The city of Ocilla is the county seat of Irwin County, Georgia, United States. Its population was 3,498 at the 2020 census. Ocilla is part of the Fitzgerald Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Princeton, is a city in and the county seat of Mercer County, West Virginia, United States. The city is coined the "Heart of Mercer County" or the "Jewel of the South" in past decades. The population was 6,432 at the 2010 census with approximately 35,000 residents living in the greater Princeton area. It is part of the Bluefield, WV-VA micropolitan area which has a population of 107,342. The city hosts the Princeton WhistlePigs baseball club of the Appalachian League. A main tourist destination of the city is the Mercer Street Grassroots District located in Downtown Princeton. This area has been revitalized and is now home to cafes, restaurants, shops, and artistic venues.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to do business with settlers crossing the Appalachian Mountains. The railroad faced competition from several existing and proposed enterprises, including the Albany-Schenectady Turnpike, built in 1797, the Erie Canal, which opened in 1825, and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. At first, the B&O was located entirely in the state of Maryland; its original line extending from the port of Baltimore west to Sandy Hook, Maryland, opened in 1834. There it connected with Harper's Ferry, first by boat, then by the Wager Bridge, across the Potomac River into Virginia, and also with the navigable Shenandoah River.
The Norfolk and Western Railway, commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precision Transportation"; it had a variety of nicknames, including "King Coal" and "British Railway of America". In 1986, N&W merged with Southern Railway to form today’s Norfolk Southern Railway.
The Cincinnati, Lebanon and Northern Railway (CL&N) was a local passenger and freight-carrying railroad in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, connecting Cincinnati to Dayton via Lebanon. It was built in the late 19th century to give the town of Lebanon and Warren County better transportation facilities. The railroad was locally known as the "Highland Route", since it followed the ridge between the Little and Great Miami rivers, and was the only line not affected by floods such as the Great Dayton Flood of 1913.
The Brunswick and Western Railroad is a historic railroad in southern Georgia that at its greatest extent ran from Brunswick near the coast to Albany. Segments of the line still exist today. The Brunswick and Florida Railroad ran from Brunswick west to Glenmore, where it would connect with the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad.
The Gulf Line Railway was a railroad in the U.S. state of Georgia, connecting Hawkinsville and Camilla. The line eventually became part of the Southern Railway, but is no longer in use.
The Hawkinsville and Florida Southern Railway (H&FS) was founded in 1896 and by 1901 was operating 43 miles (69 km) of track from Hawkinsville to Worth, Georgia, United States, where it connected with the Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad. It also operated a 15-mile (24 km) line between Davisville and Fitzgerald, Georgia. In 1907, a portion of the H&FS was leased to the Gulf Line Railway However, in 1913, the H&FS took over operations and fully absorbed the Gulf Line resulting in a line from Hawkinsville to Camilla, Georgia. In 1922, the H&FS went bankrupt. The section from Camilla to Ashburn, Georgia, was purchased by the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester and Camilla Railway but no buyers could be found for the remainder of the system and it was abandoned by 1923.
The Georgia Southern and Florida Railway, also known as the Suwanee River Route from its crossing of the Suwanee River, was founded in 1885 as the Georgia Southern and Florida Railroad and began operations between Macon, GA and Valdosta, GA in 1889, extending to Palatka, FL in 1890. The railroad went bankrupt by 1891, was reorganized as the Georgia Southern and Florida Railway in 1895, and was controlled by the Southern Railway.
Chartered in 1883, the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad was founded to build a line from a connection with the Central of Georgia Railroad at Tennille, GA to Wrightsville, GA. In 1886, the W&T merged with the Dublin and Wrightsville Railroad and gained a through line to Dublin, GA. Ten years later the line was extended to Hawkinsville, GA through a purchase of a branch of the Oconee and Western Railroad. Then in 1907, the W&T acquired the Dublin and Southwestern Railroad which ran from Dublin to Eastman, GA. Service west of Dublin ended in 1941 through abandonment of two branch lines. The remainder of the W&T was merged into the Central of Georgia on June 1, 1971. The line currently serves Norfolk Southern as a storage track for excess autoracks due to the slow down in the U.S auto business. The former Wrightsville & Tennille headquarters is still intact as a private residence in Tennille, Georgia.
