Typical roadway projects, including widenings, realignments, new location, intersection improvements, new bridge construction, and other standard undertakings, that occur within the viewshed of a rail corridor but not within the rail corridor historic district's boundary, may constitute no effect to the historic property unless such activities obscure historically significant visual relationships to other features or resources directly related to the historic rail property and/or its development. 220 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Coosawattee River, Carters Lake, Murray County 221 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Cloverdale vicinity, Dade County 222 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Example 1: A five-mile highway widening is proposed in a rural area; this existing highway parallels the in-service ABCD railroad, a contributing and intact feature of the National Register-eligible XYZ railroad system, in separate highway right-of-way. Because the only contributing feature identified in the project's APE is the railroad's intact alignment, no historically significant visual features or views are likely to be obscured. Furthermore, no project activity is proposed within the XYZ's historic boundary. Therefore, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no effect finding may be applicable. Example 2: A highway bridge over a waterway is proposed for replacement in a small town; the project area is located near and visible from the in-service ABCD railroad and a depot, both of which are contributing and intact features of the XYZ system. No project activity would occur within the XYZ's historic boundary, and no activity would occur between the depot and the alignment. Therefore, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no effect finding may be applicable. Example 3: A new location, multi-lane roadway is proposed in a historically industrialized suburban area and alongside the in-service ABCD railroad, a contributing and intact feature of the National Registereligible XYZ system. The new location roadway would partially utilize the former location of industrial rail sidings (now removed), but the new road and all project activity would remain outside the XYZ's historic boundary. The new roadway would be located between the ABCD alignment and older warehouses once served by the sidings and being separately evaluated. In this case, potential exists for a project-related visual impact because the new road would physically and visually separate the rail alignment from the warehouses. Due to the potential complexity of this evaluation, a programmatic finding may not be applicable. GDOT's Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), No Potential to Cause Effects, Maintenance and Minor Highway Projects Any project activity occurring in the vicinity of a rail-related historic property but not within its historic boundary and that is also included in GDOT's MOU would likely be determined to have no effect to the rail resource. Example: Proposed routine maintenance along a highway that crosses the in-service ABCD railroad, a contributing and intact feature of the National Register-eligible XYZ system, requires repaving and new standard signage. Because these activities are included in GDOT's MOU, they have no potential to cause an effect to the railroad resource, and, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no effect finding may be applicable. Routine Maintenance Any routine maintenance of a state-owned rail-related historic property that includes in-kind replacement of non-historic materials and/or nonhistoric and non-contributing features would likely be determined to have no effect to the rail resource. Consult GDOT's current "Georgia Rail Map" for overview of state-owned rail lines. Example: GDOT proposes replacing non-historic rails and ties on a GDOT-owned railroad with new in-kind materials; this project work would not constitute an effect to the railroad resource. Therefore, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no effect finding may be applicable. B. Programmatic No Adverse Effect Determinations Certain project types or project features, based on their scope and magnitude, may affect, but not adversely affect, rail-related historic properties. Visual/Vicinity Project-related visual changes may have no adverse effect to rail-related historic properties if they are in the vicinity of historically significant visual relationships between contributing features or other rail-related historic properties but do not alter or obscure them in a manner that diminishes the integrity of those visual, spatial relationships and therefore the property's historic setting (i.e. between depot and rail alignment; potentially between commercial centers and rail alignment; between features of a station or yard.) Example 1: A five-mile highway widening is proposed in a rural area; this highway parallels the active ABCD railroad, a contributing and intact feature of the National Register-eligible XYZ railroad system. In select areas along the highway route, the highway and the ABCD are in close 223 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey proximity and share--and have historically shared--transportation right-of-way. In other areas, where the highway and railroad rights-ofway are separate, minor, at-grade highway improvements are proposed that would be partially constructed within the ABCD's historic rightof-way and therefore within the XYZ's historic boundary. Because the only contributing feature identified in the project's APE is the railroad's intact alignment, no historically significant visual features or views are likely to be obscured. Therefore, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no adverse effect finding for visual impacts may be applicable. Example 2: A new location, multi-lane roadway is proposed in an urban area; the project would be visible from the ABCD alignment and a relocated ABCD depot, both contributing features of the National Register-eligible XYZ system. The proposed widening would occur between the relocated depot, which was moved one block away, and the still intact and in-service ABCD alignment. However, all proposed project activity would take place outside the XYZ system's historic boundary. In this case, potential exists for a project-related visual impact because the proposed project would introduce a new visual element between two contributing features. Due to the potential complexity of this evaluation, a programmatic finding would likely not be applicable. New Roadway Crossing on Active Line A new roadway crossing of a rail-related historic property (i.e. an eligible railroad alignment) that remains in operation is by default an effect, but the effect would likely not be adverse, barring unusual circumstances. By their nature as linear transportation resources, railroads have historically been, and continue to be, bisected or otherwise crossed by other transportation resources, such as other railroads and roadways. If a new roadway crossing, whether at-grade or by bridge, viaduct, or tunnel, does not impact characterdefining features other than the alignment and corridor itself, this effect is likely not adverse. A typical crossing would not destroy or diminish historic character-defining features (i.e. the alignment) of the resource. Therefore, a typical/standard roadway crossing of an active linear rail resource (i.e. the railroad alignment) would likely be determined to have no adverse effect to the historic property. Example 1: A new location roadway is proposed in a rural area; the project proposes a two-lane bridge over an operational segment of the ABCD railroad, a contributing feature of the XYZ system. Because the only contributing feature identified in the project's APE is the intact railbed, the proposed new crossing would not substantially impact, alter, remove, or otherwise adversely affect any historically significant features. Therefore, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no adverse effect finding may be applicable. Example 2: A new location roadway is proposed in a rural area; the project proposed an at-grade crossing of an abandoned segment of the ABCD railroad, a contributing feature of the XYZ system. Because