Rails through the Wiregrass: A History of the Georgia & Florida Railroad (review)

H. Roger Grant is one of the foremost railroad historians in the United States. In this, his twenty-third book, he provides an in-depth analysis of the Georgia & Florida Railroad (G&F). With this work, he starts to fill a much needed void in railroad history—southern railroads in the twentieth century. Grant argues that "the tendency to ignore railroads in the South has been shortsighted. The region possesses a colorful and significant transport past not limited to the formative years of railroading or the era of the Civil War" (p. ix). Railroad, business, and local historians will find this work and Grant's detailed archival research valuable. Although he unearths some tantalizing details, Southern historians may be disappointed that he did not delve deeper into the railroad's effect on the South's social and cultural constructs, especially race relations.

Grant opens the book with an overview of the road's origins. Beginning in 1906, the G&F under John Skelton Williams's leadership acquired several short lines to connect the wiregrass region of Georgia. While timber and turpentine had been the hallmarks of the region's nineteenth-century economy, Williams and other New South boosters believed that a railroad would bring prosperity to this relatively underdeveloped section of the state. At first, the prospects looked good. But, as Grant avers, problems quickly set the railroad on the path to receivership.

Indeed, the G&F spent most of its corporate life in bankruptcy protection. Record-breaking rainstorms that damaged the railroad, the subsequent drop in crop production, and traffic disruptions related to World War I forced it into insolvency for the first time in 1915. Business historians will find much to consider as Grant unravels both the intricacies of receivership and the personal politics often associated with it. He also provides economic and agricultural historians valuable insight into the wiregrass region by detailing railroad shipments of everything from cotton to turpentine. Moreover, he shows how the G&F tried to help the region by introducing fertilizer, scientific agriculture, irrigation, and economic diversification.

Grant also gives readers a glimpse of labor relations in a region known for its hostility toward unions. Southern railroad workers held one of the better paying jobs and, thus, positions of prominence in local affairs. Although the G&F paid less than other southern lines, it took a paternalistic interest in its workers. Track maintenance workers lived in company houses, for example. Yet, the G&F overlooked strict rules on drinking. In fact, during prohibition, workers sold and delivered "moonshine" to help ends meet. Labor disputes and strikes did emerge, however, and Grant makes the surprising argument that southern railroad workers "found considerable support" in their local communities (p. 57).

Grant addresses race relations as well, but not as systematically as he could have. He provides important antidotes about how the railroad fit into the "Jim Crow" South. The G&F often had special excursion trains for circuses, agricultural fairs, baseball games, and fraternal organizations. It provided an outing in 1923 for the Douglas chapter of the Ku Klux Klan to Valdosta, Georgia, most likely with African Americans working on the train. Several illustrations show segregated waiting rooms and passenger cars. Graduate students and scholars interested in examining segregation and southern railroads will find this book a good starting point for their research.

The booming economy of the 1920s appeared to give the G&F an economic lifeline, and in 1927 the railroad left receivership. Unfortunately, that same year John Skelton Williams died of a massive heart attack. At the time, the line covered 444 miles and had the potential to tie into the important textile region of South Carolina. The new leadership took an "expand or die" attitude until the depression hit (p. 81). Although expansion hit several snags, including labor problems and disputes with contractors, the Augusta–Greenville extension...