East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway - History - The Rise and Decline of The ETV&G

The Rise and Decline of The ETV&G

After the war, Knoxville businessman Charles McClung McGhee (1828–1907) and several other investors formed a syndicate which purchased both the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad and the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad. In 1869, the two lines were consolidated to form the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad, with Thomas Calloway as president, and McGhee and Richard T. Wilson as agents. As a nexus between northern financiers and local interests, McGhee was able to obtain for the ETV&G large amounts of capital, and the new company rapidly expanded.

In 1869, the ETV&G bought the Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad, which had been revived after the war, and over the subsequent decade extended its tracks to the Kentucky state line at Jellico. During this same period, the ETV&G acquired the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, which connected Memphis and Chattanooga, the Georgia Southern Railroad, which connected Dalton with Rome, Georgia, and the Macon and Brunswick Railroad, which connected Macon, Georgia with Brunswick, Georgia on the Atlantic Coast. By 1882, the ETV&G had completed tracks from Rome to Macon, connecting these last two lines.

In the early 1880s, the ETV&G managed to build a line through the rugged French Broad valley along the Tennessee-North Carolina state line to join with the Western North Carolina Railroad system, and provide a direct link from Knoxville to Asheville. The company also built a line connecting its tracks at Clinton with the Cincinnati Southern Railway tracks at Harriman. By 1890, the ETV&G controlled 2,500 miles (4,000 km) of tracks, stretching as far south as Meridian, Mississippi and Mobile, Alabama, westward to Memphis, and eastward to Brunswick.

In the mid-1880s, overspeculation in railroad construction began to take its toll on the ETV&G's finances. In 1886, the company was reorganized as the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway (as opposed to "Railroad"), and eventually came under the control of the Richmond Terminal Company conglomerate. After the collapse of Richmond Terminal in the early 1890s, New York financier J. P. Morgan formed the Southern Railway, which purchased the ETV&G and the Richmond and Danville Railroad, and consolidated the two in 1894. In 1982, the Southern Railway was acquired by the Norfolk Southern Railway, which currently manages most of the former ETV&G system.