From Days Gone By July 4, 1912

July 4, 1912.

Part 2

Mosely is about midway between Oak Park and Lyons and has the finest grade of land in that section and manufactures forest products. Toombs County was created by the legislature about seven years ago, by cutting a portion from Tatnall, Montgomery and Emanuel counties with Lyons her county site. Since that time, she has made wonderful progress, improving her roads to compare with much older counties. She has built and paid for a handsome court house and jail, at a cost of many thousands of dollars, besides other valuable improvements.

Lyons, with a population of about 1,200 is situated on the Seaboard Airline Railroad. It is here that the proposed Wrightsville, Adrian & Lyons Railroad will connect and cross, with the Seaboard connecting to Savannah. Lyons has twelve general stores, three hardware stores, three cotton gins, three banks, three sawmills, one turpentine still, a meat market, a hotel and boarding houses, three white churches and three colored and schools for each. Her artesian well water and electric light plant are modern for a town of her size and age.

Farming and naval stores are also its chief industries. Little attention has been given to manufacturing here but that will surely change with the railroad. While Vidalia with a population of 2000 is not on the mainline but can be reached by a distance of six miles and should be connected with her various manufacturing plants.

In briefly mentioning the points inclusive on the Wrightsville, Adrian & Lyons railroad and connecting with Vidalia, this part of the road has been practically graded and these are the stations and half stations. But in addition to these, there will be several siding and loading points along the line for loading lumber and other forest products, and for unloading and receiving fertilizers and other commodities moving in car load lots.

The extension of this line from Wrightsville to Milledgeville, county site of Baldwin County will add approximately forty miles to the line of road making distance of about ninety miles from Milledgeville to Lyons. This extension will also traverse and open up a section of extra fine agricultural and timber lands for almost its entire length, that has never been developed for want of a railroad.

It will also run directly through the beautiful section just now being opened up and mined. By touching Milledgeville with 5,000 people, her various factories, such as corn and flour mills, cotton and oil mills, brickyards, etc. will open up a vast amount of traffic for the road. In addition to this, Milledgeville ships about 20,000 bales of cotton annually, which with Savannah as her port, would find a much quicker and shorter outlet. Then extending on the southeast from Lyons to Glennville, a distance of 25 miles would connect with the G. C. & P Railroad giving a direct line to Brunswick.

The extension to Glennville, when completed would open up the very best farming, lumbering and naval stores section in middle Georgia, connecting with the Seaboard at Lyons, would give a direct and shorter route to Savannah for all points on the entire line from Milledgeville. As ninety percent of all the lumber, ties, naval stores and cotton in this section go to Savannah, and ninety percent of the shippers of these commodities have subscribed to, or agreed to take stock in this road, a connection should be made with Savannah as early as practical.

With the shippers and receivers of freight all along the entire line, owning stock in the road and giving their influence and support to the road, a much larger per cent of all the tonnage to be handled at points along the line, could be counted on than has been figured in the prospectus recently prepared. Will the road be built ?