*1894 acquired by Southern Railway and renamed to the Blue Ridge Railway.

The Blue Ridge Railwroad was the noble name of what was planned to be a noble railroad scheme, one that would stretch from Charleston, South Carolina over the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, and then up to Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice, men, and railroad barons are often derailed, as it was in the case of the Blue Ridge Railroad. Antebellum Politics, competing lines, the Civil War, and corrupt Reconstruction legislators all led to the Blue Ridge Railroad being the prototype way of NOT how to build and run a railroad.

The Blue Ridge Railroad Company planned to complete a railway across the Blue Ridge Mountains from Anderson, South Carolina to Knoxville, Tennessee and later Cincinnati, Ohio. To cross the Blue Ridge Mountains would require thirteen (13) tunnels. Three of the tunnels would be in South Carolina.

The Saddle Tunnel was never completed. The Middle Tunnel was completed but was closed by land slides, and the Stumphouse Tunnel was meant to be 5,863 feet lone, but in 1859 with only 4,363 ft. completed, the state refused to send more money. So, the railroad ended at Walhalla, South Carolina.

By the mid-1880s, the grand idea of this railroad was controlled by the Columbia & Greenville Railroad, and reduced to little more than a 44 mile sidetrack that ran from Belton to Anderson, Seneca, and Walhalla, South Carolina.

In 1894, after a major reorganization of most railroads of the south, most notably, the Richmond & Danville Railraod, the railroad was reorganized as the Blue Ridge Railway Company (owned by Southern Railway), though still controlled and operated by the Columbia & Greenville Railroad.

 Towns on Route:

Walhalla

West Union (1888)

Bounty Land

Seneca (1873)

Cherry (1892)

Pendleton

Steeles

Pendleton Factory (1871) > Autun (1881) > La France (1930)

Sandy Springs (1907)

Denver (1883)

Mills Station (1900s)

Anderson C.H. > Anderson (1895)