the crossing would impact the remnant railbed, a programmatic finding would likely not be applicable. Widening Existing Roadway Crossing on Active Line The widening of an existing roadway crossing on a linear rail-related historic property (i.e. the railroad alignment and corridor) that remains in operation is by default an effect, but the effect would likely not be adverse barring unusual circumstances. If an existing roadway crossing, whether at-grade or by bridge, viaduct, or tunnel, is widened and does not otherwise impact a character-defining feature, this effect is likely not adverse. A typical widening of an existing roadway crossing would not destroy or diminish historic character-defining features (i.e. the alignment) of the resource. Therefore, the widening of a typical roadway crossing of an active, linear rail resource (i.e. the railroad alignment) would likely be determined to have no adverse effect to the historic property. Example: An existing highway crossing of the in-service ABCD railroad, a contributing feature of the historic XYZ system, is proposed for widening in a rural area. The crossing would be widened as a result of a larger highway widening project. Because the only contributing feature identified in the project's APE is the intact railbed, the proposed widened crossing would likely not substantially impact, alter, remove, or otherwise adversely affect any historically significant features. Therefore, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no adverse effect finding may be applicable. 224 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Carters Lake vicinity, Murray County 225 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Morven, Brooks County 226 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Roadway Widening And/Or Alignment Shift The widening or alignment shift of a roadway near or adjacent to a linear rail-related historic property (i.e. the railroad alignment) that includes ground-disturbing project activity within the resource's historic boundary, but does not require realignment of the rail alignment or the alteration or removal of any contributing historic rail-related features, would likely not represent an adverse effect to the resource. Example: A one-mile highway widening is proposed in a rural area; this highway parallels an abandoned but contributing segment of the ABCD railroad, an intact contributing feature of the National Register-eligible XYZ railroad system. Along the highway route, minor, at-grade highway improvements are proposed that would be partially constructed within the ABCD's historic but now defunct right-of-way, and therefore within the XYZ's historic boundary. The only contributing feature identified in the project's APE is the intact railbed, and no project activity would physically impact this feature. Therefore, the proposed project would likely not substantially impact, alter, remove, or otherwise adversely affect any of the historic railroad's historically significant physical features, and, per the proposed PA, a programmatic no adverse effect finding may be applicable. C. Documenting Proposed PA Applicability in Management Documentation If an investigator applies the proposed PA to a particular potential impact to a rail-related historic property, a specific and detailed assessment of effects evaluation would not be required. However, the PA's applicability in each instance and the effect finding must be documented. If the proposed PA would apply and there are no other effects assessments, then the investigator may complete a technical memorandum. The investigator would indicate that the proposed project's impacts to a specific rail-related historic property meet specific conditions as outlined in the PA. The memorandum would include a statement indicating the programmatic effect finding and explaining and justifying the PA's applicability. Per the proposed PA, the technical memorandum would be circulated to the SHPO but would not require concurrence or comment barring disagreement. D. Caution Regarding PA Applicability: When in Doubt, Complete Evaluation The proposed PA would be intended only to streamline effects assessments for routine and basic project activity that would not adversely affect historic railroad resources; the types of project activity that may be applicable to the PA would typically be simple, straightforward, and not involve potential complexity. Such activity would likely take place outside of the historic boundary or represent a minor impact to the historic alignment. Complex project activity involving a historic railroad resource may not be applicable to the proposed PA. Regardless of the propsoed PA and the potential categorization indicated above, its applicability would always be limited when unusual circumstances or considerations outside its scope require additional evaluation. If an investigator is uncertain that the PA would apply, the prudent approach would be to consult with GDOT and/or SHPO, as appropriate, and to conduct an individual effects evaluation per current GDOT guidelines. If the proposed PA would apply but there are other project effects assessments, rail-related or otherwise, then the PA's applicability would be documented in the GDOT Assessment of Effects report. In that report, in the Assessment of Effects section, a new subsection would be incorporated and entitled Programmatic Agreement Applicability, in which the investigator would indicate that the proposed project's impacts to a specific rail-related historic property meet conditions as outlined in the rail PA. A statement indicating the programmatic effect finding and explaining and justifying the PA's applicability would follow. E. All Other Impacts and Effects Determinations If the proposed PA does not apply to an effects assessment for a rail-related historic property (i.e., if the conditions addressed above do not apply or exist, or there are unusual circumstances), then the investigator would complete a standard effects assessment per current GDOT guidelines. In the Assessment of Effects report's front matter, the investigator should explicitly indicate that the rail PA did not apply in the particular case(s) and, therefore, a specific assessment is being completed for that resource(s). 227 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey F. A Note on Rail Alignment to Trail Conversions By their nature, so-called rails-to-trails projects are too complex for programmatic evaluation. Projects of this type, which may preserve narrow rail alignments, including features such as railbeds, grades, cuts, embankments, and even buildings and structures, can be beneficial to railroad preservation. However, specific evaluation of all project activity should be considered to determine the nature of a trail project's potential impacts. v Fall Line Trace Multi-Use Path, Columbus, Muscogee County 228 | Practical Methodology for Section 106 Application | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Historic narrative 229 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Bibliography The following various sources have been used to complete the present study but offer far more detailed information than could be included within it. The scope of rail development in Georgia is immense and, in its parts, much studied, as this list attests. These sources should be consulted when additional information is required for rail evaluations. Summaries have been provided to generally indicate what each source addresses and contains, and therefore to assist researchers in determining which sources would be most useful. GENERAL HISTORICAL SOURCES (NATIONAL/REGIONAL) These sources provide a general but important overview of national and regional railroad development and frame the context within which Georgia's rail systems developed. Abdill, George B. Civil War Railroads. New York: Bonanza Books, 1961. Although it focuses on Northern railroads and the U. S. Military Railroads in Virginia, this well-illustrated book helps the reader understand the rail technology of the time, including motive power, terminal facilities, and trestles/bridges. The railroads played a major role in the war, especially in Georgia, where they were a prime target for Sherman's troops. (192 pages, over 200 images) Black, Robert