John L. Helm - President of The Louisville and Nashville Railroad

President of The Louisville and Nashville Railroad

Helm was a presidential elector for Winfield Scott in the 1852 presidential election. After this he took twelve years off from politics. As early as 1836, Helm had advocated the construction of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. On October 2, 1854, he became the railroad's second president. The previous president had been forced out of that position after a disagreement with Louisville's board of aldermen, and construction of the line had almost been abandoned.

Helm worked diligently to convince residents along the line's main route of the economic benefits it would bring. He persuaded many of them to help clear and grade land for the line and accept company stock as payment, and succeeded in selling stock subscriptions to people in the same area. Rising labor costs and troubles transporting materials raised expenses far above the projected budget, and at one point Helm personally redeemed $20,000 ($520 thousand as of 2012) of the company's bonds. Meanwhile, some observers accused Helm of mismanaging the company. The company's fortunes improved in 1857 when the city of Louisville provided $300,000 ($7.48 million as of 2012) in financial aid and the line was completed on October 18, 1859. Due to Helm's influence, the railroad's charter required all trains traveling through Elizabethtown to stop there.

By the time the line was finished there were public calls from inside and outside the company for Helm to resign, mostly because of his support for a proposed Memphis branch of the railroad. To complete the branch, the Louisville and Nashville would have to complete a line from Bowling Green to Guthrie, Kentucky. There it would join a line owned by the Memphis and Ohio Railroad that began across the state line at Clarksville, Tennessee and extended to Memphis. Supporters believed the branch would economically help both Louisville and Memphis and would lessen their dependence on trade along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Opponents argued that the project was simply a ploy to whip up new support for the struggling railroad. Helm endorsed the Memphis branch in his annual report in 1857.

On February 4, 1860, two members of the company's board of directors wrote a letter requesting Helm's resignation; they claimed they had voted for his re-election as president of the company with the understanding that he would resign when the main line between Louisville and Nashville was finished. Helm maintained that he felt an obligation to the citizens of Logan County – many of whom he had personally sold stock to – to remain president until the Memphis branch through their county was built. The rift between Helm and the directors continued to widen, however. Helm resigned on February 21, 1860, and was replaced by James Guthrie. The Memphis branch was completed on September 24, 1860.