Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway - Stock Certificate

Unissued Stock printed by American Bank Note Co., NY. The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway was a railway company operating the 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. It took nine years to complete the 150 miles (240 km) of line between the two cities, 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. 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. During the Civil War, the rail line was strategic to both the Union and Confederate armies. The Tennessee campaigns of 1862 and 1863 saw Union troops force the Confederates from Nashville all the way to Chattanooga, down the line of the railroad. The tracks and bridges were repeatedly damaged and repaired, and the rolling stock was largely destroyed. At different times the trains carried supplies for both armies. In 1885, the railroad successfully defended itself before the Supreme Court in Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. United States from repaying postage payments for mail in 1861 that was not delivered because of the war. After the war. the company purchased the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad and the Hickman and Obion Railroad to Hickman, Kentucky to reach the Mississippi River. In 1873 it was reincorporated as the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (NC & St L) (though the company's tracks never actually reached St. Louis, Missouri in the north). In early 1877 the NC & StL bought the bankrupt Tennessee and Pacific Railroad from the state government and operated it as a connection to Lebanon, Tennessee. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, an aggressive competitor of the NC & St L, gained a controlling interest in 1880 through a hostile stock takeover that caused much rancor between the cities of Nashville and Louisville. However, the railroads continued to operate separately until finally merging in 1957. The company gave up steam operations in 1953. After the 1880 takeover, the NC & St L acquired branch lines in Kentucky and Alabama, and expanded from Nashville to Memphis. In 1890 the tracks reached Atlanta, Georgia, by leasing the state-owned Western and Atlantic Railroad.(List of Branches in Order of Their Acquisition) In 1902, the L&N was acquired by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in a takeover similar to that of the NC & St L, but continued to operate as a separate company. In 1982, the L&N's corporate existence ended when it was merged into ACL's successor, the Seaboard System Railroad. After several other mergers, in 1986 the Seaboard System was renamed CSX Transportation, which continues to use the original NC & St L route between Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. Other portions of the system, such as the route to Hickman, have been abandoned.

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