C., III. The Railroads of the Confederacy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Originally published in 1952, this is commonly acknowledged as the first detailed examination of the role and operations of the Confederate railroads in the Civil War. Black documents the existing rail lines in the CSA at the outset of conflict and the condition of their infrastructure, he explains the management of the railroads during the war, and he describes the ongoing deterioration and contraction of the available CSA railroad network as the war progressed. The book also includes a large scale insert showing a map created by William K. Hubbell that illustrates all "Railroads of the Confederate States". Black then highlights segments of this map to depict the lines and routes that were utilized during specific campaigns, as well as the specific destruction of the lengths of road by the Union forces, focusing particularly on the extent of track destroyed by Sherman's army in Georgia. (360 pages) Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name; the Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday, 2008. This expose' sheds light on the use of, and reliance on, AfricanAmerican convict labor for industrial and agricultural enterprises across the South in the decades after legal slavery was ended. It imparts that many black Southerners were essentially re-enslaved as convicts leased by governments to private businesses, and many of these convicts were jailed on trumped-up charges, such as vagrancy. The businesses included the activities at center of the `New South's' industrialization that required dangerous, hard, physical labor, including coal-mining, brick-making, and railroad building. The text makes specific note of the use of leased convict laborers (as de facto slaves) for rail line construction by several Georgia railroad entities. (466 pages) Clark, John E., Jr. Railroads In The Civil War: The Impact Of Management On Victory And Defeat. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2004. Examines the military use of railroads in the Civil War, comparing the railroad systems in the North and South and recounting the decisions that led to the ultimate failure of the Confederate railroads. Clark focuses on two case studies, one Union and one Confederate, that both involve the battles for Chattanooga and Chickamauga. (275 pages, including 6 maps and 16 black and white photographs) 230 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Drury, George H. The Historical Guide to North American Railroads. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Books, 1985 and 2000. A quick reference for 160 railroads that were abandoned or merged after 1930. Railroads less than 50 miles long are not covered. Most listings include a brief history, along with statistics, maps, and black and white photographs. (480 pages) Grant, H. Roger. Railroads and the American People. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. A social history of America's railroads from 1830 to 1930. It examines not only travel by train, but also the railroads' roles in the communities, such as the design, function, and both operational and societal importance of railroad stations, along with other aspects of the cultural heritage given to us by the railroads. (328 pages) Hilton, George W. American Narrow Gauge Railroads. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990. The standard reference on a sub-type of railroads, popular in the last quarter of the 19th Century. It includes historical sketches on eleven narrow-gauge railroads in Georgia. (580 pages, numerous black and white illustrations) Kornweibel, Theodore, Jr. Railroads in the African-American Experience; A Photographic Journey. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Examines the contributions of African-Americans to the nation's railroads, "from slavery to Amtrak." Besides the well-known job of porter, black citizens also served as brakemen, firemen, chefs, mechanics, and laborers. (557 pages and approx. 200 images) Lewis, Edward A. American Shortline Railway Guide. 3rd, 4th, and 5th editions. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Books, 1986, 1991, and 1996. This illustrated directory includes hundreds of short line railroads around the nation, briefly summarizing their corporate history and current operations. Includes contact information and basic information on locomotives in use at the time of survey. As an example, the 3rd Edition (1986) includes 12 Georgia short lines, ranging from the Atlanta, Stone Mountain & Lithonia to the Valdosta Southern. (368 pages, 5th edition) Lichtenstein, Alex. Twice the Work of Free Labor; the Political Economy of Convict Labor in the New South. New York: Verso, 1996. This book examines the use of convicts on Southern railroads and for other private business enterprises in the South in the decades after the Civil War. It includes many examples from Georgia. (263 pages) Mancini, Matthew J. One Dies, Get Another; Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. Before the Civil War, most Georgia railroads were built with slave labor. After the war, many were constructed by young African-American male prisoners, who were often convicted on flimsy charges. In what was essentially a replacement for slavery, they were leased by governments to private contractors, and built many miles of Georgia railroads. (283 pages) Marrs, Aaron W. Railroads in the Old South: Pursuing Progress in a Slave Society. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. This detailed examination of southern railroads before the Civil War describes their construction and operation, the roles of engineers and contractors, the use and economics of labor, experiences of travelers, and the railroads' impacts on communities. (268 pages) 231 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Nelson, Scott Reynolds. Iron Confederacies: Southern Railways, Klan Violence, and Reconstruction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999. This history of the Atlanta-Richmond rail corridor during Reconstruction looks at the changing relationships among northern capitalists and railroad barons, southern planters, newly freed blacks, and the Ku Klux Klan. (257 pages) Runte, Alfred. Allies of the Earth: Railroads and the Soul of Preservation. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2006. Promotes expansion of rail passenger service as a way to move large numbers of riders with minimal damage to landscapes and natural resources. The author asks us to look out the train window at our country, and to care about the landscape we see. He includes a brief history of passenger travel, the development of Amtrak, and comparisons of American and European passenger trains. (195 pages, black and white illustrations) Saunders, Richard, Jr. Merging Lines; American Railroads 1900-1970. DeKalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001. A history of the railroad mergers of the 20th century to 1970, focusing on those after World War II. In Georgia, the major players involved in mergers were the Southern Railway, which was a predecessor of Norfolk Southern, and the Seaboard Coast Line, a predecessor of CSX. (486 pages) Schwieterman, Joseph P. When the Railroad Leaves Town; American Communities in the Age of Rail Line Abandonment. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2001. Examines the effects of railroad abandonment on 64 towns in the eastern U.S., including Fort Oglethorpe and Thalmann in Georgia, plus Franklin, North Carolina - on the former Tallulah Falls Railway - and Valley, Alabama - on the former Chattahoochee Valley Railway out of West Point, Georgia. (350 pages, with maps and illustrations) Stover, John F. The Railroads of the South 1865-1900; A Study in Finance and Control. