The Louisville, Harrods Creek and Westport Railway was a 19th-century

railway company A rail transport company is a company active within the rail industry. It can be: * a manufacturing company, * a rail transport operations, railway undertaking providing services through operating rolling stock, * a railway infrastructure manager ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. Its first president was James Callahan. It was organized by Louisvillian businessmen in 1870, began construction and operation of the The Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 1850-1963
/ref>

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

in 1872, and failed in 1879 owing to the era's

Long Depression The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in Panic of 1873, 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1899, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been e ...

. The line then gave up hope of connecting to Westport or beyond and reincorporated as the more modest Louisville, Harrods Creek and Westport Rail''road'', which simply continued service along the existing track. The railroad began at First and River roads in

Louisville Louisville is the most populous city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, sixth-most populous city in the Southeast, and the 27th-most-populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 24th-largest city; however, by populatio ...

and ran along Fulton Street. It reached the to Goose Creek by 1874 and finished construction about above

Harrods Creek Harrods Creek is a neighborhood of Louisville, Kentucky centered near Harrods Creek at the intersection of River Road and Wolf Pen Branch Road. It is roughly bordered by the Ohio River to the west and US 42 to the east. Its ZIP code is 40027. ...

in 1877. The company charter was amended to permit consolidation with other lines (including a proposed "Westport, Carrollton and Covington Railroad" expansion) but the line's failure ended those plans.Castner, Charles. ''The Encyclopedia of Louisville''
p. 251
"Louisville, Harrods Creek, & Westport Railway". University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 2001. Accessed 15 October 2013. The line was responsible for the settlement and name of the Louisville

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area. They are oftentimes where most of a metropolitan areas jobs are located with some being predominantly residential. They can either be denser or less densely populated ...

Prospect Prospect may refer to: General * Prospect (marketing), a marketing term describing a potential customer * Prospect (sports), any player whose rights are owned by a professional team, but who has yet to play a game for the team * Prospect (minin ...

. It later made up part of the

Louisville and Nashville The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of t ...

network and its former rights-of-way currently form parts of the class-I

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of track, it is the lead ...

system.

References

Defunct Kentucky railroads Defunct companies based in Louisville, Kentucky Transportation in Louisville, Kentucky Narrow-gauge railroads in Kentucky 3 ft gauge railways in the United States Railway companies established in 1870 Railway companies disestablished in 1879 {{Louisville-stub

See also

References