Pierce-Glynn County GaArchives History .....History of Brunswick & Birmingham Railroad ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Bob Hurst lat@wayxcable.com March 8, 2004, 10:52 am NORTH, SOUTH BIRMINGHAM STREETS IN OFFERMAN RECALL THE DAYS OF THE B&B RAILROAD It Was Here Miss Gould’s Line Crossed the Plant System Tracks --With Great Unpleasantness BRUNSWICK’S RITZ THEATER WAS ONCE GENERAL AGENCY FOR B&B Located On Newcastle Street, This Railroad Agency Planned A Line From Brunswick to Birmingham By Robert Latimer Hurst Railroading in this Southeastern Georgia area in the late 1800s had become a series of lines going into small, rural communities that would thoroughly baffle today's Amtrak. In Brunswick, one such line, with its general offices once headquartered in what is now the Ritz Theater on Newcastle Street, had a purpose: it wanted its tracks to reach Birmingham, Alabama, making it the best route for this city of steel to reach the coast. This railway would face many difficulties on its travels west. One such obstacle would be in Pierce County in the town of Offerman. The 1890s found Brunswick a well-established port ready to compete with Charleston, Jacksonville or Savannah. Two railroad lines linked it to the west: the Brunswick and Western (Plant System) through Waycross to Albany and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia (later Southern) to Macon, according to railroad historian Larry Goolsby in his book "Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast." Dean Broome, in his "History of Pierce County, Georgia, Volume I," points out that a third, the Brunswick and Birmingham (B&B), had made its plans to go through Offerman to Nicholls. Of course, everything was being prepared for this move, from land acquisition to laying of tracks. But this rail project had one "thing" that the other tracks did not have. Some ridiculed what they saw; others gasped in amazement. The B&B was owned by a woman, it is reported. And Helen Gould was not a CEO who just sat in a private car or an office on Newcastle Street. This lady, dressed in boots, smoking a cigar and carrying her pistol, demanded attention as she directed the work on "her" railway. While Queen of the Okefenokee Lydia Stone operated out of the Okefenokee Swamp, Helen Gould operated out of a railroad car. And it was Offerman that called her attention to a "slight problem" with her plans. It was also in Miss Gould’s Offerman Depot that J.V. Gowen Sr. found himself in 1898. He had served in the Spanish-American War, but now he was stretched out in pain in this train station with an almost ruptured appendix. He had been taken off the train, placed on a table in the waiting room and was being operated on, “on the premises of the B&B Railroad owned by Miss Helen Gould,” writes Hazel Dean Overstreet of Odum, whose uncle was J.V. Gowen Sr. No one doubted Miss Gould’s ability. But many did wonder about her methods. The B&B reached Thalmann, so passenger connections could be made with the Seaboard Air Line to Savannah or Jacksonville. This move, of course, competed with the Plant System's route, which ran through Nahunta. But, ignoring these concerns, Miss Gould knew her business would be exceptional if her plans could be achieved since Brunswick was also attracting tourists to its golden coast with such logos as the "Jekyl (sic) Island Route." By 1901, B&B had begun passenger service with five round trips daily from Brunswick to Thalmann and return. Its line ran beside the Southern and Plant System tracks in downtown Brunswick, with its shops a former cotton mill. In 1902, the company began its move toward Alabama. Its promotional people heralded it as the "shortest route from Birmingham to the Atlantic seaboard, which great advantage insures its success, for it will not only bring the finest timber lands,cotton fields, cotton factories and the trucking and fruit lands of Georgia and Alabama nearer to tidewater than ever before, but it will also have the great advantage of being able to fix the freight rates on all these products and other exports, such as timber, coal, iron, steel, coke and their by-products." Stocks and franchises were constantly being bought as this line planned its surge toward Cuthbert, Georgia, and Eufaula, Alabama. Affiliates, such as construction, steamship and express companies, were established. It reached the Plant System's Jesup - Folkston line at Hortense and approached Offerman on the Plant System's Jesup - Waycross tracks. The reading public had already begun to look carefully at the monopolistic practices of railroads. Many had witnessed “Black Friday,” brought about earlier by Railroad Magnate Jay Gould. Now, setting off 1902, was Frank Norris’ best seller, “The Octopus,” which described how the railroads were being strangled by men of greed and force. And, of course, names like U.S. Steel’s J.P. Morgan, who had just made the statement, “I am not in Wall Street for my health”; Andrew Carnegie, George J. Gould, the Vanderbilts, Harrimans and the Rockefellers were being read daily in the press. Now, another Gould was involved in questionable railroad tactics in the Pierce County town of Offerman. “The Southern Pines Company of Georgia constructed sawmills in South Georgia during the 1890s, including Granville, Nicholls, Hazlehurst, Offerman and Saginaw. The Waycross Air Line Railroad was one of their primary lines of access to the port of Brunswick during the 1890s,” writes C.T. Trowell in his “Douglas Before Memory.” This author points out that, in June, 1899, SPCG began surveying the route of a new tramroad from Nicholls to Offerman “through uncut pine timber.” If this line were completed through Offerman to Brunswick, here would be another direct line to the port. Adopting the name “Offerman and Western Railroad,” this line began work immediately to secure those tracks, with plans announced that an extension to Ocilla, Georgia, was in the works. But here the Waycross Air Line balked. The Offerman and Western had reached Nicholls in 1900. It now tried to cross the Waycross Air Line to serve the Southern Pine Company’s lumber mill. But getting across the WAL would not be easy. In fact, things turned violent as resentment built up because of the refusal of one line to cooperate with another. Editor Broome’s writes this version: “When Miss Gould’s railroad reached Offerman, she was refused permission to cross the Plant System with her railroad. She promised her employees a barrel of beer in addition to extra pay if they would build her railroad across the Plant System line late at night after the Plant System employees were in bed. “The next morning when the Plant System employees reported for work, the B&B railroad had crossed the Plant System. That night the B&B employees were guests at a big beer party.” Eventually, the clash of the two railroad lines led to a court battle, and the Offerman and Western applauded the decision, which favored this new line being able to cross the older railway’s tracks. The crossing took place, according to Trowell, at 6:00 p.m. on March 12, 1900. And the dispute between companies rose into a violent confrontation. When tempers cooled, the O&W stayed its course. Now, lines were being surveyed for the O&W to extend from Nicholls to Ocilla. By July, 1902, the Brunswick and Birmingham, which had purchased the O&W, entered Offerman forming its desired link with its newly acquired line and providing a route from Brunswick to Nicholls. Birmingham was still a long way away, with many other lines to cross. But Pierce County’s Offerman and Coffee County’s Nicholls provide one illustration of what it was like during those days when everyone “Rode the Rails” and almost every town, village, stop-in-the- road could boast of a railroad terminal. And railroad executives were very jealous of their domains. This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 8.2 Kb