[2] The Kings Mountain Railroad was begun in 1855 but was destroyed by the Union Army during the American Civil War and was not rebuilt after the conflict.
[3] The route lay abandoned for almost eight years until the creation of the Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad in 1873.
At over 120 miles (190 km), the Chester & Lenoir was the largest narrow gauge railroad in the Carolinas.
[2] When the Richmond and Danville was re-organized as the Southern Railway in 1894, the Chester & Lenoir operated on its own for a short while.
[2] By 1902, the Carolina & Northwestern Railway was converted to 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge track, and it purchased a controlling interest in a logging railroad, the Caldwell and Northern, that ran from Lenoir to Collettsville, North Carolina.
[7] By the mid 1930s, the Carolina and Northwestern was only operating one freight train a day except Sundays between Chester and Lenoir.