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1955. Stover begins by describing how railroads of the South were initially developed, prior to the Civil War, by Southerners themselves, with funding typically garnered from the states, cities, towns, and even plantations to be served by the new railroad. He then chronicles how, after the war, this local and regional ownership and control of Southern railroad companies was lost to Northern financial and banking interests. In conclusion, Stover relates that, by 1900, almost all major railroad lines in the South had been taken over and consolidated into larger systems controlled by Northern investors, with, as he states, "Northern men, money, and management firmly placed in positions of dominance over the railroads of the South." (310 pages, with 8 new maps drawn by Barclay Jones) Stover, John F. The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads. New York: Routledge, 1999. A well-illustrated reference book that summarizes the development of America's rail system. A chronology of nationwide rail expansion is followed by brief histories of 25 major railroad lines. The book includes 50 maps and over 50 illustrations. (144 pages) Summers, Mark W. Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity; Aid under the Radical Republicans 1865-1877. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Focused on the Reconstruction period in the South following the Civil War, this book details the Republican Party's efforts to help stimulate the post-war economy by rebuilding and expanding the region's wrecked rail infrastructure, which was thought to be critical to successful commerce. In pursuit of this goal, the governing party developed state aid policies, which offered government funding, bond guarantees, or other economic incentives to rail companies or investors. Summers describes how these assistance programs created a "railroad mania," resulting in corruption and, ultimately, overbuilding of rail lines, as many of these rail enterprises proved financially unsustainable. As he explains, the overenthusiasm came to a head with the Panic of 1873, and a large number of railroads in the South went bankrupt through the 1870s. (361 pages) 232 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Vance, James E., Jr. The North American Railroad; Its Origin, Evolution, and Geography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Wolmar, Christian. The Great Railroad Revolution; The History of Trains in America. New York: Public Affairs, 2012. As its title implies, this work explains in detail how specific geographic conditions or ground features influenced the locations and routes of railroad lines. Using actual examples of lines constructed in various regions of North America, Vance describes the obstacles that had to be navigated over or around by railroad surveyors, while attempting to keep the road as nearly level as possible. With these route histories as case studies, he presents how varying geographic factors were weighed against each other to lay out an alignment between termini that provided the most overall efficient path for trains, based on the available technology of the time for both railroad building and motive power. (384 pages, with color map illustrations) Walker, Mike. SPV's Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America; Southeast. SPV, Dawes Road, Dunkirk, Faversham, Kent, U.K., 1999. Revised 2006. The Southeast edition covers Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. Maps show nearly every common carrier railroad that ever existed, along with towns, major bridges and tunnels, rail yards, current and previous ownership, railroad reporting and identification marks, docks, and more. To avoid confusion, the maps do not include roads. Georgia is divided into 15 maps, plus 8 city maps. (80 pages) This highly readable history of American railroad development tells of the leaders, workers, suppliers, riders, and critics of the railroads. Economic and social aspects are well-presented. (397 pages, including 32 illustrations and 5 maps) GEORGIA HISTORICAL SOURCES (STATEWIDE/REGIONAL) These sources are Georgia-specific or contain substantial information regarding the development of Georgia's rail systems. Although some sources are focused on rail development in adjacent states, they contain significant information specifically related to Georgia's historic railroads and/or their development. Beckum, W. Forrest, Jr., and Albert M. Langley, Jr. Georgia Railroad Album. North Augusta, S.C.: Union Station Publishing, 1985. A primarily pictorial history, but it contains information not readily available elsewhere. The book includes a brief history, a track profile, timetables, and a map of the Georgia Railroad. Photographs depict the main line, the branch lines, and various locomotives and rolling stock, and there are also many depot photos. (74 pages) Bonds, Russell S. Stealing the General; The Great Locomotive Chase and the First Medal of Honor. Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2007. Winn, Les R. Ghost Trains & Depots of Georgia (1833-1933). Chamblee, GA: Big Shanty Publishing Company, 1995. This volume tracks Georgia's rail history from 1833 to 1933. Chapters include locomotive development through the Civil War and the creation of various small railroad companies in Georgia. The consolidation of numerous small railroads into the Central Railroad & Banking Company is addressed, as well as various company failures, receiverships, buyouts, and additional consolidations through 1933. Many black and white photos, maps, and memorabilia. (370 pages) This historical account centers on the morning of April 12, 1862, when an undercover raiding party of Federal volunteers, led by James J. Andrews, stole a Western & Atlantic Railroad engine, known as the "General", and proceeded north towards Chattanooga. This covert attempt to damage and interrupt the rail connection between Atlanta and Chattanooga has come to be known as the "Great Locomotive Chase," as the crew of the "General" set out from Marietta in pursuit of the interlopers, on a succession of several commandeered locomotives, before ultimately recapturing the "General" just north of Ringgold. The book not only also details the preparations for and the events of the mission, but, also, the capture of "Andrews' Raiders," the execution of some of them, the escape of the remainder, and last, the awarding by President Lincoln of the nation's very first Medals of Honor to those surviving escapees. (444 pages) 233 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Caldwell, Wilber W. The Courthouse and the Depot; The Architecture of Hope in an Age of Despair; A Narrative Guide to Railroad Expansion and Its Impact on Public Architecture in Georgia, 1833-1910. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2001. This richly illustrated volume specifically focuses on railroad development's effect on Georgia's public architecture through construction of relatively elaborate courthouses and rail depots. Although architecturally focused, this book also contains detailed historical information for numerous Georgia railroad companies, lines, and routes. Clark, Agnew Hilsman. Fifty-One Years; A History of Early South Georgia Railroading 1925-1976. Privately published, 1993. "An autobiographical account of fifty-one years of service on four railroads, plus a short sketch of railroads and railroading in Southern Georgia from the 1890s until 1925." Consists primarily of stories about and recollections of various short line railroads in south Georgia and north Florida. Well-illustrated, with information on the Georgia Northern, Flint River & Northeastern, Valdosta Moultrie & Western, Georgia Ashburn Sylvester & Camilla, Tifton Thomasville & Gulf, Tifton & Northeastern, Hawkinsville & Florida Southern, Gulf Line, Florida Central, Georgia Coast & Piedmont, Waycross & Southern, Waycross & Western, Milltown Air Line, and others. The volume includes black and white photos of locomotives, trains, train wrecks, depots, repair shops, etc. (296 pages) Cline, Wayne. Alabama Railroads. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997. A thorough history of the railroads of Alabama, from their beginnings in 1832 at Tuscumbia to the early 1970s. The book contains much of interest to Georgia railroad historians because both states were served by the Central of Georgia, the Seaboard, the Southern, and other systems. (315 pages, illustrated) D'Alonzo, Mary Beth. Streetcars of Chatham County; Photographs from the Collection of the Georgia Historical Society. