This Week in History

December 25, 1830, the first regularly scheduled steam locomotive passenger train in the United States occurred. It was called the “Best Friend of Charleston,” and its initial run was six miles of track of the South Carolina Canal & Railroad Company.

The new line was designed to make Charleston competitive with Savannah, Georgia, in the cotton trade. For the next three years the South Carolina Canal & Railroad Company became the world’s longest railway line – for a time. The company was a predecessor to J.P. Morgan’s Southern Railway Company that grew out the realignment of the southern railways post-Civil War.

Source(s): Library of Congress

Compiled by Bob Valen