Charles a. Lott jr

Douglasville, the county seat of Douglas County, owes its existence to the railroad and local businessmen who used the rails to gain a foothold in the west Georgia economy.

First Train to Douglasville 1882. From the collection of Earl Albertson

Local historian Stephanie Aylworth, in Setting the stage: The Development of Douglasville Georgia’s Historic Commercial District from 1875-1915 notes that the location of the city itself was not without controversy among the local business leaders. “Farm owners desired a central location (for the county seat) that was the small village of Chapel Hill, but the town boosters favored the area known as Skint-Chesnut, which was located next to the surveyed railroad right of way.”³² Chapel Hill was an agricultural community located about five miles south of the current downtown Douglasville business district and current railroad line. Aylworth also spells out the town booster’s motivations, “Town boosters believed that having the county seat next to the anticipated railroad was imperative to actualize their New South vision of the town and industry building.”³³ Wilber Caldwell also wrote of the same situation, “The dispute raged between those who advocated a central location, and those who sought a location on the proposed line of the railroad.”³⁴ The locals voted Chapel Hill as the county seat in a general election that was contested by the town boosters and eventually wound its way through the state court system. The fact that town boosters could win a state court challenge indicated that the

Douglas County Map Depicting the Relative Locations of Chapel Hill and Douglasville

in a1919 Douglas County Sentinel newspaper article. Courtesy: Douglas County Sentinel.
dispute was more than neighbor against neighbor; it was also men with political influence versus farmers. Joseph S. James, who according to Aylworth was, “A lawyer, a devout democrat, and a Henry Grady supporter; James dedication to Douglasville’s success was strong and his list of accomplishments were long.”³⁵ Included in this list, was the successful overriding of the citizen’s vote on the location of the new county seat. In 1875, the new city of Douglasville was incorporated by an act of the Georgia general assembly.³⁶ Allworth concludes, “The creation and development of the town, and particularly the central business district, was the first of the town booster’s accomplishments in supporting and capitalizing on the area’s existing agricultural commerce and the anticipated railroad line.”³⁷ In Douglasville, typical of these New South railroad towns, building facades were arranged parallel to the railroad tracks so that passengers on the trains could view the buildings through car windows as they passed through the city aboard the new steam trains.³⁸

In the late 19^th century as new towns developed along the new rail lines, newspaper editorials were one of the prominent means of attracting visitors and investors to the areas. The Atlanta Constitution ran an article, “Douglasville’s Situation,” submitted as a “special guest submittal,” undoubtedly by a Douglasville town booster trying to lure outsiders to the rail side community. The article soundly expounds the virtues of the land and citizens, “Very pleasant is its location, on the crest of a ridge, the county sloping away on either hand” and “Beyond, as far as the eye can reach the landscape, is highly diversified, hill and valley, forest and cultivated field constantly present new and ever changing attractions.”³⁹ The enticement to relocate to the new town listed in the article included a section on the local government and its facilities, guest lodging, along with agricultural and mineral potentials. The article’s emphasizes the new railroad as of the young town’s most important features to those who would settle in the area to raise crops or begin manufacturing industries. “The rapidly growing towns but short distance away will absorb a large proportion of these products while numerous railroads will convey the surpluses in from twenty to forty hours to the largest and best markets in the wide world.”⁴⁰ Shipping by rail opened the markets of Atlanta and other points on the line to market locally grown produce that was time sensitive due to spoilage, and greatly improved the prospects of farmers who had access to the freight depot in Douglasville.

Although only 12 miles apart on the rail line, Lithia Springs and Douglasville had similar results from the railroads constructed through their areas. Douglasville lacked the tourist destination that Lithia Springs had in the Sweetwater Hotel complex; Douglasville’s residents grew much more cotton and other agricultural products. Both however, quickly took advantage of the new railroad’s capability to move passengers and freight quickly and for reasonable costs to greatly expand its manufacturing capabilities and entice new settlers into the areas.

