Download or read book Rails Through the Wiregrass written by H. Roger Grant and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Georgia & Florida Railroad began with bright promise, but like many other enterprises in the early twentieth-century South, it experienced hard times. The story begins in 1906, when--responding to a perceived need for better connections to northern markets--a group of entrepreneurs led by prominent Virginia banker John Skelton Williams began to cobble together logging short lines to create more than 350 miles of railroad connecting Augusta, Georgia, with Madison, Florida. At first the G&F triggered growth in its region as several new towns sprang up or expanded along its lines. By 1915, however, the economic dislocations caused by World War I threw the G&F into receivership, and a few years later the G&F came close to dismemberment. Fortunately, shippers and investors rallied to the railroad's cause, and business conditions improved. In 1926 the road was reorganized and, under pressure to "expand or die," built to Greenwood, South Carolina. The Great Depression forced the G&F into bankruptcy, and after its record-length receivership, it was acquired by the Southern Railway in 1963. When the Southern Railway dissolved the corporation and abandoned much of the former trackage, the G&F became the "Gone & Forgotten." Yet in its 57-year lifespan the G&F did much to bring about agricultural diversification and relative prosperity in the wiregrass region of southern Georgia and northern Florida. Offering insights on social and economic conditions in the South from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, Grant's study of this obscure yet noteworthy railroad will appeal to those interested in transportation, business, railroad, and Southern regional history.
Download or read book Railroading Around Dothan and the Wiregrass Region written by and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2004 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wiregrass Region of southeast Alabama, southwest Georgia, and north Florida--named for the perennial grass that covered the long-leaf pine forest floor--is a product of the railroads that arose with the New South. All kinds of railroads served all kinds of purposes in the Wiregrass. Shortlines and even temporary tracks moved timber and pine resin from forest to mill a century ago--they move raw materials and manufactured goods between ports and factories today. Longer lines created business links between Wiregrass towns and the cities of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and the world. Some of these roads lasted only a few years; others merged into complex systems connecting the Wiregrass Region with the rest of the world in a way early settlers could not even imagine. Within these pages, the Dothan Landmarks Foundation has paid tribute to these railroads and the people who created and used them. Railroading around Dothan and the Wiregrass Region celebrates, in word and image, a remarkable era in American history.
Download or read book Twilight Rails written by H. Roger Grant and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the start of the twentieth century railroads crisscrossed the nation, yet there were still those who believed that the railroad network in the United States was far from complete. Residents of small towns lacking rail access lobbied hard for steam and electric roads to serve their communities, and investors eagerly started new ventures that would fill the gaps in the railway map. While some of these roads enjoyed a degree of success, most of them were financial flops even before the rise of the highway system made them obsolete.In Twilight Rails, H. Roger Grant—one of the leading railroad historians working today—documents the stories of eight Midwestern carriers that appeared at the end of the railroad building craze. When historians have reflected on these “twilight” carriers, they have suggested that they were relevant only as examples of unwise business ventures. Grant finds that even the weakest railroads were important to the communities they served; the arrival of the railroad was cause for great celebration as residents were finally connected to the outside world. A railroad’s construction pumped money into local economies, farmers and manufacturers gained access to better markets, and the excitement generated by a new line often increased land values and inspired expansion of local businesses. Even the least financially successful carriers, Grant argues, managed to significantly improve their local economies.This thorough and highly accessible history provides a fascinating look at the motivations, accomplishments, and failures of the twilight carriers, granting a new breath of life to this neglected aspect of American railway history.
Download or read book The New South Comes to Wiregrass Georgia 1860 1910 written by Mark V. Wetherington and published by Univ. of Tennessee Press. This book was released on 2002-05 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This examination of cultural change challenges the conventional view of the Georgia Pine Belt as an unchanging economic backwater. Its postbellum economy evolves from self-sufficiency to being largely dependent upon cotton. Before the Civil War, the Piney Woods easily supported a population of mostly yeomen farmers and livestock herders. After the war, a variety of external forces, spearheaded by Reconstruction-era New South boosters, invaded the region, permanently altering the social, political, and economic landscape in an attempt to create a South with a diversified economy. The first stage in the transformation -- railroad construction and a revival of steamboating -- led to the second stage: sawmilling and turpentining. The harvest of forest products during the 1870s and 1880s created new economic opportunities but left the area dependent upon a single industry that brought deforestation and the decline of the open-range system within a generation.
