Monument to a Train Crash in Columbus, GA

I have been slowly exploring Columbus, GA and Phenix City, AL since my move back home in a way I haven't when I grew up here. Of course, it has to deal with railroads.

A little history first though. Columbus is on the "fall line" across the state. That means that this point on the Chattahoochee River is a far as you could navigate north before hitting a rise in elevation and waterfalls. Being the northernmost point on the river, someone figured it would be a good place for a transportation hub.

Now because of the river, and river power, Columbus became a textile town with mills popping up all over. Two of these were the Eagle and Phenix Mills. The mill workers were considered a "lower class" and a lot of them that lived on the Alabama side of the river were called the Phenix citizens. This area, originally called Girard (and in some references even Brownsville), became Phenix City.

This part of downtown Columbus has gone through a lot of restoration

Now with this being a textile town, cotton had to be shipped in and products needed to be shipped out. The Chattahoochee connects all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, meeting up with the Flint River to become the Apalachicola. But all of this was rendered obsolete because of one thing: the railroad.

The main railroad line through this area was the Central of Georgia line that connected Columbus with Savannah through Macon (this is also the line that the Atlanta & West Point connected to using the Chattahoochee Valley Railway at Bleecker (Salem), AL).

This railroad also connected across the river to the Mobile and Girard Railroad, which I had no idea even existed until recently. It started in Girard (Phenix City now), and was supposed to connect with Mobile Bay eventually. I say supposed to because it never made it that far. That Civil War thing happened and after that the costs just made it unprofitable.

So now that I have set the scene, the circus was coming to town! The Con T Kennedy Traveling Circus that is. It had left Atlanta and was headed for Girard. The only thing in the way was a Central of Georgia locomotive heading to Macon. It was supposed to pull off and wait at a side junction. For some reason it didn't and left early.

Six miles outside of Columbus, both trains hit head on.

Both locomotives were obviously destroyed. The passengers headed to Macon were mostly unharmed due to the metal passenger cars. The circus train was not so lucky. Those cars were mostly wood, and upon collision, actually telescoped into each other, catching fire and trapping to performers within. Many people and animals died in the fiery aftermath.

There is a monument in Riverdale Cemetery to the victims of this accident.

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