USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 57
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This was an unprecedented move in American municipal activities. Never had a city attempted to carry out so stupendous an undertaking of this character. The small but persistent reactionary element imme- diately took alarm. Judge W. M. Dickson could not conceive of a city engaging in such a project; firstly because the thing to be done was not a governmental affair, and secondly because the movement was stupid and doomed to failure. On this point he said, "If our city owns the road, it is more likely that it will be used against the city than if owned by the individuals. Louisville is our rival in this trade, the pet of Kentucky. How long would it be before she could get discrimination against a road owned by 'a damned abolition city'?" 35 He proposed that the city be given power to vote a gift of $1,000,000 to any corporation that would build the railroad within a certain period. He believed that this would circumvent the constitutional prohibition against lending the city's credit.36 But the real friends of the road lined up behind the Ferguson bill.
There were, however, more obstacles to be met. The Ohio constitution contained a prohibition against all special legislation. In order to satisfy this provision the bill was entitled, "An act relating to cities of the first class, having a population exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand in- habitants." 37 Of course, Cincinnati was at this time the only city that had a sufficient number of people to come within this classification. This bill was introduced into the Ohio Legislature and was passed on May 4, 1869.38 Thus, both obstructing prohibitions of the constitution were side- stepped in this bill: in the first place, it was not special legislation because all cities "having a population exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants" came under its operation ; and, secondly, it was not making "any city * * an owner in any joint-stock company, corporation or association whatever," nor was it a loan of any city's "credit to, or in aid of any such company, corporation or association," for the city, itself, was building it. There seems to have been no opposition to this bill, politically or economically induced. The Cincinnati Enquirer says: "It is worthy of mention that at no stage of its progress was the question of politics introduced or mentioned." 39 The city spent $578.90 in lobbying for the measure at Columbus.40
33 Ibid., May 16, 1868.
34 Ibid., Nov. 25, 1868.
35 Cincinnati Commercial, April 22, 1869.
36 Ibid., April 21.
37 This is an early instance of evading constitutional prohibitions against special legislation. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette facetiously remarks, "But the Ferguson bill is not a special act. It is as general as the Gilbert Avenue Bill, which author- izes all cities of the first class to raise bonds to construct Gilbert Avenue. This bill authorizes all the cities of the first class having a population of 150,000 to take the same measures to build the Southern Railroad." Quoted in the Cincin- nati Commercial, May 20, 1869.
38 General and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions passed by the Fifty-Eighth General Assembly at the Adjourned Session begun and held at the City of Colum- bus, November 23d, A. D. 1868, and in the 67th Year of said States, pp. 80-83; H. P. Boyden, The Beginnings of the Cincinnati Southern Railway. A Sketch of the Years 1869-1878, 9. The bill passed in the Senate 23 to 7, in the House 73 to 21. 39 Quoted Ibid.
40 Annual Report of the City Departments of the City of Cincinnati for the Year Ending February 28, 1870, 75, 76.
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By the terms of this act the city was to hold an election upon the question of issuing bouds to the amount of $10,000,000 to be used in building a railroad. The fight now for the friends of the road was to carry the bond election. In order that everyone should be given a chance to vote, the mayor ordered all business throughout the city to be suspended for some portion of the day.41 The Chamber of Commerce, the Board of Trade and the City Council worked together in a campaign to arouse the people. Captains were appointed for every one of the twenty wards in the city, and literature advocating the bond issue was circulated in great profusion. On election day nine bands of music paraded every street in the city, and the fire bells were rung at six in the morning, twelve noon, and three in the afternoon. The election resulted in a majority of more than ten to one in favor of the bond issue.42 There was great re- joicing in Cincinnati. But the persistent opponents had not yet exhausted all their means of opposition. An action was brought in the Superior Court of Cincinnati, in the name of the city solicitor, to restrain the city from issuing the bonds, on the ground that the act of the Ohio Legislature was unconstitutional. The case ran through the state courts, with the constitutionality of the act finally affirmed by the State Supreme Court.43
The city had now completed and consolidated its first great victory. The next step toward the consummation of the project was the selection of a suitable route. The Kentucky Central afforded a railway as far south as Nicholasville along the route that Cincinnati would have to fol- low.44 It would be a great advantage to Cincinnati in obtaining her con- nection quickly to buy this road and begin construction from its southern terminus. This plan had long been considered. Before she had received permission to issue bonds, her railway promoters had been negotiating for the purchase of this road.45 There was much confusion in the situa- tion. At one time those who were supposed to represent the road promised to sell; at another time it was suggested that Cincinnati give the money to that road and let it build southward. David Sinton, who was interested in the Kentucky Central, said it could be bought for "one-half what it should be appraised to be worth by three disinterested railroad engi- neers." 46 Cincinnati was disposed to offer about $3,250,000.47 When the city was about to close the transaction a litigation was started over its ownership. The case went into the Kentucky courts, and before a decision could be handed down, Cincinnati was compelled by the terms of its contract to begin construction.48
There was no dearth of advice from Central Kentucky on the route that should be chosen. The True Kentuckian (Paris) says: "From the way people are crowding there [Cincinnati] from all quarters, in the inter- ests of all sections, we judge that there is no probability that the city will lack enlightenment as to the advantages of every possible line south-
