The New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern was a railway originally commissioned by the State of Illinois, with both Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln being among its supporters in the 1851 Illinois Legislature. It connected Chicago with New Orleans and was completed just prior to the American Civil War, in which it served strategic interests, especially for the Confederacy. The New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern was largely in ruins by the end of the War.[1]
Restored as part of the Mississippi Central Railroad (1852-1874), the properties originally belonging to the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern became, in 1878, organic with the Illinois Central Railroad, which billed itself as the "Main Line of Mid-America" and in 1967 became the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad.
In 1998 the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad merged into the Canadian National Railway system. The original rights-of-way for the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern not only serve the purpose of a major freight railway but also support Amtrak passenger service.