Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1881-10-15
Ra1LRoAp paEEr1NG.


a good sized audience, COMPOSED
/ of our most prominent and iaost in
fuential citizens, assembled at the
courthouse last Thursday night to
hear the Honorable w. B. Wood.
of Alabama, and O. A. Nixon, Esq,
OF this State, upon tile subject OF
the contemplated railroad from No
bile, Alabama, to Evansville, Indi-
ana, running through Clarksville.
Judge Wood was INTRODUCED to the
audience by Honorable James E.
Bailey, who claimed for him the
respectful attention Of the audience,
and their careful consideration of
the facts Whicla he would lay before
them that Judge Wood came to
submit plans and propositions to
our people for the building of a
great trunk line railroad, and that
if GAINESVILLE needed anything
more than another to develop her
tributary country, and to infuse en-
ergy, pluck, and vim into her bust
ness enterprises, it was railroads.
We had lost other grand opportuni-
ties, and if this proved a plausible
one, he hoped we would not let it
slip by, etc.
Judge Wood said that Colonel
Bailey had kindly broken the ice
for him, and it only remained for
him to lay before them the plans
and proposed route of the contem-
plated railroad in detail, and let
them judge for themselves of its
feasibility.
1t was propos, 4, he said, to con-
struct a grand trunk lhle OF railroad
running North from Mobile, Ala
banla, to Florence, in the same
State, and thence North through
the counties of Wayne, Lewis,
Hickman, Dickson, and Montgom-
cry, in Tennessee, and thence on up
through Kentucky TO Evansville,
Indiana.
He stated when the idea began,
and how it began that it was the
plan of the Messrs. Gordon, of
Georgia, assisted by other infuen-
tial and experienced railroad men.
IIe1spoke OF the many magnificent
railroad enterprises these gentlemen
were now engaged in, and of how
the South was being developed and
built up by the newly-awakened in
terest in railroad enterprises that
they were the life and salvation of
the South, and that the vast and
magnificent belt of country through
which it was proposed to run this
road, had already been permitted
to be idle too long, and that it was
now proposed to open it up to the
marts of commerce.
He had come along the line of the
road thus far, and he could truth
fully say that there was no other
section of the globe OF the same ex-
tent that was richer in the elements
of wealth, that offered 50 wide a
field for manufacturing and 3usi-
ness enterprises of every kind that
from Ohio to the Gulf, along the
whole route, there were vast coal
and iron mines yet untouched by
the pick.
He had been to Evansville, and
found the people there very favora-
bly, impressed with the idea; and,
in fact, along the whole line the
people were anxious for its con-
struction.
He then told how it was proposed
TO build the road partly by SUBJ
scriptions of land and money by
the people along its route, and the
rest by the company who had the
matter in charge; that the railroad
would evidently be built. He
would not propose any plan of how
these subscriptions should be made
by the people of Montgomery, rs
yet; that he wanted them to be-
come interested in the matter, and
think over it, etc.
We are unable, from the short
ness of time in which we write, to
give the Judges speech justice, but
we think he fully impressed his
hearers with the importance of the
road to their interests.
lie was followed by Judge Nix
on, who further eIucidated the plans
and purposes of the project, and
presented the many untold advan-
tages that would be bound to accrue
to our people by its construction.
The meeting was a decided sue
cess.