41 Cincinnati Commercial, June 11, 1869.
42 The election was held on June 26, 1869, resulting in 15,435 votes for the bonds, and 1,500 against. Cincinnati Commercial, June 27, 1869; Collins, History of Kentucky, Vol. I, 197; Boyden, The Beginnings of the Cincinnati Southern- A Sketch of the Years, 1869-1878, 11; Cincinnati Commercial, June 11, 25, 1869.
43 Cincinnati Southern Railway. Circular of the Trustees Together with the Laws Authorizing the Construction of the Cincinnati Southern Railway. And the Decisions of the Superior Court of Cincinnati and the Supreme Court of Ohio Thereon (Cincinnati, 1873).
44 S. H. Goodin, Plan for the Construction of the Direct Railroad South, Con- necting Cincinnati with the Southern System of Railroads (Cincinnati, 1868), 4, 5, 10, II.
45 Cincinnati Commercial, Jan. 8; Feb. 27; March 15, 1867.
46 Ibid., March 18.
47 Ibid., April 11, 1868.
48 Ferguson, Founding the Cincinnati Southern Railway, 76. The Kentucky Central was a partnership, which had run badly into debt. Litigation followed with the question of ownership highly complicating the situation.
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ward." "To us," it adds, "it appears plain that the route by Paris and Richmond is the best for Cincinnati. * * *** 49 During the months following the voting of bonds, Cincinnati was crowded with delegations and commissions, and her newspapers were flooded with communications. All were advocating their special routes, expressing the firm conviction that the railroad would prove a failure unless it chose their route. The Owensboro Monitor came forward with the entirely new plan of running the road north of the Ohio River through Ohio and Indiana to Rock- port and thence across the river to Owensboro. The road could then run south through the rich tobacco regions of Western Kentucky and enter Tennessee west of Nashville. This route would escape the moun- tains of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and besides would run through some of the richest country in the three states.50 It was argued that the lines of trade ran northeast and southwest and that a route through Owensboro would, therefore, serve Cincinnati best.51 The Frankfort Ycoman believed that Cincinnati would find it difficult to get a right-of- way through Kentucky from the Legislature, but believed that all might be well if the road should come through Frankfort.52 But it was evi- (lent to almost all except the most visionary that the Cincinnati Southern Railroad 33 would be built southward directly through Kentucky along the most suitable and available route. There was not a county or town in Central or Southern Kentucky that did not aspire to have the road to come through its limits. This was forcibly brought home to Cin- cinnati by the endless stream of delegations that swarmed into the city from these regions. Meetings were held all along the lines which the road would seem most likely to take, praising their advantages for such a road and making them known by commissions to Cincinnati.5+ Dan- ville, in a large meeting, appointed by name on a committee to Cincin- nati most of the men present "and all other citizens of Danville, who are desirous to go." 55
The whole South, especially east of the Mississippi River, was greatly interested in the success of this railroad. It sent up to Cincinnati its governors, mayors, city councils, railroad presidents, besides a host of lesser lights, to urge the railroad forward and to secure the special route they were interested in.56 A traveler in the South declared, "There is one thing certain, that the South will do her part of the labor, and will furnish her part of the means, incident to the construction of this road." 57 There were four possible routes that might be chosen. The Cumberland Gap route lay fartherest to the east and would serve more a connection with the Virginia and East Tennessee Railroad and the Atlantic seaboard than directly with the South. This route was never seriously considered. The Knoxville route lay west of the former and was the shortest and in many ways the most practical. The Chattanooga route lay slightly west of the Knoxville route, but was much longer. The Nashville route ran much farther to the west and poorly served Cincinnati's needs.58
