*1902 reorganized as the South & Western Railroad.

Was the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad.

In 1890, financial disaster struck the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago railroad. A major investor, Baker Brothers & Company, failed in the financial panic of the time, and the courts ordered that the railroad go into receivership. In May 1893, the railroad was sold to its bondholders and a new corporation was established - the Ohio River & Charleston Railroad.

The new company was disjointed, with management going in too many different directions with varying sets of priorities. Many investors if the decades-old dream of joining the Ohio River and the Atlantic Ocean via rail would ever happen in their lifetimes.

Sometime between 1896 and 1898, the Ohio River & Charleston Railroad acquired the recently reorganized Carolina & Cumberland Gap Railway, which was the Carolina, Cumberland Gap & Chicago Railroad until an 1896 reorganization.

In August of 1898, the line from Marion, North Carolina to Camden, South Carolina and the line from Edgefield to Aiken was sold to the South Carolina & Georgia Railroad Company, which operated it as the South Carolina & Georgia Extension Railroad Company for a short time.

In 1900, the northern line (in KY) was sold to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. This left the Ohio River & Charleston Railroad with only the middle section, which ran from Johnson City, Tennessee, into the mountains of North Carolina.

In 1902, with new financing available, the railroad changed its name to the South & Western Railroad.

Towns on Route (in NC):

NC/TN State Line

Hollow Poplar > Poplar (1896)

Relief

Huntdale (1900)

Green Mountain

Red Hill

Toecane (1902)

Wing (1900)

Penland

Spruce Pine

Ashford

Woodlawn (1898)

Marion

Nealsville

Vein Mountain

Thermal City

Union Mills

Gilkey

Ruth (1906)

Forest City

Mooresboro

Lattimore

Shelby

Patterson Springs

Earl Station > Earl (1895)

NC/SC State Line