WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA RAILROAD

Prior to 1850, massive crop failures in the mountain regions of North Carolina caused state legislators to recognize the desperate need for a transportation system into these western counties. A state appropriation of $12,000 in 1851 funded the survey for a rail route from Salisbury to the Tennessee line. While the Western N.C. Rail Road was incorporated in 1852, it would be three years before work actually began.

By 1861 the first track was completed to within a few miles of Morganton and trains placed into operation; however, the War Between the States halted construction on the section to Old Fort and the Swannanoa tunnel. Soon after the war, with Samuel McDowell Tate as president and J. W. Wilson as chief engineer, the Western N.C. Rail Road arrived in Morganton.

Once the line was completed to Old Fort around 1869, passengers were taken from there to Asheville in stage coaches. Ten years later. with a changed route to a safer, longer and slighter grade, the railroad finally conquered the Blue Ridge Mountains at Azalia, 130 miles west of Salisbury.

When Western N.C. Rail Road officials faced financial difficulties by the spring of 1875, Governor Curtis Brogden asked legislators to authorize a purchase of the railroad for a sum of $850,000. Not until late 1880 did the Western N.C. Rail Road reach Biltmore. Several more years would be needed for the rail line to progress south of Asheville to Waynesville and beyond.

By this time the Richmond & Danville RR had secured a lease on the Western N.C. Rail Road from Salisbury in order to expand its operations in the south. They held this lease until 1894 when the railroad was purchased by Southern Railway Company.

The growth of Southern Railway, and the rise of North Carolina’s timber industry, encouraged the construction of many short connector lines throughout the mountains, including a track from Pinola (Saginaw) to Mortimer and Collettsville. Summer tourist travel and grand hotels were introduced to the North Carolina mountains during the 20th century, especially from Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA. Passenger service to Morganton ended in 1975.