VILLA RICA

The “City of Gold” as the city’s name translated into the Spanish language, did not exist prior to the railroads arrival in 1882. Approximately one mile north of the present day city was the town known as “Cheeves,” which sprang up as a result of the gold discoveries in the area around 1824 to support and supply the prospectors in search of mineral wealth in the newly acquired Indian lands. ⁴¹

The G.P.R.R. reached Villa Rica and the first train arrived to much fanfare in June 1882. Local historian Mary T. Anderson documents the holiday type atmosphere surrounding the event, and concluded, “So, with the arrival of that first train, Villa Rica reached a new milestone in her history. It was evident that very soon a new and greater Villa Rica was to spring up around the railroad.”⁴² As in the case of Douglasville, town boosters submitted “specials” to the Atlanta Constitution promoting the virtues of their city, and clearly promoted their entrepreneurial endeavors in the process. The Atlanta Constitution contained the article, “Old and New Villa Rica: A New Life Given to a Flourishing and Important Section of the State.” The submitted article praises the effects of the new rail line to the area. “To those who believe that railroads do nothing toward developing the natural resources of a country, building up the towns along its line and acting as important feeders to the cities, we would respectfully invite them to a short trip out on the Georgia Pacific, when they will be convinced that one of the most important and flourishing sections of the state have remained longer without railroad facilities than they deserve.” The author continues, “In a few short months, where once stood immense forests the lots have been surveyed, sold into town property, businesses houses are erected, filed with goods, and each station is now doing a thriving business.”⁴³

As a result of the Frierson & Leak Auction of town lots on August 15^th 1882, the new city of Villa Rica became the latest new town on the Georgia Pacific Railroad. Just as in the case of Douglasville, the railroad also brought controversy and conflict among local citizens. “The new town has sprung up within the past seven months, and now numbers three or four hundred people with twelve to fifteen business houses” wrote the author of an Atlanta Constitution article “Old and New Villa Rica,” and that “considerable rivalry exists between the two places, each one struggling for their respective town. Efforts are being made to remove the post office, but with what success is yet unknown.”⁴⁴ Many residents resisted the lure of the railroad and fought to keep their town intact. Hixtown and Cheeves residents were unsuccessful. One by one businesses moved to the new city of Villa Rica. The remnants of the old towns are visible only to those who recognize the former businesses that were converted to private homes and still dot the landscape of the west Georgia community.

Flyer for Villa Rica Land Auction 1882.

Mary T. Anderson “History of Villa Rica” (City of Gold) 1976,” Map of the “Big sale and Excursion” to Villa Rica Georgia on the Georgia Pacific Railroad. (Inside front cover).

10 miles west from Villa Rica, The GPRR line entered the city of Temple. Author Burell Williams Holder, in his book, A History of Temple, Georgia, describes the agricultural community’s situation prior to the construction of the G.P.R.R. line, “after the cotton was ginned, the farmers turned their wagons southward and traveled to Carrollton, the nearest railroad town. The cotton was sold and supplies bought from the Carrollton merchants whose stores were nestled around the square of the county seat.”⁴⁵ The economy of Temple was significantly impacted by the lack of the rails. The citizens of Temple had also realized that there was money to be made if the rail line could be extended to the town. “For months, the farm families of the area had been hearing rumors that a railroad would be built from Atlanta to Birmingham.”⁴⁶ However, the most likely scenario was that the line would pass through Carrollton rather than the northern part of the county. “Then toward the end of 1881, the railroad rumor took on new life and quite a stir was evidence in the crossroads.” Burrell wrote “The Georgia Pacific Railroad was to be built from Atlanta through Ringer’s crossroad (Temple) and onwards to the coal fields and iron beds of Alabama.”⁴⁷

Town boosters of Temple, just as those in Douglasville and Villa Rica, looked to the coming of the rail as opportunities to gain wealth. “A new, bustling railroad town was envisioned by business men of Carroll and surrounding counties.” ⁴⁸ Auction companies surveyed the land for the city into lots and distributed plats that allowed prospective business owners to visualize the coming city. Burrell wrote, and that, “The crossroads soon became quite a lively spot as prospective merchants, millers, ginners, sawmillers, and carpenters arrived to look over the land which would be suitable for their enterprises.”⁴⁹

Following a pattern that was seen in Villa Rica, the first engine steamed into Temple in 1882 and the town development soon began in earnest. “Out of sparsely settled northwestern Carroll County this place was surveyed and platted. On October 12, 1882, a big auction was held to sell the town lots. A special train brought perspective buyers from Atlanta.”⁵⁰ According to Holder, The city of Temple was incorporated by an act of the Georgia state legislature on August 28, 1883.⁵¹ The town continued to rapidly develop and services such as schools and churches promptly sprang up in the new town. It seems that in the late nineteenth century along the G.P.R.R., the local populations can support one town per every ten miles of track. As in the case of Douglasville and Villa Rica not all residents were enamored with the railroad’s effects. “Farmers were happy over the price of land” Burrell wrote but, “Farmers found it difficult to hire farm laborers since most of them had gone to work with the railroad. They were making more money than they had on the farms.”⁵² The railroad brought to Temple, just as it had to Lithia Springs, Douglasville, and Villa Rica, a boom time of building, development and prosperity for many of the towns citizens.

