The Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road
Dreams of Linking North and South
By H. Roger Grant.
Cloth with dust jacket, 7x10", 216 pages, 23 b&w photos, 2 maps. April 2014.
"Among the grand antebellum plans to build railroads to interconnect the vast American republic, perhaps none was more ambitious than the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston.
"The route was intended to link the cotton - producing South and the grain and livestock growers of the Old Northwest with traders and markets in the East, creating economic opportunities along its 700-mile length. But then came the Panic of 1837, and the project came to a halt.
"H. Roger Grant tells the incredible story of this singular example of 'railroad fever' and the remarkable visionaries whose hopes for connecting North and South would require more than half a century - and one Civil War - to reach fruition."
table of contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. Slow, Difficult and Dangerous Travel
2. A Rail Road?
3. Knoxville, 1836
4. Surveys, Finances and Construction
5. Crisis and Contraction
6. What Happened
7. What Might Have Happened
Notes
Index