Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all

Smoky Mountain Railway

  • wcu_travel-6.jp2
  • This photograph has a handwritten caption that states, 'This is the the Passenger Train from Proctor to Ritter with Charley Wilson, Engineer, G.J. Calhoun, Conductor.' Granville Calhoun, seen at the rear of the train in this photograph, was listed in the North Carolina Year Book (News & Observer Pub. Co., 1914) as the railroad agent and express agent for Proctor, N.C., but did not indicate that he was the conductor on the rail line. While the Murphy Branch of the Southern Railway was the main rail line from Asheville, N.C., into western North Carolina, terminating at Murphy, N.C., several subsidiary or independent lines connected to the Murphy Branch. Southern Railway operated the Carolina & Tennessee line from Bushnell, N.C., to Fontana, N.C., which the North Carolina Corporation Commission's annual report for 1912 noted was fourteen miles long. Likewise, the W.M. Ritter Lumber Company ran a nine mile line for its Smoky Mountain Railway from the settlement of Ritter, N.C., located near the junction of Hazel Creek and the Little Tennessee River, northeast to the town of Proctor, and finally to the Bone Valley area.