Marietta in History
First Passenger Trains
1842
In the 1820s, Marietta people were thinking about railroads. The primitive roads and ferries of the day could not meet the increasing need to move people and supplies. Passenger trains were developed in the United States in 1830, but as early as 1824 a news item in the Southern Recorder revealed that a rail trip had been made at an average rate of nearly twenty miles per hour. Not everyone thought such breathtaking speed was a good idea. One Augusta Chronicle reader deplored the intrusion of "iron monsters and unsightly rails" and reminded people that they had perfectly good rivers and canals.
In 1835 a meeting was held in the log house of William Green to discuss a railroad line running through Marietta. In 1836, the legislature authorized construction of a line from Tennessee to the Chattahoochee. Funds were appropriated, surveys were taken, work was begun and in 1842 the Western and Atlantic railroad was ready for its trial run. Everyone who could get there came to witness the arrival of that first passenger train, consisting of an engine, a freight car and a passenger car. The event was celebrated by a banquet and dance in Marietta, attended by sophisticated visiting dignitaries who arrived – how else? – by rail.
Not everyone boasted such sophistication, though. While he waited to see the train, one rural gentleman prudently decided to unhitch his horse and tie it to a nearby tree lest it be spooked. The owner had placed himself in the shafts of the wagon to back it into a better position when suddenly the train roared into sight. Astounded by the monstrous machine bearing down on him, the gentleman and his wagon took flight while the horse looked on calmly. With the advent of the railroad, Marietta's days as a frontier village were over.
Temple, Sarah Blackwell Gober. The First Hundred Years.