Railroad Revives Town

       Hopes were raised with the news that the Montgomery and West Point Railroad was planning to extend its rails to the Georgia line.¹ This could mean the development of West Point as a transportation center as well as an important cotton market.  It would also give impetus to the cultivation of cotton as a major crop. 

        On a hot day in July, 1851, the first train arrived from Montgomery and a cheering crowd lined the tracks in welcome.  Three years later in May of 1854, there was a second celebration when a train pulled into the West Point station from Atlanta, crossing the river on the new railroad trestle completed that year.²

Next Page    The Tracks That Never Met

 

Sources:

¹  Digital Library And Archives, "Manuscript Resources for Railroad History, http://spec.lib.vt.edu/railroad/rrinto.htm

²  Dorothy N. Young, "West Point Before the Battle of Fort Tyler," The Battle of West Point, Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society, 1997, pp. 10