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Railroad strike 135 years
ago left long tracks
By Todd DeFeo
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn.
– Without fanfare,
a little known bookmark in Clarksville’s history has passed – the
135th anniversary of a railroad strike on the Memphis, Clarksville &
Louisville Railroad.
For 11 days, starting on Feb. 6, 1868, the
railroad lay dormant “due to an unwillingness on the part of its
employees to work without being paid,” historian Kincaid Herr noted in
his 1960 chronicle of The Louisville & Nashville Railroad.
The railroad crippled connecting rail service,
and many trains were forced to be rerouted. The strike likely also
hurt Clarksville’s economy.
“A strike would have been devastating in
February, especially since river traffic would have slowed as ice
formed on the upper Mississippi and Ohio rivers, making them
unnavigable,” said Greg Zieren, a history professor at Austin Peay
State University.
“Railroad bankruptcies were a horrible problem in
the late 19th century,” Zieren said. “There was a period of monetary
tightness in 1867-8 when Treasury Secretary Hugh McCulloch burned
greenbacks in order to retire them from circulation.”
Greenbacks were issued during the Civil War to
help the Union pay for military expenses but weren't backed by gold.
“This might have made it difficult for the
railroad to get funds to pay its employees,” Zieren said. “Banks would
have been reluctant to lend without collateral, and most railroad
property was already mortgaged by bonds or construction loans.”
Not only did The Memphis, Clarksville &
Louisville Railroad’s strike have an impact on locals, the action was
not well-received by those in power, particularly then-Tennessee Gov.
William G. Brownlow.
“I regard the whole affair as a regular
conspiracy against the state authorities and the road,” Brownlow said
in a statement published in the Feb. 21, 1868, edition of The
Clarksville Chronicle.
“I do not propose to yield to the mob spirit of
any combination, monstrating to these men that the state can do as
well without the advantages of the road, as the employees can without
the employment, or the citizens without the active operations of the
road through its disloyal territory.”
In response, the newspaper denounced the
governor, whom it referred to as the “imp of darkness,” for his
remarks, calling them a “slander against the men who are superiors in
everything.”
“(The governor) professes to see it in a huge
rebellion against the state and his imperial power and scruples not to
charge said strike upon our citizens and the rebellious district
through which the road runs,” the paper wrote. “The charge is grossly
false and as malicious as it (is) false. – Petty tyrants see rebellion
in every manifestation of private or public virtue; it is the result
conscious guilt which makes cowards of the boldest.”
The railroad’s history
The Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad
was chartered on Jan. 28, 1852, and ran from Paris to Guthrie, Ky. The
road connected with two other lines – the Memphis & Ohio Railroad and
the Louisville & Nashville Railroad – to provide passenger service
from Memphis to Louisville.
The tracks between Clarksville and Guthrie were
laid on the eve of the Civil War and the first train rolled down the
line on Oct. 1, 1859, according to newspaper accounts of the time.
Laying tracks between Clarksville and Paris began on Oct. 24, 1860,
and construction was completed on March 21, 1861. However, a bridge
crossing the Tennessee River, west of Dover, wasn't yet finished, and
by the time train service between Memphis and Guthrie was operational,
the first shots of the Civil War had already been fired.
Post-war train service resumed Aug. 13, 1866.
However, by the following year, both the Memphis & Ohio Railroad and
the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad were on the verge of
bankruptcy after they defaulted on their state bonds. Salaries and
bills went unpaid, eventually leaving the railroads unable to operate.
That led to the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville
Railroad’s 11-day strike.
The post-strike railroad
Instead of selling the rail line to the larger
Louisville & Nashville Railroad, the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville
Railroad sought to lease its assets. By doing so, the company's life
was extended by about three years.
“Some Memphis merchants continued to fear that
L&N domination would result in commercial discrimination against their
city,” wrote Historian Maury Klein in his 1972 history of the
Louisville & Nashville.
“Goaded mainly by public clamor over this
anxiety, the Clarksville rejected every L&N overture and vowed to
operate the road free of outside control. While this stance met with
popular approval, it led to financial disaster. Clarksville lacked any
resources to rehabilitate its line, and earnings failed to pay even
operating expenses.”
When the Louisville & Nashville Railroad leased
the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad on Feb. 17, 1868, it
not only supported it financially, it helped improve its
infrastructure – primarily its 86 miles of track. Despite the
improvements, the Memphis, Clarksville & Louisville Railroad wasn’t
able to operate self-sufficiently and finally folded on Sept. 30,
1871.
The Louisville & Nashville Railroad purchased the
railroad in 1872 and operated trains between Memphis and Guthrie until
about 1970.
L&N’s fate
The Louisville & Nashville Railroad merged with
the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway on Aug. 30, 1957. In
1972, the railroad was incorporated into the Family Lines, which
ultimately folded into CSX on July 1, 1986.
CSX today operates the former Louisville &
Nashville Railroad’s main line, which runs through Guthrie. R.J.
Corman, a short line based in Nicholasville, Ky., operates a section –
from Cumberland City to Guthrie – of the Memphis, Clarksville &
Louisville Railroad's former main line.
Published Feb. 16, 2003,
in The (Clarksville, Tenn.) Leaf-Chronicle.
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