This is a rough transcript.
Appreciate the opportunity to be here. That’s pretty much all I had. Atlanta was created by railroads. So, questions? Perfect!
Do really appreciate the opportunity to be here. I have a short presentation. I’m happy to take any questions you might have. I won’t answer them, but I will take them, and I’ll take them home with me.
So I’ve been working my way across Georgia, really, the Southeast, trying to look at a simple, fundamental question, and that is what makes a railroad town Simple enough, right?
Because I think today, most people probably wouldn’t say “I live in a railroad town.” And I think anybody here in Smyrna might not say smart as a railroad town. I don’t think we tend to think of the city as a railroad town. I don’t think we’re unique in that regard.
I don’t think most people would think of that, and certainly Atlanta, which is, as we mentioned a moment ago, really a cross roads those railroads. I don’t think most people would look at that today the way we think of trains and say, “This is a railroad town.”
But like so many communities around the country, certainly in the southeast and certainly in Georgia, not that long ago, Smyrna was a railroad town.
A couple of weeks ago, I was speaking before a business association. I’m going to try the same exercise. So let’s see how it works here.
I asked that group, “How many people have driven along Atlanta road at the end of Bobbins Air Force Base, the runway there?” Everyone has driven there, knows what I’m talking about? Now, how many people drive along that stretcher road and say this is the exact location that on January 2, 1928, there was a terrible collision of two year interurban streetcar trolleys that happened right at this location that killed six people.
I was unique a couple of weeks ago, and I’m unique today.