I recently ran across an article in "The Southern World, dated October 1, 1883 and titled "The Georgia Pacific Railway".
The sub-headings said, "Facts about the great highway - Atlanta looking for a boom that it would bring."
The article confirms many things I've written before regarding the railroad including how work was actually begun before the Civil War, but the war put the project on hold.
The article provides the year 1854 as the year the Georgia legislature chartered the Georgia Western Railroad Company, and mentions work was done including some grading in Fulton and Cobb Counties, but it was abandoned where it remained at a stand still until 1872-1873.
"Work resumed to meet the fate that compelled so many other enterprises to succumb in that period of panic and business prostration..."
Yes, war has a habit of doing that.
In June, 1881, the Richmond and Danville Extension Company organized in order to complete the rail "highway" construction. General T.M. Logan was president, Major John W. Johnston was VP/General Manager, Major R.H. Temple as Chief Engineer, G.W. Perkins as Treasurer, and Thomas Seddon as Secretary.
One of the great things this article provides is a description of the land west of Atlanta including the land around early Douglasville before and after the railroad.
The reporter states, "I shall never forget a trip I made across the country on the line of this road. The country was truly a howling wilderness. Without any means of communication with the outside world except the "pony post". The people seemed to belong to another generation; the few little towns along the line appeared to be falling to decay and a lethargy and indolence to have taken possession of everything and everybody."
But after the railroad?
"Towns have sprung up - little places wakened to new life."
The reporter states he can scarcely realize the places along the "road" are the same as two years before.
Heading out of Atlanta one can see the Chattahoochee Brick Yards eight miles of Atlanta making 100,000 bricks a day.
At Austell, the junction of the ET, Virginia & Georgia and the Georgia Pacific.....it was entirely built within the last eighteen months....now with several stores and is rapidly building up.
At Salt Springs - today's Lithia Springs - just a mere twenty-one miles from Atlanta, the depot was established there on June 14, 1883. The reporter states the little town "now has three stores, a printing press, and a population of about 100. The buildings are neat and the citizens are enterprising to push it ahead."
The information regarding Douglasville is most interesting.
"Douglasville - twenty-seven miles from Atlanta, the county seat of Douglas County, and when the "road" reached this town the population was barely 400."
"Many of the people were bitterly opposed to the road, as they feared on account of quick transportation the business of the adjoining country would seek another outlet. Since the advent of the road the population has doubled, the business has increased in proportion and the old fogy notions are fast dying out."
It's interesting to note the folks in town not only opposed the railroad.....they bitterly opposed it, and some folks here were accused of being old fogies.....In 1883!
"The place now boasts 22 stores, 3 hotels, Baptist, Lutheran, and Methodist Churches, 2 academies, and is indeed a prosperous and thriving place."
"Much of the success of this and other places along the line of the road is due to J.S. James who so ably represents this county in our legislature."
Rest assured, J.S. James was one politician who totally looked out for himself even though he was the linchpin to the city and county's early success.
And don't forget Villa Rica......
The depot there was established and lots sold on August 14, 1882. The depot was built within a half mile of the old town and the place as grown if by magic. There is a "population of 400, 21 stores, livery stable, 2 hotels, a good school, and a great many buildings in the process of erection."
For many today, the railroad running through Douglasville might seem a little outdated and an inconvenience. The blast of the train's horn interrupt our conversations as we walk through O'Neal Plaza or while we have diner or lunch along Broad Street. The train no longer carries us to Atlanta or west into Alabama. It merely blocks traffic as folks attempt to head home to Hiram or Dallas. However, there was a time when the railroad was premier in our thoughts and had it not run through Douglasville our past, and therefore our future would have been very different.
By 1850, Atlanta already had several rail lines, but there was yet to be a line heading west, until the Georgia Western Railroad was chartered in 1854. The concern was incorporated by Richard Peters, Lemuel Grant, and other Atlanta businessmen.
Some sources state prior to the Civil War grading occurred from Atlanta to a point two miles west of Skint Chestnut/Douglasville, but I'm now a little skeptical of that since early railroad maps show the line passing through the southern portion of the county. There are stories that the right-of-way was used by farmers to move cattle from Birmingham to Atlanta for market. I haven't found any proof of this yet, but at any rate the Civil War interrupted the plans.
What I do know is that even after the war the western route for the railroad was still very much a point of discussion. Notice the map I have here courtesy of the University of Alabama Map Library.
