The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII EARLY RAILROAD ENTERPRISES Beginning of the South and North Railroad. Conditions in Alabama. Total railroad mileage of State in 1852, one hundred and sixty-five miles. Causes for lack of enterprise. " Macadamized roads less liable to accidents." Advent of Frank Gilmer. Conception of railroad across Red Mountain. Assistance rendered by Governor Moore. Sketch of Luke Pryor. Colonel Sloss' early years. Appropriation granted for reconnaissance. Appointment of John T. Milner as chief engineer. Young Milner's thirty-mile ride. Interesting points of his career. The great chance of his life. First view of Jones Valley. Synopsis of Milner 's report. How the legislature received it. "The mineral region is so poor even a buzzard would starve to death." George S. Houston lends helping hand. "I was a gone up man," says Milner. The sensation of the day. AN act of far-reaching influence upon the mineral region, and coming several years after the appointment of the State geologist, was the granting of the charter for the Alabama Central Railroad, or, as it was later termed, "The Old South and North," now a part of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad system. The act, passed by the legislature February 17, 1854, is accounted the most notable event of Governor Winston's administration. The fact of the matter is, however, that the business was put through, not by aid of Winston, but rather in spite of him. Samuel G. Jones, Charles Pollard, Frank Gilmer, George S. Houston, J. W. Lapsley, Luke Pryor, James W. Sloss, and a few men of their kidney were fighting for the cause of railroads in Alabama. The northern and southern portions of the State, without a railroad , were two separate and distinct countries. Political, social, industrial, and economic conditions had become gradually tangled into a Gordian knot. The one solution now plainly before the people was a railroad; veritably, at that time, a feat Alexandrian . Various spasmodic efforts to get a railroad started through the mineral region had been made, since 1836: barbecues had been held, memorials adopted, orations pronounced. The while the knot became more tangled. EARLY RAILROAD ENTERPRISES 105 In the year 1852 the total railroad mileage of Alabama was one hundred and sixty-five miles. Memphis and Charleston had forty-four miles; Montgomery and West Point eighty-eight; Mobile and Ohio thirty-three. There were other railroads, it is true, but as yet on paper. They were "running hither and thither," remarks De Bows, "delighting the imagination with their laudable intentions and liberal extent!" Tuomey's report, however, aroused general interest in railroad construction. He succeeded, at length, in impressing the legislature with his own belief that the mountain countries abounded in mineral wealth. Three railroads that would partially penetrate this region were actually under way: the Selma, Rome, and Dalton, now a portion of the Southern system; the Northeast and Southwest, later the Alabama and Chattanooga, now part of the Alabama Great Southern, and the Alabama Central for which charter was now granted. The increase in total mileage from one hundred and sixty-five miles in 1852 to eight hundred miles in 1860, is indicative of the enthusiasm for railroads born in this decade. Were the facts relative to the railroad history of Alabama of this period presented in detail it would require several volumes. The indifference on the part of the public and the State itself was practically suicidal. Up to the outbreak of the Civil War, indeed , the railroad system here was barely opened, while in other southern States it was far advanced in comparison. Alabama's railroads were small detached lines supported by individual subscriptions . They were consequently always trembling on the verge of collapse and utter extinction. In the year 1840 the people of Alabama voted for macadamized roads instead of railroads , "as being less liable to accidents." De Bows says in his Oommercial Review of 'the South, " God may have given you coal and iron sufficient to work the spindles and navies of the world, but they will sleep in your everlasting hills until the trumpet of Gabriel shall sound unless you can do something better than build turnpikes." The members of the Internal Improvement Commission of 1840 reported to the legislature that not even a macadamized road could be built, "sandstone not being suitable thereto and limerock is not to be had!" 1 Indeed, one might gather from Garrett, De Bows, and Milner one perfect incident after another. But the main concern of this history is the...