The routes mainly advocated by different parts of the South were
49 Quoted in Cincinnati Commercial, May 13, 1869.
50 Cincinnati Commercial, May 4-June 4, 1869.
51 Ibid., May 9, 1869. 52 Ibid., July 12.
53 This came to be the name officially adopted.
54 Cincinnati Scmi-Weekly Gazette, May 7, et. seq., 1869; Cincinnati Commer- cial, May 8, 12, passim, 1869.
55 Cincinnati Commercial, May 4, 1869.
56 Cincinnati Daily Gasette, June 20, 1866; May 4-June 4, 1869.
Bi Cincinnati Commercial, Aug. 19, 1868.
58 Boyden, The Beginnings of the Cincinnati Southern Railway-4 Sketch of the Years, 1869-1878, 9; Cincinnati Commercial, Oct. 27, 1868; Cincinnati Semi- Weckly Gasette, May 28, 1869.
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the last three. Within a week after the passage of the act in the Ohio Legislature, Knoxville, Nashville, and Chattanooga had their represen- tatives in Cincinnati urging their respective routes. The Nashville rep- resentatives contended that it would be foolish for a road to run in a north and south direction, because trade did not flow that way and be- cause it could not easily be diverted from its accustomed channels. To them it was perfectly evident that commerce flowed in a northeastern and southwestern direction, and hence the Nashville route would fulfill all the requirements. Furthermore the Louisville and Nashville Railroad was making annually over $100,000 in freight at that place, and, then, was not able to take care of all the business offered. There was, there- fore, no reason why Cincinnati should not share in this prosperity in competition with her great enemy.59 This immediately aroused the keenest opposition from Louisville, who had been looking with uncon- cealed alarm on Cincinnati's success. She knew, in any event, that a road from Cincinnati to Nashville would never be built through her own limits. The Louisville Courier-Journal showed by an ample use of sta- tistics that the road could never pay if it ran to Nashville. The Falls City seemed all at once to have become very solicitous as to her greatest rival's welfare. The Louisville paper continued, "Thus nearly two mil- lions of dollars will have to be raised by taxation every year to obtain what the City of Cincinnati already possesses-the very best railroad connection between Cincinnati and Nashville that can be established, and the lowest possible rates of freight that can ever be obtained." 60
If the railway had to come, Louisville professed to believe that the Knoxville route would serve Cincinnati's interests far better, knowing well it would be better for her own interests. A correspondent writes the Cincinnati Commercial, "Louisville already sounds the alarm and applauds our Knoxville rout. * *
* I would be ashamed to say Louisville could take possession of any trade Cincinnati is determined to hold." 61 The Knoxville route was strongly favored by many in the South as well as in Cincinnati. This was the route surveyed by Wm. A. Gunn during the Civil war for a military railroad.62 It was the old historic route advocated by Calhoun and all others before the war. South Carolina and Knoxville especially made a strong fight for this route. The governor of South Carolina, a committee from Charleston, the presi- dent of the Blue Ridge Railroad, and the mayor of Knoxville with a large delegation, were in Cincinnati at different times working for this route.63
Chattanooga was farther than any of the other cities seeking the railway; but in many ways it was the most logical terminus. A net- work of railways radiated from this city affording excellent connections with all the lower South. Georgia was especially interested in this route. She sent her governor with the Chattanooga representatives and railroad men to Cincinnati to show the advantages of this connection.64 After listening to the arguments of the numerous delegations from all parts of Kentucky and the states to the south, the City Council on June 4, 1869, chose Chattanooga as the southern terminus.65 There was great rejoic-
59 Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gazette, May 28, 1869.
60 Quoted in Cincinnati Commercial, June 1, 1869.
61 Cincinnati Commercial, May 23, 1869.
62 Goodin, Plan for the Construction of the Direct Railroad South, Connecting Cincinnati with the Southern System of Roilroads, 13, 28-30. 63 Cincinnati Commercial, May 12, 1869.
64 Cincinnati Commercial, May 4, 7, 1869. When the news of the bond election had reached Chattanooga, bonfires were lighted and cannon fired. Boyden, The Beginnings of the Cincinnati Southern Railway. A Sketch of the Years, 1869- 1878, 13.
65 Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gazette, June 8, 1869; Cincinnati Commercial, June 5, 1869.
