Troupville, Killed by the Railroad

Where the Withlacoochee River meets the Little River in Lowndes County, Georgia, a town once stood that served as the county seat and a modest river landing. Troupville was named for Governor George M. Troup of Georgia and served as county seat from eighteen thirty-three until eighteen sixty.

The town was incorporated in eighteen thirty-seven, built on its position at the uppermost navigable point of the Withlacoochee River. Then the Atlantic and Gulf Railroad surveyed a route from Savannah toward Pensacola, and the surveyors chose a line that bypassed Troupville by several miles. The county chose the railroad over the river.

They established a new town on the right-of-way, named it Valdosta after a Georgia governor's estate, and transferred the county seat there when the first train arrived in the summer of eighteen sixty. Troupville quietly ceased to exist. Valdosta went on to become the regional center of south Georgia.

The lesson of Troupville was learned by every river town in America that watched the tracks go somewhere else.