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Tuscumbia is a city in and the county seat of Colbert County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 8,423. The city is part of The Shoals metropolitan area.
Courtland is a town in Lawrence County, Alabama, United States, and is included in the Decatur Metropolitan Area, as well as the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. The population was 609 at the 2010 census, down from 769 in 2000.
Decatur is a city in Morgan and Limestone counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. The city, nicknamed "The River City", is located in Northern Alabama on the banks of Wheeler Lake, along the Tennessee River. It is the largest city and county seat of Morgan County. The population in 2010 was 55,683.
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 the city of Baltimore, which had benefitted to some extent from the construction of the National Road early in the century, wanted to continue to compete for trade with trans-Appalachian settlers with the newly constructed Erie Canal, another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and the James River Canal, which directed traffic toward Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia. 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. There it connected with Harper's Ferry across the Potomac into Virginia, and also with the navigable Shenandoah River.
The Tennessee Valley is the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and is largely within the U.S. state of Tennessee. It stretches from southwest Kentucky to north Alabama and from northeast Mississippi to the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina. The border of the valley is known as the Tennessee Valley Divide. The Tennessee Valley contributes greatly to the formation of Tennessee's legally recognized Grand Divisions.
A portage railway is a short and possibly isolated section of railway used to bypass a section of unnavigable river or between two water bodies which are not directly connected. Cargo from waterborne vessels is unloaded, loaded onto conventional railroad rolling stock, carried to the other end of the railway, where it is unloaded and loaded onto a second waterborne vessel. A portage railway is the opposite of a train ferry.
This is a list of the earliest railroads in North America, including various railroad-like precursors to the general modern form of a company or government agency operating locomotive-drawn trains on metal tracks.
Rail transportation in the United States consists primarily of freight shipments, with a well integrated network of standard gauge private freight railroads extending into Canada and Mexico. Passenger service is mainly mass transit and commuter rail in major cities. Intercity passenger service, once a large and vital part of the nation's passenger transportation network, plays a limited role as compared to transportation patterns in many other countries. The United States has the largest rail transport network size of any country in the world.
The Montgomery and West Point Railroad (M&WP) was an early 19th-century railroad in Alabama and Georgia. It played an important role during the American Civil War as a supply and transportation route for the Confederate Army, and, as such, was the target of a large raid by Union cavalry in the summer of 1864, called Wilson's Raid. The railroad played an important role in this business, and it became a symbol to industrialization in the United States. The railroads make it possible to supply large military forces that were needed in order to take over and conquer the Southern part of the United States. During the early 19th-century, turnpikes, canals, and railroads all brought people to the west and more products to the east. There was an effort in Americans during this time to build a railroad that would link Georgia to trade with the Tennessee and Ohio areas, and the M&WP was a starting point in helping to accomplish this goal.
North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama, generally considered to include 16 counties: Blount, Cherokee, Colbert, Cullman, DeKalb, Etowah, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marion, Marshall, Morgan, and Winston, with a combined population of 1,000,985, or 20.94% of the state's population as of 2010 Census.
The first USS Tuscumbia was a gunboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. She was named for the town of Tuscumbia, Alabama, which had been named for a Cherokee chief.
Incorporated on January 13, 1832, the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad was a railroad in Alabama, the United States.
The Huntsville–Decatur–Albertville, AL Combined Statistical Area is the most populated sub-region of North Alabama, and is the second fastest growing region in the State of Alabama, with 774,480 living within the CSA. It is also currently the 64th largest CSA in the country.
The Decatur, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area is a moderately urban region of North-Central Alabama. The 2008 estimate population is 150,125, one-third of which resides within the boundaries of its core city, Decatur, Alabama. It is also considered to be part of the North, Northwest, and North-Central regions of Alabama.
State Route 20 (SR 20) is a 73.978-mile-long (119.056 km) state highway in the northern part of the U.S. state of Alabama. It travels from the Tennessee state line, where it continues as Tennessee State Route 69, northwest of Florence, east to Interstate 65 (I-65), east of Decatur. It crosses the Tennessee River at Florence and also at Decatur
The Memphis and Charleston Railroad, completed in 1857, was the first railroad in the United States to link the Atlantic Ocean with the Mississippi River. Chartered in 1846, the 311 miles (501 km) 5 ft gauge railroad ran from Memphis, Tennessee to Stevenson, Alabama through the towns of Corinth, Mississippi and Huntsville, Alabama. The portion between Memphis and LaGrange, Tennessee was originally to be part of the LaGrange and Memphis Railroad, chartered in 1838. From Stevenson, the road was connected to Chattanooga, Tennessee via the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. In Alabama, the railroad followed the route of the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad between Tuscumbia and Decatur, the first railroad to be built west of the Appalachian Mountains.
The Southern Railway Depot is a historic building in Decatur, Alabama. The depot was built in 1904–05 along the Southern Railway line. Decatur had become a transportation hub of North Alabama by the 1870s, with its connections to the Tennessee River, the east-west Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad, and the north-south Louisville and Nashville Railroad.
The Courtland Historic District is a historic district in Courtland, Alabama. Courtland was founded in 1818 and incorporated the following year. Its location was chosen to be close to the Tennessee River to facilitate transportation, but also close to cotton plantations to the south. The town's founders envisioned becoming the county seat of the newly formed Lawrence County, but the title instead went to Moulton. Many of the earliest structures in Courtland were built of logs, and were later replaced with frame and brick buildings. Development plateaued by 1830, but received a slight bump from the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad beginning in 1834. The oldest houses in the district date from this era, including the 1828 Federal-style John McMahon House and several I-houses.
The Colbert County Courthouse Square Historic District is a historic district in Tuscumbia, Alabama. It contains 22 buildings and residences centered on the Colbert County Courthouse.
The Tuscumbia Landing Site is a historic port site near Sheffield, Alabama. The landing was established in 1824 at the mouth of Spring Creek on the Tennessee River. As large craft could not navigate Spring Creek to reach Tuscumbia, the landing was built to transfer goods to and from the town. The New Orleans and Tuscumbia Steamboat Company was created in 1825, and connected The Shoals with towns on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Wagons were used to haul goods between the landing and the town until a horse-drawn railroad, the first railroad west of the Appalachian Mountains, was built from 1831 to 1832. The line was later extended to Decatur in 1834, bypassing the treacherous shoals on the Tennessee River, and was renamed the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad. The landing was also a stop for many Muscogee and Cherokee along the Trail of Tears.
References
- ↑ City of Tuscumbia Website Archived 2009-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Tuscumbia Railway Corporation Website