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ing in that city with loud promises and assertions that all of Chattanooga's trade would go to Cincinnati.66 When Cincinnati went to the Kentucky Legislature later for a right-of-way, Chattanooga felt greatly concerned as to its success. As one observer put it, "If that august body of law- makers should lend a listening ear to the siren song of Louisville and refuse the right-of-way through the state, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth in Chattanooga." 67
Now that Cincinnati seemed determined to win a part of the south- ern trade by building an independent connection, the attitude that Ken- tucky would take became of first importance. The state was by no means a unit in its opinion. Central Kentucky hailed the road as bringing in the day of her deliverance. According to one enthusiast, "Almost every farmer introduces it as conversational matter, as he jogs along the high- way with his neighbor. In the counting-room, in the lawyer's office, on the street and in the domestic circle, it is a theme of prime impor- tance." 68 This part of the state had early shown its interest by voting large subscriptions in bonds.69 Soon Louisville began to fear this en- thusiasm of so substantial a nature. The president of the Louisville Board of Trade said, "No railroad movement has ever before been so enthusiastically entered into by people who should be patrons of the Louisville and Nashville road, and customers of the merchants, millers, and manufacturers of Louisville." 70 This new road would give many parts of the Blue Grass region two outlets and would, thus, afford them competing markets.71 In this latter respect it would give many farmers in Central Kentucky an opportunity for revenge against Louisville and her railroad.72 The Lexington Press explains why the Blue Grass is so anxious for the new road: "Louisville wars upon every scheme which proposes to give us an outlet south, except over the tortuous lines that now terminate in her limits." She "is willing that Eastern and Central Kentucky shall have a road if it shall run to that city as a terminus. * * *" 73 This part of the state was impatient at delay, for the Cin- cinnati Southern Railway would open up thirty counties or parts of cotin- ties with farm lands valued at over $67,000,000, which was 31 per cent of the entire assessments of such lands for the whole state. 74
It was with an entirely different feeling that Louisville saw how this road "with its greedy arms" would "grasp and draw into its den the best and choicest trade of the state." She was now frightened into deal- ing more gently and considerately with the Central Kentucky region: "The impediment to free intercourse between Louisville and the neigh-
* * should be removed ; the complaints of the people boring towns *
along our railroad lines should be investigated with kindly feeling and
66 A correspondent to the Cincinnati Commercial, Aug. 2, 1870, writes, “I hear it said by the Chattanoogans that the first merchant of that city who fails or refuses to trade in Cincinnati when the road is done, is to be taken out and hung by the Ku-Klux, or some other charitable organization, and his goods con- fiscated for the benefit of a Chinese Joss house."
67 Cincinnati Commercial, Feb. 16, 1870.
68 Ibid., July 12, 1869.
69 Ibid., Jan. 8, 1867; Aug. 7, 1868; Collins, History of Kentucky, Vol. 1, 191. 70 Cincinnati Commercial, May 22, 1869.
71 Ibid., May 22, 1869. A resident of Lebanon, Kentucky, says to Cincinnati, "I tell you frankly, we intend to use you, and buy from you; and we intend to use that railroad in competition with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and we intend to use you in competition with Louisville." Ibid., May 9, 1869.
72 This was Danville's case against the Louisville and Nashville Railroad : "Mr. Guthrie-of whom, considering what he did for railroads, I would say nothing unkind-saw fit to run the railroad one and one-half miles from our town, just far enough to annoy us four times a day with the screaming of the railroad whistle." Ibid., May 9, 1869.
