Rails, Roads, and Trails of Georgia

Speeding Up, Slowing Down, Connecting to the Past

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Ferris Bueller

Rails

In the late 1800s, railroads and steamships allowed people to move about in relative comfort and speed as never before. Private automobiles, then uncommon, operated on roads blazed and traversed by wagons and carts, though trolley lines ran through most Georgia cities. As the new century dawned, options broadened quickly. They have hardly slowed since.

Our grandfather Leon Grayson (1906-1993), born and raised in Savannah, was well acquainted with Georgia railways. Historian Adam Burns of American Rails writes, “During the industry’s “Golden Age,” Georgia was home to thousands of miles of rails and virtually all of the South’s most well known classic lines,” ¹ among them the Seaboard Air Line (SAL), Central of Georgia (CRR), Atlantic Coast Line (ACL), and the Plant System. Leon’s great-grandfather John L. Grayson had once worked for the CRR, as did his great-uncle John G. Grayson, an engineer who died in a locomotive explosion near Tennille in 1892. Among other destinations, Leon rode the rails to the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, which he attended from 1925-1929.

A 1930 advertisement placed in the Covington (GA) News by A.E. Clift, president of the CRR, illustrates how automobiles and buses were by then beginning to make many rail lines obsolete, “In the past ten years, in the State of Georgia alone, 16 short lines have been abandoned and dismantled…. The total mileage discontinued in Georgia since 1921 reaches the astonishing total of 597 miles…. Sufficient patronage by the public would have saved this mileage from the scrap pile.” ²

Mr. Clift may have merely been placating his shareholders, as an unconnected advertisement on the very same page announced a new cooperative bus service through Covington to and from Atlanta. “Busses will operate over highway routes paralleling rails of Georgia Railroad between Social Circle and Atlanta and will stop on highway at points opposite Georgia Railroad stations…. Schedules of rates and fares on file with Georgia Railroad agents at all stations served and will be available, on application to said agents.” ²

Roads

In early 1934 Thomas Gamble, mayor of Savannah and a former newspaperman, aggressively promoted the idea of completing an all-paved highway from Atlanta to Savannah that would pass through the two other towns that had also served as capitals of Georgia. The idea for a Four Capitals Highway quickly took root. In July the (Milledgeville) Union-Recorder wrote that by October, “the whole of the route from Atlanta through Milledgeville and Louisville will have been completed and a monster motorcade will make the journey through what is also known as the “Heart of Georgia” route.” ³ Subsequent news articles reported “the final surfacing of the last link between Madison and Eatonton” was completed in late October and that “hundreds of automobiles” took part, as did Governor Eugene Talmadge, U.S. Senator Richard Russell, and the mayors of “at least 26 cities along or near the route.”

The motorcade traversed about 280 miles, leaving the state capitol in Atlanta on Thursday morning, November 1, 1934. Using the modern road designations, the participants followed the rail line east along Decatur St. and U.S. 278 through Conyers and Covington to Madison, then traveled south on U.S. 441 through Eatonton to Milledgeville, where the participants were welcomed, feted, and treated to a barbecue lunch. They continued east on state route 24 through Sandersville (just north of Tennille, the site of the 1892 locomotive explosion) to Louisville, where the motorcade paused for a short ceremony. They then headed south on U.S. 1 to Swainsboro, and finally east on U.S. 80 (the historic coast to coast Dixie Overland Highway) through Statesboro to Savannah, where celebrations were held for two days, including an oyster roast and shore dinner with music and dancing on Tybee Island. An optional extension of the motorcade added a Saturday drive down the coast to Jacksonville, Florida for the annual Georgia-Florida football game.

Our great-grandfather William L. Grayson, who served on the staff of then-Governor Russell from 1930-32 and as the long-time Chatham County Superior Court Clerk, was there on Tybee for the celebrations, though whether he participated in the motorcade all the way from Atlanta is unclear. Leon and William’s two other adult sons were involved in the UGA football program over the years, thus the rivalry game in Jacksonville, a 14-0 Georgia win, would have been a nice way to conclude the weekend.

Trails

The Firefly Trail is a planned and partially constructed 39-mile hiker-biker trail in northeast Georgia that will roughly follow the Athens branch line of the historic Georgia Railroad (GRR). My good friend Peter, an avid biker, invited me to participate in a bicycle ride to help raise funds for the Firefly Trail. We rode east out of Athens early one lovely October morning to Winterville, then south across lightly-traveled Georgia roads through the former rail towns of Arnoldsville, Crawford, Stephens, Maxeys, and Woodville to Union Point, this last the only one of those towns that can still boast of rail service. It is intriguing to ponder how, recognizing how lightly suburban sprawl has touched these predominantly still-rural towns, my grandfather Leon may have enjoyed many of the same sights from his rail carriage that I was enjoying from the seat of my bicycle nearly 100 years later.

Peter is also participating in fundraising for the Georgia Hi-Lo Trail, which when complete would add 211 miles to the Firefly Trail, potentially becoming America’s longest paved path. As planned, it would connect the Northeast Georgia mountains (Hi) to the Atlantic Ocean (Lo), traversing a number of small towns and crossing the historic Four Capitals Highway at Sandersville, then reconnecting to the century-old paved road at Swainsboro, and running somewhat parallel through Statesboro to Savannah.

Rails, roads, and trails still connect us – past, present, and future. But life moves pretty fast. Let’s make sure we’re stopping from time to time to look back in honor of those that came before us, to enjoy the now with those we love, and to strive to leave things just a little bit better for those yet to come.

¹ “Railroads in the Peach State”, accessed 9/30/23 https://www.american-rails.com/ga.html#Short

² Covington (GA) News, 14 Nov 1930, pg. 7

³ (Milledgeville) Union-Recorder, 12 Jul 1934, pg. 1. See also 18 Oct, 1 Nov 1934, and Covington News, 2 Nov 1934

Feature image: 1906 Rail Map (detail) shows the GRR Athens Branch to Union Point and the rail/bus route from Social Circle to Atlanta (source: https://www.american-rails.com)