Best Friend of Charleston
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No.87-94. As railroads came to be built, and horse drawn entities were still common, the steam engine fired the imagination of the nation's entrepreneurs. The Charleston & Hamburg Line had as its chief engineer Horatio Allen, who in 1829 had designed the "Stourbridge Lion"--America's first operational locomotive. The success of the imported Lion encouraged Allen to attempt an American-made version. In December of 1830, the "Best Friend of Charleston" became the first locomotive ever to pull a train of cars by steam power along American railroad tracks. One month later, the six-mile railroad began formal operation. About two hundred guests, mostly shareholders and their families, rode the train. Traveling at twenty-one miles per hour, the train was hailed by intermittent explosions from a small Army field gun specially requisitioned for the trip. Later, on the regular run, the two hundred guests were replaced by forty to fifty paying customers Unicover Corporation |
