Southern Georgia: Railroad Pamphlet

May 10, 2010 at 12:15 am (Railroads, Society and Leisure, Troupville of Old Lowndes County)
Tags: Atlantic & Gulf Railroad, Berrien County GA, Brunswick & Albany Railroad, C. P. Goodyear, Henry Plant, Joseph Tillman, Lowndes County GA, Macon and Brunswick Rail Road, Ray City GA, Ray's Mill, Savannah Florida and Western railroad, Troupville GA, Valdosta GA, Waycross Reporter

An interesting 1881 commercial pamphlet promoting the opening of the section.

Originally the Savannah, Florida & Western Railway through Valdosta, GA was known as the Atlantic & Gulf railroad. At the time the A&G was constructed from Screven to Thomasville in 1860, the seat of Lowndes county was at Troupville, GA, situated in the fork of the Withlacoochee River and the Little River. But when the A&G was routed through the community of Valdosta, bypassing Troupville by four miles, the residents transferred the county seat to Valdosta.

According to Georgia’s Railroad History & Heritage, by Steve Story, “Henry Bradley Plant bought the A&G in 1879 at a foreclosure sale and renamed it the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway. At the time it consisted of a 237-mile main line from Savannah to Bainbridge with branches adding up to a total of 350 miles of track.”

Southern Georgia: A Pamphlet – 1881

Southern Georgia: A pamphlet published under the auspices of the Savannah, Florida & Western Railway, Brunswick & Albany Rail Road, and Macon & Brunswick Rail Road

A PAMPHLET

PUBLISHED UNDER AUSPICES OF THE

Savannah, Florida & Western Railway,
Brunswick & Albany Rail Road.

AND

Macon & Brunswick Rail Road.

COMPILED BY

JOSEPH TILLMAN, Editor, and C. P. GOODYEAR, Associate Editor,

Of “WAYCROSS REPORTER.”

CONTAINING VALUABLE INFORMATION TO

Farmers, Naval Stores Manufacturers, Timber Men,
Lumber Manufacturers, Fruit Growers, Vegetable
Growers, Tourists, Invalids, Pleasure Seekers,
Travellers, Parties Seeking New Homes,

All who desire to better their condition.

1881.

While the railroads tended to exaggerate the desirability of newly opened land in order to build commercial trade, the pamphlet gives insight into the activities of settlers and residents in Berrien, Lanier, and other south Georgia counties.

The Railroad System of South Georgia.

The Savannah, Florida and Western, Macon and Brunswick and Brunswick and Albany Railroads constitute the railway communications of South Georgia.

The Savannah, Florida and Western Railway, starting at Savannah, the second cotton port in importance in the South, traverses the whole of Southern Georgia to Bainbridge on the Flint river, 237 miles, with an Albany branch from Thomasville, 58 miles, a Florida division from DuPont, Ga., to Live Oak, Fla., 48 miles, and a division from Waycross, Ga., to Jacksonville, Fla., 74 miles long, making a total of 417 miles under its management

The Florida division will soon be extended south through the whole length of the Peninsula of Florida to a port on the Gulf coast, some 260 miles, and the main line will also soon be extended across the Chattahoochee river to western connections with New Orleans and other points. This road has long had the greater portion of the Western travel of pleasure-seekers and invalids to Florida, and offers them the coming season, through its Waycross division, not only the shortest route, but rapid traveling in the f1nest coaches that modern skill has devised, to Jacksonville, the terminus of the Waycross division, the Metropolis of Florida, situated upon the lovely St. John’s river, famed far and wide for its ample and excellent hotels, rapidly growing in commercial importance and population, the key to the vast territory drained by the St. John’s and Indian rivers, and containing in city and suburbs a population of 13,500.

****

The Savannah, Florida and Western Railway Company, in connection with the Southern Express Company, steamers on the St. John’s river and steamships at Savannah and Charleston, and rail communication North and West, through Savannah, Jesup and Albany, makes a specialty of transportation of fruits, vegetables and all classes of perishable agricultural products to Northern and Western markets, in cars specially adapted to the purpose, by fast passenger trains. Savannah and Brunswick have regular and ample steamship and packet communication with New York and other Northern cities, and the extension of these lines West, as detailed in a description of these roads, will within the next eighteen months add to the facilities already detailed tenfold.

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