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The Blue Ridge and Atlantic Railroad of the United States purchased the Cornelia-Tallulah Falls section of the North Eastern Rail Road in an attempt to connect Savannah, Georgia to Knoxville, Tennessee. Chartered in 1887, it went bankrupt in about 1892 and in 1898 its properties became part of the newly formed Tallulah Falls Railway. [1]
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The railway had an earlier history under the name Blue Ridge Railway which was organized before the American Civil War and had some rather ambitious projects which never were fully developed. One of these was to build a road from Walhalla, South Carolina to Chattanooga, Tennessee which would have shortened the route to Chattanooga by cutting off Atlanta and thus creating an economic boon to the border areas of North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia with this connection to the West. The Blue Ridge Railway had begun business around the late 1840s and connected Charleston with the Upstate from the original tracks that ran from Charleston to Hamburg (North Augusta, SC today). It ran from Columbia to Greenville via what is now Newberry, SC. thence to Abbeville and Belton and from there to Greenville, SC. Mary Chesnut in her diaries mentions this road. It was for a long while the only upstate railroad until what is now Norfolk Southern built a road around 1890.
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Because of its early operational period to the upstate, the Blue Ridge railroad has been the subject of legends and misinformation for over 100 years regarding the Fall of Richmond. Folks in Abbeville, S.C. will swear that Confederate President Jefferson Davis brought a steam locomotive train load of Confederate gold from Richmond's Banks to Abbeville and buried it near the present railroad tracks or near the Savannah River (now under water). People in Chester, SC and in Washington, Ga will tell the same tale. This is simply not true. Davis left Richmond by train for Danville, Va and from there he went to Charlotte, N.C. where he was coolly received; thence to Chester, South Carolina where tracks ended. The party continued to Abbeville via Conestoga wagons (wagon train) to Hodges, SC and thence to Abbeville.
While they could have taken a train from Newberry, it was just too dangerous and for that reason to avoid capture the wagon train (as opposed to steam train) continued south until Davis was captured just below Washington, Georgia. What gold there was returned to Richmond Banks by 1910, although some has never been accounted for. The unrecovered gold probably ended up in a Bank in Charleston, SC with a mysterious Rhett Butler figure who was treasurer of the Confederacy and who became inexplicably rich after the Civil War running a bank in Charleston.
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Work in earnest began before the Civil War, much of it done with slave labor as well as that of paid Scots-Irish and German Immigrants (who founded the town of Walhalla). The road was finished as far as the Stumphouse Mountain area (in Oconee County) where a tunnel through the mountain was begun before the war brought a halt to the project. Supposedly, the tunnel was being dug and blasted from both sides of the mountain but this writer[ who? ] has not found the roadbed from the other side, although there are shafts cut from above into the tunnel which one can fall into if one is not familiar with the top of the mountain. The other side of the tunnel is now under Crystal Lake. Some of the road bed can be found near this lake which is a few miles up the road from Stumphouse Mountain. Locals state that prior to flooding the tunnel still contained tools and iron from the original construction.
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The railway ceased to exist around 1890 as the Blue Ridge Railway and went into foreclosure. Some of the tracks were taken over by Richmond and Danville Railroad which continued the tracks to Atlanta and in 2006 is still operational after more than 100 years of service. The tracks from Columbia still exist and are used by successive companies. However, the tracks that ran from Abbeville to Augusta, SC(or Hamburg) sit abandoned and rotting and are basically unusable, creating at the same time modern South Carolina ghost towns, or towns on the verge of being so, especially between Abbeville and McCormick, SC. The Belton route tracks are in 2006 still functional, at least in the Greenville area.
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The uncompleted Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel remains and was used for many years as an ideal place to make and store blue cheese by Clemson University (formerly Clemson College). This cheese is and was genuine Roquefort except for the place of origin. During World War I, a Clemson professor had obtained the native strain of spores of Penicillium roquefortii in Roquefort, France and thus began the Clemson Cheese Industry. The University ceased using the tunnel around 1960 and the cheese making was moved to campus and moved again around 1980 to a more modern facility near Anderson, SC.
