Polk County and the Steepest Railroad in America

Polk County was formed in eighteen fifty-five from Henderson and Rutherford Counties, named for Revolutionary War Colonel William Polk. Its county seat, Columbus, was incorporated in eighteen fifty-seven. But the most dramatic fact about Polk County runs through the village of Saluda: the Saluda Grade, the steepest standard-gauge main-line railroad grade in the United States.

Since eighteen seventy-eight, trains climbing toward Asheville have gained six hundred feet of elevation in fewer than three miles, at an average rise of four and seven-tenths feet for every hundred feet of track. The grade was built using state convict labor, with casualties so high that the state legislature launched a special investigation. Runaways on the descent were common for decades.

By two thousand one, the track had been closed for safety reasons, but the grade's legend in railroad history endures.