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing. 1999. Largely pictorial summary of the in-town and suburban transit systems of Savannah and Chatham County. Most of the suburban lines, which began as steam railroads, ran to communities on the coastal rivers such as Thunderbolt and Isle of Hope. (128 pages) de Kok, Alexandra C. The Statewide Railroad Industry Context. Atlanta: Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Historic Preservation Section, 1991. georgiashpo.org/sites/uploads/hpd/pdf/railroad%20 context.pdf This survey and context lists the roster of abandoned railroad lines in Georgia at the time of its publication in 1991. Additionally, it provides details about the status, condition, and contiguousness/integrity of many of these disused beds, and, following on, presents some suggestions about potential adaptive reuses. Also, the document offers guidance on forward planning approaches for the State of Georgia to consider adopting and practicing, as a means to preserve the existing abandoned rights-of-way intact. Fetters, Thomas. The Charleston & Hamburg; A South Carolina Railroad and an American Legacy. Charleston, SC: The History Press, 1988. An illustrated history of the pioneering railroad between Charleston and Hamburg, SC, across the river from Augusta, GA. Its construction prompted the 1830s development of Georgia's first two railroads, the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta, and the Central of Georgia from Savannah to Macon. (158 pages) 234 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Gore, Pamela J. W., and William Witherspoon. Roadside Geology of Georgia. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 2013. This accessible, well-written guide explains the geological development of Georgia's diversity of landscapes, topography, and mineral resources, which are major factors in railroad location and engineering. For example, Georgia's Fall Line cities (Columbus, Macon, Milledgeville, and Augusta) were among the first to be connected by rail. The impact of geology on historical events, such as the Civil War battles along the Western & Atlantic Railroad from Chattanooga and Atlanta, receives special attention. (347 pages) Jackson, Olin. Tales of the Rails in Georgia. Roswell, GA: Legacy Communications, 2004. A collection of 36 magazine articles on railroads in Georgia, mostly in the northern part of the state. Topics include Civil War battles and events, train wrecks, shortline railroads, depots, and rail excursion lines. Most of the articles are illustrated and some include maps. (189 pages) Klein, Maury. The Great Richmond Terminal; A Study in Businessmen and Business Strategy. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1970. A detailed history of the Richmond & Danville Railroad and its closely associated Richmond Terminal Company, which built a rail empire in the southeast after the Civil War. In 1894, the R&D and its subsidiaries were incorporated into the Southern Railway. (323 pages) Langley, Albert M., Jr. Georgia Short Line Railroad Album. North Augusta, S.C.: Union Station Publishing, 2005. A primarily pictorial history that contains information not readily available elsewhere. It includes historical notes on some five dozen short lines across the state of Georgia. Timetables and maps help readers who are unfamiliar with the locations involved. Most photographs depict locomotives, but some photographs of rolling stock, depots, and trestles are included. (60 pages) Stone, H. David, Jr. Vital Rails; The Charleston & Savannah Railroad and the Civil War in Coastal South Carolina. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2008. During the Civil War, the C&S was one of only two rail connections between Georgia and the Carolinas. This comprehensive historical study looks at the railroad's role in the conflict, tying it into the overall Confederate strategy and Union response. (369 pages) Turner, Gregg M. A Journey into Florida Railroad History. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2008. A statewide history of the development of Florida's railroad network, and of the preeminent role these rail systems had on opening up Florida to investors, developers, and settlers. Especially for the state's peninsula, the building of railroads finally enabled large numbers of tourists access to its warm, sunny climate, and they likewise allowed its farmers to ship products north by means timely enough to prevent spoilage. Turner not only chronicles the construction of specific rail lines in the state, but also describes the companies and personalities responsible for this infrastructural progress. (304 pages) Walker, Alan A. Railroads of Chattanooga. (Images of America Rail series). Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003. A primarily pictorial history that illustrates, by way of numerous images and maps of the multiple rail lines that have passed through Chattanooga and its surrounds, the city's role as a vital railroad hub in the Southeast. Both before and since the Civil War, the area has served as a major junction of converging rail routes, but also these railroads' port connection with boat traffic on the Tennessee River. Chattanooga constitutes the northern terminus of the Western & Atlantic Railroad from Atlanta, and was thus the starting point for General Sherman's campaign for Atlanta and subsequent "March to the Sea" through Georgia. (128 pages) 235 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey CORPORATE- AND CORRIDOR-SPECIFIC SOURCES These sources are related or specific to historic rail companies and corridors operated in Georgia. Beckum, W. Forrest, Jr. and Albert M. Langley, Jr. Central of Georgia Railway Album. North Augusta, S.C.: Union Station Publishing, 1986. This volume provides primarily photographic coverage of the Central of Georgia Railway. It includes a brief history of the railroad and its subsidiaries; chapters provide captioned photographs of scenes along the railway's three divisions. The book also contains timetables; rosters and images of locomotives, passenger trains, and their related equipment; and a 1910 system map. (144 pages) Boyd, Brian A. Tallulah Falls Railroad; A Photographic Remembrance. Clayton, GA: Fern Creek Publishing, 2000. The 118 photographs in this volume show the operations and structures of the 58-mile Tallulah Falls Railway, which ran from Cornelia, Georgia to Franklin, North Carolina. A brief history, along with the photo captions, gives the reader a good overview of one of the few railroads to ever extend into the Blue Ridge mountains of Georgia. (64 pages) Davis, Burke. The Southern Railway; Road of the Innovators. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985. In this history of the development of the Southern Railway system, Davis chronicles the construction of specific rail lines and the mergers and integration of other existing railroads to create the network. He also focuses on the company's leadership and the personalities responsible for its progress, and he describes the Southern's early adoption and usage of many technological innovations. (390 pages) Carver, Kaye and Myra Queen, editors. Memories of a Mountain Shortline; the Story of the Tallulah Falls Railroad. Rabun Gap, GA: The Foxfire Press, 1976. Much like the other Foxfire books from north Georgia, this collection uses a reminiscences format, and is derived from interviews with those who worked for or remembered the Tallulah Falls Railroad, which was abandoned in 1961. Most of the book consists of recollections about how the railroad was operated, railroad-related jobs, and what the TF meant to the area it served. Information is included on operating rules, locomotives, rolling stock, track maintenance, trestles, train wrecks, and the filming of Disney's "The Great Locomotive Chase" on the TF line. Also included is a generalized route map, a RR property inventory, timetables, and 78 photographs. (115 pages) Castner, Charles B., Jr. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway: The Dixie Line. Newton, NJ: Carstens Publications, 1995. A well-illustrated brief history of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway, which began building its rail system in the 1840s. In 1890, it leased the Chattanooga-Atlanta line owned by the State of Georgia and operated as the Western & Atlantic. (97 pages) Castner, Charles B., Ronald Flanary, and Patrick Dorin. Louisville & Nashville Railroad: The Old Reliable. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 1996. An illustrated history of the L&N, which owned two lines in northwest Georgia and controlled a third, through its majority stock ownership of the Nashville, Chattanooga, & St. Louis Railway. (232 pages) 236 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Goolsby, Larry. Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast. Published by the Atlantic Coast Line & Seaboard Air Line Railroads Historical Society, 2000. A well-illustrated history of the railroad, which connected Atlanta, Brunswick, and Birmingham in the first decade of the 20th century. Largely assembled by Henry Atkinson of Georgia Power Company, the AB&C also had branch lines that extended to Thomasville and Waycross. Much of this railroad's original network remains intact as a major part of the CSX route system. (248 pages) Grant, H. Roger. Rails through the Wiregrass: A History of the Georgia & Florida Railroad. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2006. The definitive history of the railroad, which extended from Madison, Florida, across south and eastern Georgia to Augusta, with a later extension to Greenwood, South Carolina. The Georgia & Florida Railroad was assembled and developed in the early 20th century from several existing short lines, purchased by Southern Railway in 1963, and later broken up into a new group of short lines. (223 pages, which include black and white photographs and maps) Griffin, William E., Jr. Atlantic Coast Line; Standard Railroad of the South. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 2001. A well-illustrated history of the Atlantic Coast Line, a CSXpredecessor, which by 1908 had over 700 miles of rail line in Georgia. (216 pages) Griffin, William E., Jr. Seaboard Air Line Railway; the Route of Courteous Service. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 1999. A well-illustrated history of the Seaboard Air Line, a CSX-predecessor, which by 1908 had over 800 miles of rail line in Georgia. (222 pages) Hanson, Robert H. Safety-Courtesy-Service; History of the Georgia Railroad. Johnson City, TN: The Overmountain Press, 1996. A well-illustrated history of the Georgia Railroad, one of the state's oldest railroads, which connected Augusta, Athens, and Atlanta before the Civil War. After the war, it completed a line between Augusta and Macon and developed subsidiary lines to other smaller Georgia towns. (206 pages) Hanson, Robert H. The West Point Route: The Atlanta & West Point Rail Road and The Western Railway of Alabama. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 2007. A well-illustrated history of this 87-mile line, built before the Civil War, from Atlanta to the Alabama line at West Point, Georgia. It was closely associated with the Georgia Railroad and the Western Railway of Alabama, which connected West Point and Montgomery. (191 pages) Hendricks, John H. Following the Tracks of Daniel Callahan; A Look at the Life of the Prolific Railroad Contractor, His Business Partner W. H. McDowell and the Railroads They Built. Callahan, FL: John Hendricks, 2012. An illustrated biography of Daniel Callahan, a railroad contractor, whose crews constructed several of Georgia's rail lines, beginning shortly before the Civil War. This volume includes dozens of period maps and other images. (118 pages) Herr, Kincaid. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad 1850-1940, 1941-1959. L&N Magazine, Louisville, Ky, publisher, 1943. Fourth Printing 1960. An illustrated history of the L&N, from its beginnings to the middle of the 20th century. This CSX-predecessor handled much of the rail traffic between Atlanta and the Midwest. (402 pages and more than 300 illustrations) 237 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Hoffman, Glenn. (Richard E. Bussard, ed.) Building a Great Railroad; a History of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company. Published by CSX Corporation, 1998. A detailed history of the Atlantic Coast Line from 1834 to 1967. The author, a history professor, was retained by the company in the mid1960s to record the railroad's history. (326 pages, including several black and white maps and photos) Johnson, Robert Wayne. Through the Heart of the South; the Seaboard Air Line Railroad Story. Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 1995. An illustrated history of the Seaboard Air Line a CSX-predecessor - and its subsidiaries. Most of the photographs included are of locomotives and trains; all are in black and white. (160 pages) Klein, Maury. History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. New York: Macmillan, 1972. A comprehensive history of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, a primarily north-south oriented network that began with its initial charter in Louisville in 1850, and was eventually absorbed into the Seaboard Coast Line System, and finally into the present-day CSX. In 1890, the L&N through its subsidiary, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis - leased the Western & Atlantic line from the State of Georgia. (572 pages) McQuigg, Jackson, Tammy Galloway, and Scott McIntosh (for the Atlanta History Center). Central of Georgia Railway (Images of America series). Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1998. A primarily photographic look at the Central of Georgia, focusing on the decade after World War II. Most of the included images relate to passenger services, workers at various locations, and rolling stock. (128 pages, including approx. 200 black and white images) Morrison, Carlton A. Running the River; Poleboats, Steamboats & Timber Rafts on the Altamaha, Ocmulgee, Oconee & Ohoopee. St. Simons Island, GA: Saltmarsh Press, 2003. River navigation preceded the railroads and often influenced their locations. The earliest Georgia railroads ran to the Fall Line cities of Macon, Columbus, Augusta, and Milledgeville, as well as river towns like Rome, Fort Gaines, and Chattanooga. This well-illustrated book looks at the boats that traveled four of Georgia's rivers. (205 pages) Murray, Tom. Southern Railway. (MBI Railroad Color History). Osceola, WI: Voyageur Press, 2007. An illustrated history of one of Georgia's major railroads, the Southern Railway, which existed from 1894 to 1982. This book includes many color and black and white images, primarily of locomotives and trains, but also of depots, maps, and marketing materials. (160 pages) Paterson, David E. Frontier Link With the World; The Upson County Railroad. Macon: Mercer University Press, 1998. A detailed economic, social, and corporate history of the 16-mile short line railroad between Thomaston and Barnesville. Besides recounting local history, the book places the little railroad, chartered in 1839, in the context of state and national developments. (273 pages, including 17 illustrations, maps, and graphs) Pidcock, Frank R., III. Rails, Quail & Ashburn Hill. Privately published, 1988. The Pidcock family owned several southwest Georgia railroads, including the Georgia Northern, the Albany Northern, the Flint River & Northeastern, and the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla. This well-illustrated volume combines family history with railroad history. (72 pages) 238 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Prince, Richard E. Atlantic Coast Line Railroad; Steam Locomotives, Ships, and History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Reprint. (Originally published by Richard E. Prince in Green River, Wyoming, 1966.) An illustrated history of the Atlantic Coast Line, which entered Georgia and Florida by absorbing the Plant System. It also integrated, as subsidiaries, the Georgia Railroad, the L&N, and the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast. Besides a detailed narrative history, this volume includes maps of the company's routes, timetables, and many photographs of its steam locomotives and steamships, as well as a comprehensive `Steam Locomotive Roster' and accompanying sketched diagrams. (232 pages) Prince, Richard E. Central of Georgia and Connecting Lines. Published by Richard E. Prince in Millard, Nebraska, 1976. An illustrated history (now out of print) of one of Georgia's first two railroads, which was chartered to connect Savannah to the interior of Georgia, at Macon. The Central of Georgia became a subsidiary of the Southern Railway in 1963, but still operates as a separate division of Norfolk Southern. (248 pages) Prince, Richard E. Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway; History and Steam Locomotives. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001. Reprint. (Originally published by Richard E. Prince in Green River, Wyoming, 1967.) An illustrated history of this railway, which first originated as the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad. It became a subsidiary of the L&N as early as 1880, and in 1890 leased the operation of the Western & Atlantic Railroad from the State of Georgia. Besides a detailed narrative history, this volume includes maps of the company's routes, schedules, equipment rosters, and many photographs. (196 pages) Prince, Richard E. Seaboard Air Line Railway; Steam Boats, Locomotives and History. Published by Richard E. Prince in Green River, Wyoming, 1966. An illustrated history of the Seaboard Air Line, which had three lines that crossed Georgia, plus several branches and associated feeder lines. (268 pages) Prince, Richard E. Steam Locomotives and Boats; Southern Railway System. Published by Richard E. Prince in Green River, Wyoming, 1965. A historical sketch of the Southern Railway and its associated lines is followed by many photos of the company's steam locomotives and boats. (276 pages) Reynolds, Kelly. Henry Plant: Pioneer Empire Builder. Cocoa, FL: Florida Historical Society Press, 2003. A biography of Henry Bradley Plant, an entrepreneur who purchased a Savannah-Bainbridge railroad and then expanded it into a four-state system of railroads, steamships, and resort hotels. In 1902, after Plant's death, his Plant System was sold to the Atlantic Coast Line. (234 pages) Schult, Dain L. Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis: A History of the Dixie Line. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 2002. A well-illustrated history of the Nashville, Chattanooga, &St.Louis, which leased the Western & Atlantic Railroad, the antebellum line from Atlanta to Chattanooga that was constructed and owned by the State of Georgia. (264 pages) Turner, Gregg M. and Seth H. Bramson. The Plant System of Railroads, Steamships and Hotels: The South's First Great Industrial Enterprise. Laurys Station, PA: Garrigues House, Publishers, 2004. An illustrated history of Henry Bradley Plant's railroad empire, which began in south Georgia in the late-19th century and later extended to much of Florida. (144 pages) 239 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey van Veelen, Douglas. The Gainesville Midland and her Sister Short Lines. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2006. A detailed history of a regional railroad that stretched from Gainesville, Georgia southward to the cities of Monroe, Jefferson, and Athens. (426 pages) Webb, William. The Southern Railway System; An Illustrated History. Erin, Ontario: Boston Mills Press, 1986. A historical sketch of the Southern Railway and its predecessors, with particular attention paid to the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the development of the system from 1894 to 1982. Most of the numerous black and white photographs included are of locomotives and trains. (160 pages) TECHNICAL/ARCHITECTURAL SOURCES These sources provide general information about the development, function, operation, and technical aspects of rail systems. Alexander, Edwin P. Down At The Depot; American Railroad Stations from 1831 to 1920. NewYork: Bramhall House, 1970. A pictorial history, consisting of a compendium of large and medium scale, black and white photographs of numerous American railroad depots, with brief summary statements below each image. Besides location, these summaries may include the date of the photograph, the date of construction, and the architects responsible for the design, along with other information of interest. This large picture volume thereby chronicles the developments in size, layout, construction methods and materials, and styles of depots between 1831 and 1920, but it only contains photographs of Georgia depots in Ringgold and Atlanta. (320 pages) Caldwell, Wilber W. The Courthouse and the Depot; The Architecture of Hope in an Age of Despair; A Narrative Guide to Railroad Expansion and Its Impact on Public Architecture in Georgia, 1833-1910. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2001. This richly illustrated volume specifically focuses on railroad development's effect on Georgia's public architecture through construction of relatively elaborate courthouses and rail depots. Although architecturally focused, this book also contains detailed historical information for numerous Georgia railroad companies, lines, and routes. Dixon, Thomas W., Jr. Steam Locomotive Coaling Stations and Diesel Locomotive Fueling Facilities. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 2002. For nearly a century the railroads ran on coal, so the infrastructure that supplied coal to the steam engines should not be overlooked. This authoritative book describes the coaling towers and associated facilities that kept the locomotive engines running. (80 pages, including 175 photos and drawings) Hilton, George W. American Narrow Gauge Railroads. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990. The standard reference on a sub-type of railroads, popular in the last quarter of the 19th Century. It includes historical sketches on eleven narrow-gauge railroads in Georgia. (580 pages, numerous black and white illustrations) 240 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Meeks, Carroll L.V. The Railroad Station; An Architectural History. Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1978. This heavily illustrated volume discusses the chronological development of stylistic themes for railroad passenger depots and train sheds through the 19th century, both in Europe and North America. As Meeks an architectural historian - emphasizes, this emerging architectural language for rail stations was guided and enabled by the advancing usage of iron and steel, in parallel with the ongoing engineering breakthroughs in the invention of truss variants, as well as by the growing understanding of the most efficient layouts for moving trains and passengers through a station. He focuses primarily on grand or union terminals, and describes how their design concepts reflect the technological development of the Industrial Revolution. (203 pages of text, with additional pages consisting of 231 illustrations) OTHER STATE CONTEXTS These sources are historic rail and rail-related contexts developed in other states. They provide different perspectives on analyzing and evaluating rail resources for National Register eligibility. "The Advent and Development of Railroads in Iowa, 1855-1940." National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, National Park Service, 1990. Available through the National Register of Historic Places NPS Focus online database. http://nrhp. focus.nps.gov/natreghome.do?searchtype=natreghome The National Register nomination evaluated depots in Iowa by type, organized into periods of development. In addition, the document provides a good list of other property types associated with railroads and describes their key characteristics. Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. Historic Railroad Depots of Arkansas, 1870-1940. By William D. Baker. Little Rock, n.d. http://www.arkansaspreservation.com/pdf/publications/depots.pdf The survey report discusses the history of railroad development in Arkansas and provides a list of the 55 depots that were determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register as a result of the survey of all known depots located within the state. All depots that remained in their historic location and retained at least 51% of its integrity were determined to be NR-eligible. "Florida's Historic Railroad Resources." National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, National Park Service, 2001. Available through the National Register of Historic Places NPS Focus online database. http://nrhp.focus.nps. gov/natreghome.do?searchtype=natreghome The National Register document evaluates building types and styles associated with railroads, as well as a detailed assessment of railroad structures in Florida. Key characteristics, areas of significance, and requirements to be considered eligible for listing in the National Register are documented for each resource type. "Historic Railroad Resources of Kansas." National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, National Park Service, 2001. Available from the Kansas Historical Society. https://www.kshs.org/resource/national_register/ MPS/Historic_Railroad_Resources _Kansas_mps.pdf The National Register document provides a good classification of depot types found in Kansas. The document also provides an evaluation of the character-defining features and elements of integrity that are considered to be required for a depot to be NR-eligible under Criteria A or C. 241 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism. Office of Cultural Affairs. Transportation in Louisiana. By Susan Barrett Smith, Lindsay Hannah, and Kelly Sellers Wittie, R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. Baton Rouge, May 2012. http://www.crt.state.la.us/ hp/nationalregister/historic_contexts/Transportation_in_Louisiana.pdf The document provides a developmental history of transportation in Louisiana, including the major periods of railroad development. This context outlines major building types and structure types that are associated with each period of development. Minnesota Department of Transportation. Minnesota Statewide Historic Railroads Study Project Report. By Andrew J. Schmidt, Summit Enviroslutions, Inc., and Daniel R. Pratt, Arch3, LLC. St. Paul, June 2007. http://www.dot.state.mn.us/culturalresources/pdf_ files/rail/rrfpr.pdf The project report provides an excellent analysis of the methodology utilized to evaluate railroads in Minnesota. Rather than evaluate the totality of railroad resources within the state, the Minnesota context utilized a case study approach to determine the key characteristics of a railroad and how these characteristics impact National Register eligibility. In addition, the report discusses potential for eligibility under Criterion D. ARCHIVAL AND PRIMARY MATERIALS These sources are historic or primary materials related to the development of rail systems in Georgia. Many of these sources are available online from digital repositories such as Google Books and Internet Archive. Georgia Department of Transportation, Georgia Railroads (Map), various years. Georgia Railroad Commission, Georgia Railroad Commission Report, various years. Harrison, Fairfax. A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company. Washington, D.C., 1901. A detailed history of the many 19th Century railroads that were folded into the Norfolk Southern's predecessor, the Southern Railway. It focuses on legislative history, purchases, leases, receiverships, and other legal matters pertaining to the various component railroads that were integrated. (1519 pages) Official Guide of the Railways. New York: National Railway Publication Company. Various issues. This guide consists primarily of passenger timetables and shipping information for common-carrier railroads in North America. These records indicate the thousands of communities served by the railroads, mileage and time between stations, connections with other railroads, etc. Many system maps are included. Published from 1868 to the present, although the title has slightly changed at times; it is currently referred to as the Official Railway Guide. The number of pages varied greatly over the decades; the August 1955 issue, for example, consisted of 1504 pages. Poor, Henry V. Manual of the Railroads of the United States. Various issues. This reference manual for railroad corporations includes basic information on location, extent, rolling stock, operations, finances, directorship, and corporate history. It was published and updated continually from 1868 to 1924. Railroad Commission of Georgia, various reports. Most of these issues include mileage tables for each common-carrier railroad in the state of Georgia. Also included is detailed information on freight rates, with sporadic information on depots and other structures, customer complaints, and other issues. 242 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey Thomas, Henry W. Digest of the Railroad Laws of Georgia. Atlanta: Geo. W. Harrison, State Printer, 1895. This digest documents the general laws of Georgia that affect and control railroad corporations. It includes names and dates for each charter issued to a railroad company, along with amendments. (549 pages) PERIODICALS AND MEDIA These magazines and journals include various articles about rail development in Georgia. Lines South. Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line Railroads Historical Society, Inc. Various issues. This quarterly magazine, produced by the historical society, includes articles, columns, and notes on the two railroads, which merged in 1967, and are now both part of CSX. Articles commonly involve railroad operations, depots and other structures, passenger trains, freighthandling facilities, and railroad corporate histories. Each issue typically consists of approx. 32 pages. Official Guide of the Railways. New York: National Railway Publication Company. Various issues. This guide consists primarily of passenger timetables and shipping information for common-carrier railroads in North America. These records indicate the thousands of communities served by the railroads, mileage and time between stations, connections with other railroads, etc. Many system maps are included. Published from 1868 to the present, although the title has slightly changed at times; it is currently referred to as the Official Railway Guide. The number of pages varied greatly over the decades; the August 1955 issue, for example, consisted of 1504 pages. Railfan & Railroad magazine. Newton, NJ: Carstens Publications. Various issues. This magazine for railroad enthusiasts often has articles pertaining to the current operations and history of Georgia's railroads. Railway Age and Railway Age Gazette, various issues. A news magazine for the railroad industry, established in 1856. Issues commonly include articles on railway construction, finances, Interstate Commerce Commission and other government rulings, obituaries, and other items of importance to railroad officers, employees, and those in associated businesses. Railway News, various issues. A news magazine for the railroad industry, covering primarily British railroads, but it also has a section for American and Canadian Railway News. Railway Review, various issues. A news magazine for the railroad industry that was established in 1868, and was published at least into the 1920s. Railway World, various issues. A news magazine for the railroad industry, established in 1856. Roberts, Derrell C. "Joseph E. Brown and the Western & Atlantic Railroad," Atlanta Historical Journal, Vol. 29, No. 1, Spring, 1985. In 1870, former Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown led a group of businessmen that leased the State-owned Western & Atlantic Railroad for 20 years. This article discusses the recurring controversy surrounding the lease. The rail line, between Atlanta and Chattanooga, is currently leased by CSX. (36 pages) 243 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey The Right Way; Central of Georgia Magazine. "Historical Issue." December 20, 1958. A special edition issue of the magazine for Central of Georgia Railway employees, it features several illustrated articles on the history of the railroad and its subsidiary companies. (29 pages) The Right Way. Website of the Central of Georgia Railway Historical Society at www.cofg.org. Thomas, William G., III, and others. Railroads and the Making of Modern America; A Digital History Project. http://railroads.unl.edu/ Trains magazine. Waukesha, WI: Kalmbach Publishing Co. Various issues. A monthly magazine for railroad enthusiasts that includes articles on current and past railroad operations. Each publication's "Map of the Month" shows the historical development of various lines. The "Preservation" section highlights efforts to save historic railroad resources. 244 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey 245 | Annotated Bibliography | GEORGIA'S RAILROADS, 1833-2015: Historic Context and Statewide Survey