The Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road: Dreams of Linking North and South

by H. Roger Grant

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.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

H. Roger Grant (1943/1944 – November 17, 2023) was an American railroad historian and author.

Reviews

[M.J. Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an account of a noble attempt to construct a railway from Charleston, South Carolina, to Cincinnati in the 1830's. Had this rail line been built in full from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ohio River, the patterns of settlement and rail network construction would have had a completely different outcome. The War Between the States might never have occurred!