Mile Post 42

Mile Post 42. U.S. Military Railroad. The railroad in front of you follows the route of a vital U.S. Army rail line constructed during the Civil War. After occupying Middle Tennessee in the spring of 1862, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's officers needed a reliable transportation link between the steamboat dock at Johnsonville on the Tennessee River and the major Union base at Nashville. They seized the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad and made plans to extend the tracks west from Kingston Springs to Johnsonville., Free and enslaved Black men constructed the military railroad. About 500 men worked on it at any given time, completing the 78-mile-long line in May 1864. The 12th and 13th U.S. Colored Troops defended the railroad from Confederate cavalry and guerrilla attacks. The line became vitally important after Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan burned the south tunnel of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad in Sumner County and delayed Federal supplies southbound to Nashville., Union Gen. William T. Sherman later stated, “The Atlanta campaign would simply have been impossible without the use of railroads.” After this new line was completed, steamboats transported supplies south to the dock at Johnsonville. Then they were put on railcars and sent east through Mile Post 42 here to Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta. After the war, Dickson (first called Smeedsville or Sneedsville) grew up around the former military rail line, and the current track is a reminder of African Americans' significant contributions to Union victory., (sidebar) , Relocating from Centerville to Dickson in 1899, businessman J.T. Halbrook recognized the benefits of accommodating travelers as the town became a railroad hub after the Civil War. He constructed the Halbrook Hotel, across the tracks, in 1913; the Nashville and Northwestern Railroad built the depot in front of you in 1922. Future Tennessee Gov. Frank G. Clement (1953-1959; 1963-1967), whose parents worked at and resided in the hotel, was born there on June 2, 1920. As automobiles replaced passenger trains in Tennessee, the Halbrook Hotel closed in 1954. Today, it houses the Clement Railroad Hotel Museum, with exhibits related to Gov. Clement, Middle Tennessee, and Dickson County history., (captions) , Johnsonville Depot - Courtesy Library of Congress , Trestle, Sullivan’s Branch Bridge No. 2 Courtesy Tennessee State Library and Archives , Tennessee railroad map, from Civil War Atlas