Download or read book Southern Railroad Man written by Nimrod J. Bell and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nimrod J. Bell worked as a conductor for several southern railroads in their formative period, from 1857 to 1894. After his career was cut short by an accident, he wrote his memoirs detailing his first glimpses of some of the earliest trains in the South and his thirty-eight years as a conductor. Published in Atlanta in 1896, his book offers a first-hand account of working conditions on the railroads, operational procedures, wartime railroading, and passenger travel during Reconstruction. Full of stories about colorful characters who rode the trains - from Confederate troops to train robbers - Southern Railroad Man is a rich source on late nineteenth-century southern culture, tradition, and travel. Perhaps because Bell worked as a conductor, some of his most interesting observations pertain to the people he encountered. Unintentionally, he also provides insights into race relations in a time of transition as he recalls his interactions with blacks as slaves, laborers, and patrons. Written in the language of the ordinary worker, Bell's narrative is a veritable treasure trove of information on southern railroads and their operations. Among the roads he traveled were several in the Carolinas, the Western & Atlantic, the East Tennessee & Georgia, the Alabama & Chattanooga, the South & North Alabama, and the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia. Many of the railroads for which Bell worked were eventually incorporated into the Southern Railway. A rare account of early railroading, Southern Railroad Man is edited by James A. Ward, who provides notes and an introduction that places Bell's story in historical context. This unique book will appeal to anyone interested in railroad history, the history of industrialization, the Civil War, and the culture of the South in the late nineteenth century.
Download or read book Warriors of the Wiregrass written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rails Through Dixie written by and published by . This book was released on 1965 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Follow the Flag written by H. Roger Grant and published by Northern Illinois University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Follow the Flag" offers the first authoritative history of the Wabash Railroad Company, a once vital interregional carrier. The corporate saga of the Wabash involved the efforts of strong-willed and creative leaders, but this book provides more than traditional business history. Noted transportation historian H. Roger Grant captures the human side of the Wabash, ranging from the medical doctors who created an effective hospital department to the worker-sponsored social events. And Grant has not ignored the impact the Wabash had on businesses and communities in the "Heart of America." Like most major American carriers, the Wabash grew out of an assortment of small firms, including the first railroad to operate in Illinois, the Northern Cross. Thanks in part to the genius of financier Jay Gould, by the early 1880s what was then known as the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific Railway reached the principal gateways of Chicago, Des Moines, Detroit, Kansas City, and St. Louis. In the 1890s, the Wabash gained access to Buffalo and direct connections to Boston and New York City. One extension, spearheaded by Gould's eldest son, George, fizzled. In 1904 entry into Pittsburgh caused financial turmoil, ultimately throwing the Wabash into receivership. A subsequent reorganization allowed the Wabash to become an important carrier during the go-go years of the 1920s and permitted the company to take control of a strategic "bridge" property, the Ann Arbor Railroad. The Great Depression forced the company into another receivership, but an effective reorganization during the early days of World War II gave rise to a generally robust road. Its famed Blue Bird streamliner, introduced in 1950 between Chicago and St. Louis, became a widely recognized symbol of the "New Wabash." When "merger madness" swept the railroad industry in the 1960s, the Wabash, along with the Nickel Plate Road, joined the prosperous Norfolk & Western Railway, a merger that worked well for all three carriers. Immortalized in the popular folk song "Wabash Cannonball," the midwestern railroad has left important legacies. Today, forty years after becoming a "fallen flag" carrier, key components of the former Wabash remain busy rail arteries and terminals, attesting to its historic value to American transportation.
Download or read book Railroads and the American People written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-17 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Railroads and the American People is a sparkling paean to American railroading by one of its finest historians.
Download or read book Rails to the North Star written by Richard S. Prosser and published by Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Herit. This book was released on 2007 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint. Originally published by Dillon Press in 1966.
Download or read book Engines of Redemption written by R. Scott Huffard Jr. and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2019-10-14 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the upheavals of the Civil War and Reconstruction shattered the plantation economy of the Old South, white southerners turned to the railroad to reconstruct capitalism in the region. Examining the rapid growth, systemization, and consolidation of the southern railroad network, R. Scott Huffard Jr. demonstrates how economic and political elites used the symbolic power of the railroad to proclaim a New South had risen. The railroad was more than just an economic engine of growth; it was a powerful symbol of capitalism's advance. However, as the railroad spread across the region, it also introduced new dangers and anxieties. White southerners came to fear the railroad would speed an upending of the racial order, epidemics of yellow fever, train wrecks, violent robberies, and domination by corporate monopolies. To complete the reconstruction of capitalism, railroad corporations and their allies had to sever the negative aspects of railroading from capitalism's powers and deny the railroad's transformative powers to black southerners. This study of the New South's experience with the growing railroad network provides valuable insights into the history of capitalism--how it evolves, expands, and overcomes resistance.