Railroad Crews lying track near Tallapoosa. Photo: Vanishing Georgia.

Bremen, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, “took its name from the nearby railroad station and the German seaport town of the same name.”⁵³ Bremen became a railroad town with a distinction that the other west Georgia rail towns did not have; two rail roads intersected in the city. The railroad lines were surveyed and laid through the countryside into Haralson County in 1882. Prior to the railroad, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia: Haralson County, the area economy revolved around gold prospecting and mining ventures, which soon played out and forced the inhabitants to become farmers and timber managers.⁵⁴ Dr. Carole E. Scott, writing in the online publication Roadside Georgia also documents the area’s early mineral holdings as magnets to settlers who, following the gold finds at nearby Villa Rica, flocked to the area in search of quick wealth.⁵⁵ “When the Chattanooga, Rome and Columbus railroad was built, it crossed the Georgia Pacific at Bremen and gave the town a real boost.”⁵⁶ Others make this same observation. “Bremen’s location at the intersection of the Chattanooga, Rome, and Columbus Railroad and the Georgia Pacific Railroad appealed to manufacturing interests,” author Elizabeth Cooksey wrote in her work, Cities and Counties: Haralson County. ⁵⁷ Places where the railroads intersected quickly became hubs where freight and passengers connected to trains going elsewhere. These rail hubs had significant impact upon the community, bringing jobs and industries to the rail towns.

TALLAPOOSA

Tallapoosa is one of the oldest settlements in western Georgia. Dr. Carole Scott wrote, “Although other names were used to refer to it during the early years, (Pine Grove, Pineville, Possum Snout), a Tallapoosa post office was established in 1839.”⁵⁸ Just as the case with its neighbor, Bremen, early settlers came to the area in search of gold.

The publication of the Haralson County Historical Society, Haralson County History Book, 1983, documents the impact of the railroad in the late nineteenth century, “In 1884 a dream came true. The railroad came within a mile of the city, to the south, but for several years went no farther. It was the terminus for some time. Some of the prominent families, living in and around Tallapoosa, are here merely because the railroad went no further west.”⁵⁹ Tallapoosa became the furthest west that people could travel and move freight by rail, and being at the end of the line, a destination settlement soon came into existence.

The new city of Tallapoosa, that settlement along the railroad tracks, is a direct impact of the railroad on the region. Excursion trains that carried passengers along the rails to auctions of lots in new rail towns became commonplace in the late nineteenth century. “Starting a Town, An Important Sale of Lots in One of the New Towns on the Georgia Pacific” an article in The Atlanta Constitution , advertised the upcoming auction and excursion. “ On Tuesday, the 28^th, a special train on the Georgia Pacific railroad will carry a number of excursionists from Atlanta to Tallapoosa sixty three miles from Atlanta, to attend the sale of lots by T.A. Frierson.”⁶⁰ Similar excursions were documented in Villa Rica, as well as Douglasville as the railroad provided new opportunities for land speculators to gain quick fortunes in the booming 1880’s real estate market.

The Georgia Pacific Railroad brought a wave of immigration to both Bremen and to Tallapoosa that other towns along the west Georgia section of the railroad did not attract. Ralph A. Spencer, a northern investor envisioned a planned community “for the purpose of wine making” in the area. According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, Spencer purchased two thousand acres of land and invited Hungarian immigrants from Pennsylvania to relocate to the region and begin a winemaking operation in the fertile west Georgia soils. The winemakers “led by a Father Francis Janishek, according to Scott, included two hundred families who accepted Spencer’s invitation.” ⁶¹ These families caused an increase, not only in the population numbers of the citizens, but to their diversity as well. The area became a haven for northern European immigrants, the descendants of whom still live in the area today. “The county’s population became quite diverse as immigrants from other European regions joined the first groups.” ⁶² However, as fate would have it, “Prohibition passed the Georgia (laws) in 1907 effectively ruined the industry, and causing many of those in the new communities to leave.”⁶³ The railroad brought tourists that were target markets of the wine producers as well as transportation of the finished products to outside destinations. The railroad’s ability to move passengers and material quickly produced dividends for Tallapoosa. Tourism became a major industry and the Lithia Springs Hotel was built in 1881. It is recorded as the “largest wooden building in the South.”⁶⁴ It had, according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, 175 rooms, a large ballroom, banquet room, billiard and pool rooms, and an elevator.” The building was razed in 1943.

