The Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad was an antebellum railroad that served the Southeastern United States.
The Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston was chartered in 1836 to construct a railroad from an intersection with the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad to a point on the Ohio River near Cincinnati, Ohio. Partly because the company was unable to obtain a charter through all states on the planned line the original plan was abandoned.[1]
Former South Carolina Governor Robert Y. Hayne was named the first president of the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston, and other board members included John C. Calhoun and Robert Mills. In 1840, James Gadsden became president, a position he held for 10 years.[2] Gadsden was a proponent of a Southern transcontinental railroad and was convinced it would be necessary to purchase a strip of territory along the Gila River from Mexico to make that project a reality. as Minister to Mexico, he negotiated the Gadsden Purchase, which enabled the United States to buy more than 45,000 square miles (120,000 km2) of land from Mexico for $10 million.[3]
In late 1837, the company purchased the 136-mile (219 km) Charleston and Hamburg Railroad from the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company.[4]
The following year, the carrier began construction on a line to the South Carolina Midlands and the carrier reached Columbia, South Carolina, in 1842.[5]
In 1844, the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad purchased the stock, road, and corporate privileges of the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company for $2.4 million, and in 1844 the two charters were united by an act of the South Carolina General Assembly under one corporation, known as the South Carolina Railroad Company.[6]