The East Tennessee and Virginia (ET&V), chartered in 1849, was completed from Knoxville to Bristol in 1858, ending East Tennessee’s railroad isolation. A more direct route between Cleveland and Chattanooga was completed in 1858.
Running from Dalton via Athens and Loudon to Knoxville by 1855, it was the second railroad completed in Tennessee. The ET&G, chartered in 1848, revived the Hiwassee Railroad. The Memphis and Charleston (M&C), incorporated in 1846, ran across Mississippi and Alabama to reach Stevenson, Alabama by 1857, where it connected with the N&C, thus linking Memphis to the Atlantic via the N&C and the Western and Atlantic. Construction began at Hickman, but the line had been extended eastward only to McKenzie by the Civil War the eastern end ran only a few miles from Nashville, where it was captured by the Union army, who continued it to Johnsonville on the Tennessee River (the remaining gap was completed after the war). Another associated line, the Nashville and Northwestern (N&NW), was intended to connect Nashville to the Mississippi River at Hickman, Kentucky. Associated branch lines were completed in the 1850s: the McMinnville and Manchester the Winchester and Alabama and the coal mine branch to the Sewanee Mining Company at Tracy City. It was the only state-aided railroad to avoid financial loss to the state. Incorporated in 1845, it reached Chattanooga by 1854. The N&C was the first railroad completed in Tennessee. Every Tennessee antebellum railroad (except the N&C) received grants under this system. The General Internal Improvement Law of 1852 provided state loans to railroads at $8,000 per mile ($10,000 per mile by 1854). In 1848 the general assembly endorsed bonds of the Nashville and Chattanooga (N&C), but the East Tennessee and Georgia (ET&G) won a precedent-setting direct loan two years later. Georgia’s Western and Atlantic was already headed toward the Tennessee River, and it reached Chattanooga by l850, a development that renewed the hopes of Knoxville and Memphis and created the first serious railroad interest in Nashville. Tennessee’s railroad interest revived in the late 1840s, encouraged by successful neighboring states. A few months later the county sheriff took possession due to unpaid court judgments.
The LaGrange and Memphis Railroad was the only railroad to qualify for state subscription, and in 1842 it became the first railroad to actually operate a train in Tennessee. Despite achieving Tennessee’s first actual railroad construction, the Hiwassee failed in 1842. The Hiwassee Railroad did not qualify for the state subscription but began construction in 1837 near Athens. Polk.Īlthough in force only a few years, the state internal improvement laws spurred some railroad developers to action. The state aid laws were repealed in 1840 under Governor James K. When the state-stock system stumbled after the Panic of 1837, the ironic outcome was completion of Middle Tennessee turnpikes rather than railroads. Tennessee’s legislature enacted an 1836 law requiring the state to subscribe to one-third of railroad and turnpike company stock (the subscription was raised to one-half in 1838). Another scheme attempted to link Memphis with Baltimore. The Memphis Railroad Company (chartered in 1831, renamed Atlantic and Mississippi in 1833), hoped to connect Memphis with Charleston. West Tennesseans also envisioned connections to the Atlantic coast. In 1831-32 the Rogersville Rail-Road Advocate (possibly the first railroad newspaper in the United States) favored an Atlantic connection through Virginia. Ramsey of Knoxville advocated a rail connection between South Carolina and Tennessee. Early railroad fever struck hardest in East Tennessee. The general assembly granted six charters in 1831 for railroad construction, but these early efforts failed when financial support did not materialize. Tennesseans considered railroads as early as 1827, when a rail connection between the Hiwassee and Coosa Rivers was proposed.