Railroad 100% Embroidered Patch Collectible - Nashville Chatanooga & St. Louis 4" X 2 1/4 "
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The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway was a railway company operating in the southern United States of Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. It began as the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, chartered in Nashville in December 1845 and was the first railway to operate in the state of Tennessee. History It took nine years to complete the 150 miles (240 km) of line between the two cities,[citation needed] a task which was made much more difficult by the steep elevations of the Highland Rim and Cumberland Plateau lying in between. A tunnel of 2,228 feet (679 m) near Cowan, Tennessee was considered an engineering marvel of its time[citation needed]. Due to the difficulties of the terrain, this line between Tennessee cities actually crossed over into two neighboring states, Alabama and Georgia, for short distances. New towns sprang up along the line during construction, such as Tullahoma and Estill Springs.[citation needed] During the Civil War, this line became highly strategic to both the Union and Confederate armies. The Tennessee campaigns of 1862 and 1863 saw Union troops force the Confederates back from Nashville to Chattanooga almost exactly along the line of the railroad. It was repeatedly attacked, sabotaged, damaged, and repaired, and was used at various times to supply both armies. After the war, the company made acquisitions of other, smaller lines to the north, and was reincorporated as the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (NC&StL) in 1873 (although none of the company's tracks ever actually entered St. Louis, Missouri). In early 1877, the NC&StL purchased the assets and name of the bankrupt Tennessee and Pacific Railroad from the state and operated it as a spur to Lebanon, Tennessee. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, an aggressive, potential competitor o gained controlling interest in it in 1880 with a hostile stock takeover that created massive civic rancor between the cities of Nashville and Louisville.