Download or read book Wiregrass Country written by Jerrilyn McGregory and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A look at a fascinating Deep South region and its distinctive way of life
Download or read book A Journey into Florida Railroad History written by Gregg M. Turner and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2012-03-25 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is safe to say that without railroads, Florida wouldn't be what it is today. Railroads connected the state's important cities and towns, conquered the peninsula's vast and seemingly impenetrable interior, ushered in untold numbers of settlers and tourists, and conveyed to market--faster than any previous means of transportation--the myriad products of Florida's mines, forests, factories, farms, and groves. Gregg Turner traces the long, slow development of Florida railroads, from the first tentative lines in the 1830s, through the boom of the 1880s, to the maturity of the railroad system in the 1920s. At the end of that decade nearly 6,000 miles of labyrinthine track covered the state. Turner also examines the decline of the industry, as the automobile rose to prominence in American culture and lines were abandoned or sold for hiking trails and green spaces. Meticulously researched and richly illustrated--including many never-before-published images--A Journey into Florida Railroad History is a comprehensive, authoritative history of the subject. Written by one of the nation's foremost authorities on Florida railroads, it explores all the key players and companies, and every significant period of development. This engaging and lively story will be savored and enjoyed by generations to come.
Download or read book Wiregrass to Appomattox written by James W. Parrish and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wiregrass to Appomattox follows a regiment of Georgia confederates as they travel from the Wiregrass region to the seat of war in Virginia. The author, a great-great grandson of two of the regiment's soldiers, discovered numerous unpublished letters, diaries, and photos as he assembled this never-before-told-story. Come follow these men as they fight with Longstreet at bloody places like: South Mountain, Sharpsburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Cedar Creek, and Sailor's Creek. Hear their voices as they struggle for survival even while they worry about their wounded friends and their own families back home.
Download or read book John W Barriger III written by H. Roger Grant and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Readers will find in his biography an extraordinary tale of the travails of twentieth-century railroading through the career of this one man.” —The Annals of Iowa After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John W. Barriger III (1899–1976) started his career on the Pennsylvania Railroad as a rodman, shop hand, and then assistant yardmaster. His enthusiasm, tenacity, and lifelong passion for the industry propelled him professionally, culminating in leadership roles at Monon Railroad, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad and the Boston and Maine Railroad. His legendary capability to save railroad corporations in peril earned him the nickname “doctor of sick railroads,” and his impact was also felt far from the train tracks, as he successfully guided New Deal relief efforts for the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the Depression and served in the Office of Defense Transportation during World War II. Featuring numerous personal photographs and interviews, John W. Barriger III is an intimate account of a railroad magnate and his role in transforming the transportation industry. “Thanks to Roger Grant’s latest book, Barriger and his amazing legacy endures, waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of readers. Trust me, you’ll learn a lot.” —Classic Trains “H. Roger Grant’s biography, John W. Barriger III, offers a new and much needed perspective on this prominent individual. Grant brings together an overview of Barriger’s career developments with an appropriate balance of insights into his early life and introduction to railroads.” —Journal of Transport History
Download or read book Birdscapes written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Green Hornet Street Car Disaster written by Craig Allen Cleve and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-15 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As rush hour came to a close on the evening of May 25, 1950, one of Chicago's new fast, colorful, streamlined streetcars—known as a Green Hornet—slammed into a gas truck at State Street and 62nd Place. The Hornet's motorman allegedly failed to heed the warnings of a flagger attempting to route it around a flooded underpass, and the trolley, packed with commuters on their way home, barreled into eight thousand gallons of gasoline. The gas erupted into flames, poured onto State Street, and quickly engulfed the Hornet, shooting flames two hundred and fifty feet into the air. More than half of the passengers escaped the inferno through the rear window, but thirty-three others perished, trapped in front of the streetcar's back door, which failed to stay open in the ensuing panic. It was Chicago's worst traffic accident ever—and the worst two-vehicle traffic accident in US history. Unearthing a forgotten chapter in Chicago lore, The Green Hornet Streetcar Disaster tells the riveting tale of this calamity. Combing through newspaper accounts as well as the Chicago Transit Authority's official archives, Craig Cleve vividly brings to life this horrific catastrophe. Going beyond the historical record, he tracks down individuals who were present on that fateful day on State and 62nd: eyewitnesses, journalists, even survivors whose lives were forever changed by the accident. Weaving these sources together, Cleve reveals the remarkable combination of natural events, human error, and mechanical failure that led to the disaster, and this moving history recounts them—as well as the conflagration's human drama—in gripping detail.
