February 27, 1850
In central Ohio, a key transportation milestone took place in Columbus when regular railroad service was introduced to that city. The Columbus & Xenia Railroad (C&X), which measured 54.7 miles (88 kilometers) in length and connected Columbus with the town of Xenia in the southwestern part of the state, became the first train line to operate in Ohio’s capital.
“The splendid Locomotive ‘Washington’ with the first regular train of passenger cars from this city, left at one o’clock today, in the presence of a large concourse of spectators,” reported the Columbus-based Ohio State Journal newspaper. “We put this fact on record for future reference, when the historian shall search the archives of the past, to discover the date when an era so promising was opened by an event so interesting.”
As that newspaper account underscores, enthusiasm for the debut of railroad service in Columbus was sky-high for that city’s residents. While the National Road had reached Columbus back in 1831 and the city was likewise linked with the Ohio and Erie Canal, a railroad connection to that part of the world opened up a whole new and unparalleled range of transportation opportunities.
The Sandusky Register, another Ohio newspaper, highlighted that fact in its own account of the start of regular train runs in Columbus. This article asserted, “The citizens of Columbus seem quite delighted to hear the snort of the iron horse, and well they may be, for a town now-a-days without a rail-road is like a magnet that has lost its power — it may exist but has nothing to attract business to it.”
C&X had been chartered on March 12, 1844. With Alfred Kelley (1789-1859) as the company’s president, construction on the line began in October 1847. (The accompanying image is a C&X stock certificate that was issued in 1849 to help finance work on that project.) Another prominent C&X leader at the time was William Dennison Jr. (1815-1882), who was one of the company’s directors. Dennison would go on to serve as governor of Ohio from 1860 to 1862 and U.S. postmaster general between 1864 and 1866.
The completion of the C&X line reflected the ever-growing railroad presence of railroads in Ohio that proved to be pivotal not only to Columbus’s own economic growth but the regional productivity and prosperity of a major industrial belt stretching from Chicago to Pittsburgh.
Image Credit: Public Domain
For more information on the Columbus & Xenia Railroad (C&X), please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_and_Xenia_Railroad
Additional information on the early railroad history of Columbus is available at https://columbusrailroads.com/new/pdf/clbs%20&%20rr%20before%20civll%20war%201953-1.pdf
Transportation History 
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