The Blue Ridge and Atlantic Railroad of the United States purchased the Cornelia-Tallulah Falls section of the North Eastern Rail Road in an attempt to connect Savannah, Georgia to Knoxville, Tennessee.
Because of its early operational period to the upstate, the Blue Ridge railroad has been the subject of legends and misinformation for over 100 years regarding the Fall of Richmond.
Folks in Abbeville, S.C. will swear that Confederate President Jefferson Davis brought a steam locomotive train load of Confederate gold from Richmond's Banks to Abbeville and buried it near the present railroad tracks or near the Savannah River (now under water).
Davis left Richmond by train for Danville, Va and from there he went to Charlotte, N.C. where he was coolly received; thence to Chester, South Carolina where tracks ended.
Work in earnest began before the Civil War, much of it done with slave labor as well as that of paid Scots-Irish and German Immigrants (who founded the town of Walhalla).
has not found the roadbed from the other side, although there are shafts cut from above into the tunnel which one can fall into if one is not familiar with the top of the mountain.
Locals state that prior to flooding the tunnel still contained tools and iron from the original construction.
When she heard this she left the Cherokee town of Keowee to warn her white lover Allen Francis who was at the fort ninety-six miles away.
These towns and creeks are located in Pickens, Anderson, Abbeville, and Greenwood counties in South Carolina.