The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1854-11-10
THE RABUN GAP RAILROAD.

We take the following extract on the Ra-
bun Gap Railroad, from an able article which
recently appeared in the Huntsville (Ala)
Advocate:
ITO those who have watched the progress
of our countrywide are conversant with the
railroad enterprises of the day-who have
studied the wants of the different sections of
our Union-who are ardently devoted to the
true advancement of the South, the develop
ment of its great dominant resources, and are
alive to the necessity of cementing 1t by IRON
bands of commerce, few enterprises are re-
garded with more favor than this great trunk
line of railroad. In its inception it had the
countenance of the first minds Of South Car
olina twenty years ago. 1t has slept for a
season, but now the public mind has again
been directed to its Importance. The exigen-
cies of trade and the demands of the public
welfare require its completion. Originating
with,i speedy construction should be ensured
by South Carolina. 1t should be made a
State ,cork-for it will unite the seaboard
more closely to the upper portions Of the
State, ard will pour into the lap of the chofe
State the vast products of the teeming West.
What is the Blue Ridge, or, as it is more
commonly called, the Rabun Gap Railroads.
1t is a road to connect Charleston. and by
means of its happy location, and its eonnec-
tions with other roads, the rhOie of South Car
olina with Knoxville, and thence with the
whole of the mighty West 1t will cross the
mountains at the Rabun Gap, the most favor
able point for railroad in the entire range
of the Alleghanies 1t will be a very direct
line to Knoxville, leaving the Greenville road
at Anderson G. H., crossing the corners of
4 nd int franpascaa
The cost of the road to the Tennessee line is
estimated at $4,000, 900, and the means of the
Company are put down at $4,000, 900. The
portion of the road in Tennessee is assisted by
the State aid of $4,000 per mile; and $780,
600 for each bridge across rivers. From
Knoxville companies have been chartered and
organized to connect with Danville or Paris,
KY, which ensures direct railroad line from
Charleston, S. c., to Louisville, Cincinnati
and the great West. The road to the Ten
nessee line is under contract but the means
of the company are not by any means suffi-
cient to pay for its entire construction and
equipment.
This is a gigantic enterprise. 1t will open
up the West TO the South Atlantic seaports
1t is the direct route. the Southern route, the
cheapest route. 1t pepetrates the heart OF
East Tennessee, its copper, coal, and iron de.
posts; it pierees Kentucky diagonally; and
at Louisville stretches out North, South and
farther West into the provision regions. By
this route Cincinnati is 632 miles from Charles.
ton and it is $50 from New York Philadel-
phia $50 and Baltimore 700. Louisville by it
is only 6l0 miles from Charleston, and farther
removed than Cincinnati from the other cities.
So of st. Louis and of the whole West. With
this road completed, Charleston, South Caro-
lima and Georgia would be the nearest mar
kets for the Corn, Wheat, Pork, DC, of the
West, while the West could and would draw
largely from the South Atlantic cities for its
supplies of West India predictions, European
goods, &C., &c. This road must be the great
trunk line between the great West and North
and South Carolina Georgia, Florida, and
portions of Alabama and Tennessee "The
Blue Ridge Railroad" must therefore, De "na-
tonally Southern" in its character, the great
highway between the great States of the
West and the Southern Atlantic States sea-
board and the Gulf of Mexico and Florida,
and be beneficial alike to all of them. Such
is, in a few lines, the Rabun Gap Railroad, its
route, connections, importance, and value to
the country"