We are excited to announce that our hiatus is over and you can once again look forward to your Monday evening time travel with CCL on the Record! We return with an historic moment in Chatham County history:
It is with feelings of peculiar pride and pleasure that we are enabled to announce that our proposed railroad is now an assured fact.
[…] soon dirt will begin to fly, and in a few months the whistle of the locomotive will awaken our old town! HURRAH FOR OUR RAILROAD!
Doesn’t the rooster just make you feel the pride?
This short article from October 22nd, 1885 rings with enthusiasm over the arrival of the railroad in Chatham County. A little research revealed that the railroad was completed just a little over a year later, with the first passenger train arrived on December 20th, 1886. The official celebration of the railroad wasn’t held until May 20th of 1887.* Of course, The Chatham Record was right there every step of the way, and so over the next two weeks we will feature two more articles from The Record covering this landmark event in county history.
*This information came from a book titled Chatham County 1771-1971 by Hadley, Horton, and Strowd. Interested in local history? Find this book on our shelves in the Local History and Genealogy section: LHG 975.659 CHA. Ask us about it at the library!