73 Quoted in Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gazette, Oct. 20, 1871.
74 Cincinnati Commercial, Feb. 15, 18, 1870.
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in a spirit of compromise and conciliation." 75 She saw that her blockade against Cincinnati would be broken by this railroad which "will pour almost the entire trade of Kentucky and the South into the lap of Cin- cinnati, and accomplish the very thing which we proposed to defeat by breaking the connection between the Louisville and Nashville road, through the streets of this city." 76 The Louisville Courier-Journal admitted that the road was a good thing for Kentucky, but a bad move for Louisville.77 This attitude on the part of Louisville aroused the bitterest of hostility in Central Kentucky. The Frankfort Commonwealth said: "She straightway dons her plumes, paints her face, executes a war-dance, brandishes her weapons, and starts upon the war path against the inroad that is to be made upon the people of Kentucky, by the construction of the proposed thoroughfare." Continuing its attack on her, it says, "For the sake of her own selfish purposes would she desire that other portions of Kentucky be deprived of railroad facilities to the end that they may be kept tributary to herself? That is both ungenerous and unreason- able." 78 Cincinnati could now rejoice over Louisville's discomfiture and take this wordy revenge: "We trust that Louisville will gracefully ac- cept its destiny as the future second city of Kentucky, Covington ranking first. At the beginning of the next century Louisville will be to Coving- ton what Buffalo is to Brooklyn; and the Courier-Journal, if alive, will enjoy the satisfaction of seeing more Cincinnati Commercials distributed in Louisville than copies of its own locomotive-butting issue." 79
Realizing that her own commercial position was now being threatened, Louisville immediately became active in making counter-moves. As the Courier-Journal said, "Hitherto the Lord has done everything for Louis- ville. Hereafter we propose to do a little for ourselves; and we won't be long about it." 80 One of the first lines of action she proposed was the construction of a rival line from Louisville direct to Chattanooga. A number of meetings were held by her merchants and railroad promoters in December of 1869. They resolved that the city should grant $2,000,000 to a corporation that would undertake the work. The purpose of build- ing this new connection, as it was generally stated, was to relieve the congestion in Louisville, and not to forestall any other road.81 But in a meeting held in early Decemher and described as "in point of numbers
75 Ibid., May 22, 1869; Cincinnati Southern Railway. Memorial of Trustees and Speech of Hon. John C. Breckinridge to the General Assembly of Kentucky, 47; Cincinnati Semi-Weekly Gosette, May 22, 1869. The Cincinnati Commercial, November 23, 1869, says, "According to the Courier-Journal, Cincinnati is some big, awful parasite, clinging to the borders of Kentucky, sucking away its life blood, uttering steam screeches and belching horrific fire and smoke."
76 Ibid., May 22, 1869; Cincinnati Southern Railway, Memorial of Trustees and Speech of Hon. C. Breckinridge to the General Assembly of Kentucky, passim. The Louisville Courier-Journal says of Cincinnati's audacity, "The mer- chants of Cincinnati, are a thoroughly live and ingenious set of Yankee plodders and plotters, who propose to swarm upon the Southern country like 'ducks upon June-bugs' and appropriate it to their own uses .... God said 'this is a bog.' Yankee audacity said 'it is a metropolis.' So it is. The inaccessible crags and covered with villas and vineyards, and pierced by streets. The marshes are peopled." Quoted in Cincinnati Commercial, May 3, 1869.
77 The Louisville Courier-Journal says, "It gives Cincinnati, our natural rival, a direct line of connection with two or three points worth connecting with, and imposes upon us the necessity of looking after our communications rather more actively than we have done recently." Quoted in Cincinnati Commercial, May 3, 1869.
78 Dec. 3, 1869.
79 Cincinnati Commercial, Nov. 23, 1869.
80 Cincinnati Commercial, May 3, 1869. The president of the Louisville Board of Trade said people were asking if Louisville was "asleep, or away from home, or both." "Let us hear from her," he said the people were saying. Ibid, May 22, 1869.
81 Ibid, Dec. 4, 1869.
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and enthusiasm-never * surpassed by any railroad meeting in recent times," the true purpose of this latest move by Louisville was clearly shown. Basil Duke expressed the belief that "so soon as it is seen that Louisville is earnestly and actively prosecuting it, Cincinnati will back down." 82 A correspondent to the Courier-Journal clearly indicated Louisville's purpose in building the "Louisville and Chattanooga Grand Trunk Railroad," as it was officially called, in the following dispatch : "There is but one thing that can defeat Cincinnati, and that is for Louis- ville to engage seriously in pushing her talked-of Chattanooga enterprise right through to completion. Louisville cannot maintain her supremacy in this section any other way." 83 She immediately set to work to secure a charter. She sent a committee headed by ex-Governor Bramlette to Nashville to secure a charter from Tennessee, and another to Frankfort to manipulate the Kentucky Legislature.84 This Legislature, which had refused Cincinnati a right-of-way for the Cincinnati Southern, a few weeks later granted this request of Louisville.85 The Falls City had, thus, completely out-maneuvered Cincinnati, much to the chagrin of the latter. Commenting on Louisville's selfishness, one of the Cincinnatians said, "It was the most complete dog-in-the-manger piece of business ever attempted since the days of the veritable dog that immortalized himself in that way. * * *" 86
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