Different patterns emerged in these western Georgia cities. Lithia Springs and Tallapoosa embraced the railroad and began efforts to draw tourists with lavish resorts and large hotels with viable, although short-term results. Douglasville, Villa Rica, and Temple each experienced conflict among the citizenry relating locations of settlements and cities. In these cases where

Lithia Springs Hotel. Tallapoosa GA. Photo: Vanishing Georgia

CONCLUSION

Although it could be argued that the influence of the railroads themselves were the primary determinant of town locations and industries, it is apparent from the case study of six west Georgia towns that the local citizens and outsiders who were involved in the late nineteenth century boom years also played important roles in the development of the towns that grew there. Investors came from all over the country, as did speculators, immigrants, and settlers to these new railroad towns to seek fortunes or fresh starts in new areas. Of one thing there is no doubt: after the first train steamed into these towns, life there was never the same.

Works Cited

Primary Sources

Newspaper Articles

Atlanta Constitution (1869-1875), accessed 12 January, 2012.

Douglasville, Georgia, Sentinel, 1919.

Douglasville, Georgia, Weekly Star, 25 May 1886.

Maps

Anderson, Mary Talley. “History of Villa Rica” (City of Gold.) Villa Rica

“Georgia Pacific Railway 1883 Map”.

website, accessed Feb 7, 2012, http://railga.com/gpacific.html.

Georgia Digital Map Collection “Railroad map of Georgia 1887,”accessed 1 Jan., 2012. http://usgwarchives.org/maps/georgia/railroad/ga-1887.gif.

website, accessed 7 Feb, 2012. http://railga.com/gpacific.html.

(1892), accessed 1 Jan., 2012 at: http://worldmapsonline.com/historicalmaps/1W-GA-TA-1892.htm.

“First Train in Douglasville, 1882, known as the Southern Pacific.

Lithia Springs Depot 1890.
Douglas County Federal Bank, Historic Photograph Collection. Douglasville GA.
Haralson County Historical Society, Haralson County History Book. Taylor

Publishing Company, Dallas, TX, 1983.

Accessed 8 Feb, 2012 at http://www.georgiaarchives.org.

Railroad Workers In Tallapoosa GA, 1913. Accessed 6 April, 2012 at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/cgi- bin/vanga.cgi?query=id:hrl006.

Secondary Sources

Bicentennial Commission, 1976.

Georgia), 2010.

Mercer University Press, 2001.

University of West Georgia Library, reference collection. Accessed Feb. 4, 2012.

Douglasville, Georgia.

Texas: Taylor Publishing Company, 1983.

County Historical Society. Roswell, Georgia: Wolfe Publishing, 1994.

Holder, Burell Williams. A Historical Sketch of Temple Georgia. Centennial Edition.

Carrollton Georgia: Thomasson Printing Company, 1976.
A History of Temple Georgia. Centennial Edition.

Carrollton Georgia: Thomasson Printing Company, 1982.

Vol 73. No. 4. (Apr.,1968), 1052-1068. Accessed 21 January, 2012.

Scott, Carole E. “Tallapoosa, Georgia, USA”. Roadside Georgia. Accessed 21 January, 2012.

Scott, Roy V. “American Railroads and Agricultural Extension, 1900-1914: A Study in

Railway Developmental Techniques”. The Business History Review, Vol. 39, No.

1, 74-98, accessed 21 January, 2012 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3112466

Taylor, George Watson. The Transportation Revolution. 2^nd ed., New York, Harper

Torchbooks: 1951.

Tebeau, C.W. “Visitor’s Views of Georgia Politics and Life, 1865-1880.” The

Georgia Historical Quarterly. Vol. 26. No. 1, (1942), 2-15, accessed 21 January, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40576818.
University Libraries, “Manuscript Sources for Railroad History,” Virginia

Tech, Blacksburg VA. Accessed 21 January, 2012. http://spec.lib.vt.edu/railroad/rrintro.htm