The Empire and Dublin Railroad was founded in 1888 in Georgia, United States. It began by using a former logging railroad owned by the Empire Lumber Company that ran about 11 miles (18 km) between Empire and Dublin, then rebuilding and extending it to Hawkinsville. The railroad ran into financial trouble and was reorganized as the Oconee and Western Railroad in 1892.
The Mobile and Ohio Railroad was a railroad in the Southern U.S. The M&O was chartered in January and February 1848 by the states of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It was planned to span the distance between the seaport of Mobile, Alabama and the Ohio River near Cairo, Illinois. On September 13, 1940 it was merged with the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad to form the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad.
City of Hawkinsville was a paddle steamer constructed in Georgia in 1886. Sold in 1900 to a Tampa, Florida company, it delivered cargo and lumber along the Suwannee River. Eventually rendered obsolete by the advent of railroads in the region, it was abandoned in the middle of the Suwannee in 1922.
State Route 11 (SR 11) is a 376-mile-long (605 km) state highway in the U.S. state of Georgia, traveling through portions of Echols, Lanier, Berrien, Irwin, Ben Hill, Wilcox, Pulaski, Houston, Peach, Bibb, Jones, Jasper, Newton, Walton, Barrow, Jackson, Hall, White, Lumpkin, and Union counties. It travels the entire length of the state from south to north, connecting the Florida state line with the North Carolina state line, roughly bisecting the state into two equal parts. It travels through Warner Robins, Macon, and Gainesville. It is the longest route in the state. The portion from the southeastern city limits of Monticello to the Jasper–Newton county line is included in the Monticello Crossroads Scenic Byway.
State Route 26 (SR 26) is a 271.1-mile-long (436.3 km) state highway that travels west-to-east through portions of Chattahoochee, Marion, Schley, Macon, Houston, Pulaski, Bleckley, Laurens, Johnson, Emanuel, Bulloch, Bryan, Effingham, and Chatham counties through the central part of the U.S. state of Georgia. It crosses nearly the entire width of the state, connecting Cusseta, on the southeastern edge of Fort Benning, near Columbus to Tybee Island on the Atlantic coast near Savannah, via Buena Vista, Ellaville, Oglethorpe, Hawkinsville, Cochran, Dublin, Swainsboro, Statesboro, and Savannah.
The Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company (OR&N) was a railroad that operated a rail network of 1,143 miles (1,839 km) running east from Portland, Oregon, United States, to northeastern Oregon, northeastern Washington, and northern Idaho. It operated from 1896 as a consolidation of several smaller railroads.
The Winchester and Potomac Railroad (W&P) was a railroad in the southern United States, which ran from Winchester, Virginia, to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, on the Potomac River, at a junction with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O). It played a key role in early train raids of the B&O during the beginning months of the American Civil War.
The Cincinnati Northern Railroad was a railroad that stretched from Franklin, Ohio north to Jackson, Michigan, a distance of about 186 miles (299 km). It was acquired by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway in 1901 and the New York Central Railroad several years later. Most of the line has since been abandoned.
The Macon and Brunswick Railroad ran from Macon, Georgia to Brunswick, Georgia. Its construction was interrupted by the American Civil War, and initially only ran from Macon to Cochran, Georgia. The 5 ft gauge line was completed and extended to the Georgia coast when it opened in its entirety in December 1869. Construction of the line stimulated the lumber industry along its path, and the founding of new towns and counties.
The Frederick and Pennsylvania Line railroad ran from Frederick, Maryland to the Pennsylvania-Maryland State line, or Mason–Dixon line near Kingsdale, Pennsylvania consisting of 28 miles (45.1 km) of center-line track and 29.93 miles (48.17 km) of total track including sidings. Chartered in 1867, the railroad started construction in 1869 and cost $868,687.50.