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Today the tunnel is a State Park near spectacular Isaqueena Falls. Isaqueena Falls is named after a fictional Indian Princess. The Cherokee were very prevalent all around Upstate South Carolina. Cateechee was the supposed Indian princess, she was called Isaqueena in the Choctaw language. Local legend states that Cateechee overheard the Cherokee Indian chief planning an attack on Cambridge Fort (which was the Star Fort at Ninety-Six, South Carolina). When she heard this she left the Cherokee town of Keowee to warn her white lover Allen Francis who was at the fort ninety-six miles away. Along her journey, she named the streams and creeks that she crossed. The town of Six Mile, Twelve Mile Creek, Eighteen Mile Creek, Three and Twenty Creek, Six and Twenty Creek, and the town of Ninety Six are the current names on maps today. These towns and creeks are located in Pickens, Anderson, Abbeville, and Greenwood counties in South Carolina. The legend probably is not true considering the same story in various other parts of the Continental US and in Guam ("Lover's leap") there. There were significant rockslides in the tunnel early in the 21st Century, so access into the tunnel is blocked off after several hundred yards.
Pickens County is a county located in the northwest part of the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, its population was 131,404. Its county seat is Pickens. The county was created in 1826. It is part of the Greenville-Anderson-Greer, SC Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Oconee County is the westernmost county in the U.S. state of South Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 78,607. Its county seat is Walhalla and its largest community is Seneca. Oconee County is included in the Seneca, SC Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC Combined Statistical Area. South Carolina Highway 11, the Cherokee Foothills National Scenic Highway, begins in southern Oconee County at Interstate Highway 85 at the Georgia state line.
Blacksburg is a small town in Cherokee County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 1,848 at the 2010 census. The communities of Antioch, Cherokee Falls, Kings Creek, Cashion Crossroads, Buffalo, and Mount Paran are located near the town.
Greenville is a city in and the county seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-most populous city in the state. The Greenville metropolitan area had 928,195 residents in 2020 and is the largest metro area in South Carolina. Greenville is the anchor city of Upstate South Carolina, an economic and cultural region with an estimated population of 1.59 million as of 2023.
Walhalla is a city in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Oconee County, South Carolina, United States. Designated in 1868 as the county seat, it lies within the area of the Blue Ridge Escarpment, an area of transition between mountains and piedmont, and contains numerous waterfalls. It is located 16 miles (26 km) from Clemson University in Clemson, South Carolina.
Clemson is a city in Pickens and Anderson counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina. Clemson is adjacent to Clemson University, and is identified with it; in 2015, the Princeton Review cited the town of Clemson as ranking #1 in the United States for "town-and-gown" relations with its resident university. The population of the city was 17,681 at the 2020 census.
The Tallulah River is a 47.7-mile-long (76.8 km) river in Georgia and North Carolina. It begins in Clay County, North Carolina, near Standing Indian Mountain in the Southern Nantahala Wilderness and flows south into Georgia, crossing the state line into Towns County. The river travels through Rabun County and ends in Habersham County. It cuts through the Tallulah Dome rock formation to form the Tallulah Gorge and its several waterfalls. The Tallulah River intersects with the Chattooga River to form the Tugaloo River at Lake Tugalo in Habersham County. It joins South Carolina's Seneca River at Lake Hartwell to form the Savannah River, which flows southeastward into the Atlantic Ocean.
