A Civil War-era abandoned railroad route ends at a modern-day shopping mall in West Cobb County, leaving only a few historic relics still visible from its troubled and nearly-forgotten past.
Shoppers at The Avenue West Cobb often step over a small plaque along the mall’s sidewalk that marks the end of the abandoned railroad. Though the railroad originally was meant to connect the Western and Atlantic Railroad mainline in Marietta to stone quarries 12 miles away in Polk County, then on to Alabama, the planned route was never completed. A graded path once ran from near Kennesaw Mountain to the site of the present-day shopping center, where work was abandoned.
According to a variety of historical records, the Polk Slate Quarry Railroad was created in 1859. The company planned to build a spur railroad for hauling slate from west Georgia. It was planned to stretch westward from the Western and Atlantic Railroad line, the main north-south freight and passenger line running between Chattanooga and Atlanta, for 12 miles to the Polk Slate Quarry in Paulding County. Historical documents suggest that the railroad eventually would be extended to Jacksonville, Ala. There it would connect with the Alabama & Tennessee River Railroad, making the route a total of about 95 miles long.