Because the state government didn’t do much to help the railroads come to Tennessee, the first few attempts to bring the railroad here failed. Knoxville wanted a railroad badly because steamboats generally had a hard time making it up the Tennessee River that far. But several attempts by officials there to get a railroad failed.  

Memphis wanted a rail line that would head east and connect that city with the Atlantic Ocean. That effort failed too.

The first city to get a real rail connection was Chattanooga. The railroad was called the Western and Atlantic, and it was built by private investors and by the government of the state of Georgia to connect the brand new city of Atlanta (then known as Terminus) with the Tennessee River. Incredibly, it took 14 years to get the rail line finished, and the first train rolled into Chattanooga in 1850.

By the time Chattanooga got this railroad, businessmen in Nashville had already begun organizing a new railroad, one that would connect Nashville to Chattanooga (and thus the new Western and Atlantic Railroad). It took years to raise all the money. One thing that they did was to go to every town between Nashville and Chattanooga and ask for investments. As a general rule, towns willing to raise the most money were the ones who got the railroad through them. Towns that refused got passed up by the railroad. It was through a process like this that many old towns died, new towns were created, and some county seats were moved.

The Nashville and Chattanooga line was finished by 1854. By this time there were other railroads in the works across the state. And, by 1860, Tennessee had about 1,000 miles of railroads.

•  The companies that built the railroads weren’t so much thinking about money that they would make from moving people as they were moving things. By this time it had become clear that parts of Tennessee were great places to mine coal and phosphate. But you can’t move large amounts of heavy rocks by horse and wagon, and mines have a tendency to be located far away from big rivers. When the railroads went in, mining operations and mining towns came with them.
•  The main railroad lines were mainly built to get things from southern cities to northern cities where most of the big factories were and where more people lived. Because of this, all the major rail lines in Tennessee ran north-south rather than east-west. It would be many years before Tennessee had a railroad running east-west.

•  The railroads greatly reduced travel time from one part of the state to another. When the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad started operating, the trip from Nashville to Savannah, Georgia, was reduced from six days to only 28 hours.
•  Finally, don’t forget that the railroads were extremely hard to build – especially through the mountains. “The drilling was done by hand, since the steam drill had not been perfected at that time,” a man who worked on the tunnel through the Cumberland Mountains wrote. “One man would hold and turn a short length of steel bit, while two other struck it with eight-pound hammers.” And remember, slavery was still a part of Tennessee’s culture. So much of this work, maybe most of it, was done by African-American slaves.

Houston was born in 1793 and grew up in Maryville. When he was a teenager, he ran away from home to live with the Cherokee Indians on Hiwassee Island, located in Meigs County. He stayed there for about three years and was given the name “The Raven” by a Cherokee chief. Young Sam later came back to white society and then, in a battle against the Creeks in 1814, became a hero when he fought on despite an arrow wound in his thigh.  

Houston later moved to Lebanon, became a lawyer, and then was elected to Congress. With Andrew Jackson’s backing, he became governor of Tennessee. But then, in one of the most shocking things ever to happen in Tennessee politics, Houston resigned as governor and went back to live with the Cherokees. Then, Houston moved to Texas to fight for the independence of that state. He later became governor of Texas, and today the city of Houston is named for him. 

When Polk became president, the country of Mexico claimed a lot of what we now know as the state of Texas, while Canada claimed a lot of what is now the state of Washington. Polk went to war with Mexico over Texas and threatened war with Canada over the Pacific Northwest, and was successful on both fronts. So there are large parts of the United States that wouldn’t be part of this country were it not for President Polk.
 

Polk did not run for a second term. He died only months after he left office.

In 1854 Walker and a handful of followers invaded the Sonora area of northern Mexico, hoping to start a new colony that might later be admitted as a state. The Mexican army ran them out, but this led to what is now known as the Gadsden Purchase.

A few years later Walker invaded Nicaragua, along with two men who had previously worked for American millionaire Cornelius Vanderbilt (but who had decided to betray their former boss). Mr. Vanderbilt and a small army of Costa Ricans defeated that mission. Later, Walker led an invasion of the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras. The Honduran army defeated his army and executed him.

Today, most Americans don’t know who Walker was. But in Central America practically every child is told the story of how an American named William Walker invaded the area and was defeated.