U.S. Route 176 is a spur of US 76 in the U.S. states of North Carolina and South Carolina. The U.S. Highway runs 237.98 miles (382.99 km) from US 25 Business and North Carolina Highway 225 in Hendersonville, North Carolina, east to US 52 in Goose Creek, South Carolina. US 176 serves the transition region between the Blue Ridge Mountains and Foothills of Western North Carolina and the Upstate, Midlands, and Lowcountry regions of South Carolina. The highway passes through and connects Spartanburg, one of two major cities in the Upstate, and Columbia, the South Carolina state capital and central city of the Midlands. US 176 parallels and serves as a secondary highway to Interstate 26 (I-26) except for between Spartanburg and Columbia, where the U.S. Highway deviates from the I-26 corridor to serve Union.
The Upstate, historically known as the Upcountry, is a region of the U.S. state of South Carolina, comprising the northwesternmost area of the state. Although loosely defined among locals, the general definition includes the 10 counties of the commerce-rich I-85 corridor in the northwest corner of South Carolina. This definition coincided with the Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC Combined Statistical Area, as first defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in 2015. In 2023, the OMB issued its most updated definition of the CSA that coincides again with the 10-county region.
The Tallulah Falls Railway, also known as the Tallulah Falls Railroad, "The TF" and "TF & Huckleberry," was a railroad based in Tallulah Falls, Georgia, U.S. which ran from Cornelia, Georgia to Franklin, North Carolina. It was commissioned by the Georgia General Assembly on January 27, 1854, and conducted its final run on March 25, 1961.
The Blue Ridge Railway was a 19th-century railroad in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was originally chartered in 1852 as the Blue Ridge Railroad of South Carolina. Original plans were for a 195-mile line from Anderson, South Carolina, to Knoxville, Tennessee going through the mountains with as many as 13 tunnels including the incomplete Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel.
Lake Keowee is a man-made reservoir in the United States in the state of South Carolina. It was developed to serve the needs of power utility Duke Energy and public recreational purposes. It is approximately 26 miles (42 km) long, 3 miles (4.8 km) wide, with an average depth of 54 feet (16 m), and a shoreline measured at 300 miles (480 km) in total, and is approximately 800 feet (240 m) above sea level.
Keowee was a Cherokee town in the far northwest corner of present-day South Carolina. It was the principal town of what were called the seven Lower Towns, located along the Keowee River. Keowee was situated on the Lower Cherokee Traders' Path, part of the Upper Road through the Piedmont. In 1752 the Cherokee established New Keowee Town nearby, off the traders' path but in a more defensible location.
Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel in Oconee County, South Carolina is an incomplete railroad tunnel for the Blue Ridge Railroad of South Carolina in Sumter National Forest. The tunnel, along with nearby Issaqueena Falls, are now a Walhalla city park.
South Carolina Highway 11 (SC 11), also known as the Cherokee Foothills Scenic Highway, is a 119.850-mile (192.880 km) state highway through the far northern part of the U.S. state of South Carolina, following the southernmost peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The route is surrounded by peach orchards, quaint villages, and parks. It is an alternative to Interstate 85 (I-85) and has been featured by such publications as National Geographic, Rand McNally, and Southern Living.
The Southern Highroads Trail is a 364-mile-long (586 km) loop of scenic and historic highways in the Southeastern United States. The driving trail traverses 14 counties, four states, and four national forests, providing sightseers and passersby an array of culinary, hotel, shopping, and recreational options along the way.
South Carolina Highway 28 (SC 28) is a 131.220-mile (211.178 km) primary state highway in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It consists of two segments of highway signed as east–west but physically traveling north–south from the Georgia state line near Mountain Rest to Beech Island. It is part of a continuous highway separated by a 17.5-mile (28.2 km) stretch through Augusta, Georgia.
South Carolina Highway 130 (SC 130) is a 30.072-mile (48.396 km) state highway in Oconee County, South Carolina, connecting Clemson and eastern Oconee County with access to Lake Keowee, Lake Jocassee, and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
South Carolina Highway 20 (SC 20) is a primary state highway in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The highway connects the cities of Abbeville, Belton, Williamston and Greenville. The 53-mile-long (85 km) highway is signed as a west-east highway though it physically runs south-to-north.