The Northeastern Railroad was chartered in 1870 by the Georgia General Assembly to meet this request by the state, and the new railroad opened its first 39 miles on September 1, 1876, from Athens, Georgia to Lula, Georgia. A second line was opened in 1882 from Cornelia, Georgia, to Tallulah Falls, Georgia.
The railroad never paid dividends to its stockholders and it was later sold before construction could reach Clayton. The Cornelia-Tallulah Falls line was purchased in 1887 by the newly chartered Blue Ridge and Atlantic Railroad, also doomed to fail. While in the hands of the Tallulah Falls Railway, these tracks were extended all the way to Franklin, North Carolina before they were abandoned; they are no longer in operation.
The Athens-Lula line was consolidated into the Southern Railway Company in 1899. These tracks are now owned by Norfolk Southern Railway.
This railroad was largely responsible for the economic development of the following cities, each being a stop on the line (shown here from north to south, with counties):
Athens - Lula line
- Lula (on the Banks and Hall county line)
- Gillsville (Banks)
- Maysville (on the Banks and Jackson county line)
- Harmony Grove (Jackson)
- Nicholson (Jackson)
- Center (Jackson)
- Athens (Clarke)
Cornelia - Tallulah Falls line
- Tallulah Falls (Habersham)
- Tallulah Lodge (Habersham)
- Tallulah Park (Habersham)
- Turnerville (Habersham)
- Hollywood (Habersham)
- Anandale (Habersham)
- Clarkesville (Habersham)
- Demorest (Habersham)
- Cornelia (Habersham)
Famous quotes containing the words north, eastern and/or railroad:
“The North will at least preserve your flesh for you; Northerners are pale for good and all. There’s very little difference between a dead Swede and a young man who’s had a bad night. But the Colonial is full of maggots the day after he gets off the boat.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)
“And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!”
—Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861)
“... no other railroad station in the world manages so mysteriously to cloak with compassion the anguish of departure and the dubious ecstasies of return and arrival. Any waiting room in the world is filled with all this, and I have sat in many of them and accepted it, and I know from deliberate acquaintance that the whole human experience is more bearable at the Gare de Lyon in Paris than anywhere else.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)