You can clearly see a much different route out of Atlanta where the railroad would go through Carrollton and not Douglasville. Douglasville was not legally established until February of 1875 due to some legal entanglements, and an election that had to be held twice, but the town fathers continued to set up the town, so it's no surprise to me that Douglasville was on the 1873 map. Not only did the town fathers have to convince the folks of Douglas County that Douglasville should be the county seat, they also had to convince the railroad to lay tracks through town as well.
On July 12, 1873 a railroad meeting was held at Chapel Hill to discuss proposed routes and issues surrounding stock subscriptions. Three days later a larger group met in Douglasville to consider the prospect of the Georgia Western Railroad passing through the county with W.P. Strickland as the chair and A.S. Gorman as secretary.
A committee was set up to create resolutions for those at the meeting to consider. John F. Glover, Dr. Poole, Ezekiel Polk, Captain Whitley and G.W. McLarty were appointed to the committee. They went into another room to devise the resolutions, and while they did so John M. Edge entertained the crowd with what is described as his "fluent and impressive style describing the benefits to have the railroad pass through the county."
The committee came up with three resolutions which were read to the crowd and adopted. They were:
"Resolved - that the people of Douglas County want the Georgia Western Railroad; that the right-of-way be given through the county; the road be the same width as allowed to other roads in this state.
Resolved -that we recommend the company to cross the Chattahoochee River below the mouth of Sweetwater Creek, thence coming out by the great water power known as the old Sweetwater Factory site and the Merchant Mills on that stream.
Resolved - that we are willing to subscribe stock under the form adopted at the railroad meeting at Chapel Hill on the 12th.
Railroad construction finally began eight years later in 1881. By that time the Georgia Western Railroad had become the Georgia Pacific, and fortunately, the final route included Douglasville.
The Weekly Star, Douglasville's paper at the time, advised on August 23, 1881, "On Tuesday, one hundred and twenty-five hands arrived here for the purpose of beginning work on the Georgia Pacific. Yesterday morning, they began preparing the graded portion of the railroad for the reception of crossties and iron. The men are from Virginia...This looks like business."
Business most certainly was the correct word!
This post first appeared in the Douglas County Sentinel, May 19, 2013.
Gather two or more people together in one community and it won't be long before the disagreements begin.
It's inevitable.
We are human.
Our great city of Douglasville began under a cloud of disagreement including a major lawsuit that went all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court. Head on over to the Douglas County Courthouse and find the very first court docket book dating back to the 1870s. The first entry will advise the first Defendants in the county happened to be the Douglas County Commissioners, and the lawsuit concerned the location of the county seat.
The Georgia General Assembly issued an act on October 17, 1870 creating Douglas County. Within the language of the act was a stipulation calling for an election to be held the first Monday of November, 1870 to elect an ordinary, sheriff, clerk of superior court and to choose a location for a county seat where all county business would be conducted.
Many thought it was a foregone conclusion that the Chapel Hill community would be considered. In 1870, Chapel Hill contained a general store and a few other businesses. There was both a Baptist and Methodist church and three different schools including a high school. The area was a very prosperous plantation community with several influential citizens.
Many others preferred the area up on the ridge known as Skint Chestnut where W.G. Black and his wife Sarah had located a trading post some years before. It wasn't just the draw of the ancient Chestnut tree or the trading post that enticed folks. It had a lot to do with the proposed rail site the Georgia Western Railroad (today's Norfolk Southern) wanted to create.
The 1870s was time when attitudes in Georgia were changing. Many of our town fathers understood the new "farm to factory movement" which would result in business opportunities, more industrialization and an established rail line.
The railroad had actually proposed building a rail line through the county prior to the Civil War, but the war delayed it. The right-of-way would cross the county for 19 miles, and at one point would parallel the old Indian trail where the road passed the ancient Chestnut tree. By 1870, the land had been cleared for the rail line from Atlanta to Skint Chestnut and beyond to Reuben Vansant's crossroads.
By the time the election rolled around thoughts of Chapel Hill as the county seat had been replaced by a group of folks wanting the center of the county chosen as the location. The geographical center is approximately where Pray's Mill Baptist Church is located today off of Highway 5.
The folks who supported this area were known as "center people" and included Moses M. Smith. He argued the railroads could be persuaded to run a line through the area and mentioned the area's water sources -- the Dog River, Bear Creek and Sweetwater Creek -- as the fuel to run a million dollars worth of machinery. He did have a few valid points, but many felt it would be too difficult to persuade the railroad to change their plans since much of the land had been cleared...
THANK YOU for visiting “Every Now and Then” and reading the first few paragraphs of “Journey to a Town Center“ which is now one of the 140 chapters in my book “Every Now and Then: The Amazing Tales of Douglas County, Volume I”.
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