Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-02-04
TENNESSEE AND PACIFIC RAIE-
ROAD.
VIII Nashville Live or Die louis
willie Undermining Es-The Great
Question Of the Hour.

1
willie Underwriting Us-The Great
Question Of the Hour
Never was more momentous question
presented to Nashville and the citizens o.
Davidson county than the question of inn
mediately subscribing 100000 to the Ten
nessee and Pacific railroad. A great game
is now being played between Louisville and
Nashville, 10 which our very existence as
a commercial and future manufacturing
city depends. Let US build the Tennessee
and Pacific read az far as Lebanon, if it
/ exhausts our resources to do il. When We
have accomplished that much, We throw
Louisville in the background. The move
ment now on foot at Lebanon, to build the
road to Gallatin, is only necessitated by
our want of energy in pushing forward the
| Pacific road. The citizens of Wilson county
need an outlet for their products, but we
sincerely believe that they would prefer
building up the capital of their own State
than enriching Louisville, our commercial
rival. The great object Louisville has in
building this road from Gallatin TO Leba-
non, is not simply to control the trade of
those counties, but to eventually push it on
to Murfrecsboro or Tullahoma, thus leay-
ing Nashville high and dry, and entirely
removed from the great highway of travel
from Cincinnati and Louisville to the far
South.
The citizens of Nashville have hereto
fore displayed commendable energy in
developing the resources of the country,
tributary to its commerce, but at this time,
when one of the most fertile and product
i've portions of our State is about to be made
TO pour its inexhaustible mineral and agri>
cultural wealth into the marts of rival
city in an adjoining State, we lie with our
hands folded, and dream that by closing
our eyes we will stop the sound of the pick,
which will soon be working the line of
road from Gallatin TO Lebanon, in this
State. 1t is unnecessary TO make an argu
ment to our business men to prove the i'm
portsnce of preventing this diversion of
trade from our city. Every one acquainted
with the almost incalculable resources of
Wilson, Smith, DeKalb, Oyerton, White
and adjoining counties, will see the neces.
sity of going to work to build the Tennessee
and Pacific railroad to bring this great
wealth to our city. The annual report of
the Board of Trade of Louisville, in speak
ing of the advantages Louisville is to de.
rive from the extension from Gallatin to
Lebanon, says:
at will add to our imports upwards of
two millions of dollars per annum, consist
ing of cotton, hogs wheat tobacco, corn
and mules, and seventy-fve thousand acres
of fine cedar forests, admirably adapted to
the manufacture of cedar ware. In one
county alone, on this route, 1900 hogs
heads of choice tobacco are annually grown,
none Of which has ever reached this mar
ket; but with the construction of the
branch road, distance of only sixteen
miles, all these products will actually and
surely come to Louisville, asitis the best, and
viii then be the most accessible market.
This branch route may be considered as a
fixed fact ere another year passes away. 1t
people along the route, az heretofore their
only means of reaching a market wilhtheir
products was by the numbering country
wagons to the river, and from thence,
when the stage of water was favorable, by |
means of RATS and fatboats, hastily con-
structed for the occasion, to convey them |
to Nashville and New Orleans"
This argument will convince the most |
unthinking mind ofthe necessity of prompt,
decisive and energetic action, in building |
the Tennessee and Pacific railroad. five |
could only get the railroad built to Leba |
non for the present, it would checkmate |
the Louisville enterprise, as at Lebanon we !
would catch the freights which would be |
destined for Louisville, and bring them to |
this city, where they legitimately belong, |
and make them add to the building up of |
our stricken and impoverished State, in |
stead of pouring their commerce into the |
lap Of rival city in the State of Kentncky.