Norfolk Southern Corporation announced that it will donate the complete collection of historical documents from Southern Railway’s company archives to Atlanta History Center.

The collection dates to the 1840s and includes hundreds of thousands of pages of correspondence, minute books, reports, construction plans, and more than 20,000 photographs that together provide a fascinating look into the growth of Atlanta and the southeastern United States.  The company will also donate $500,000 to support the collection in perpetuity.

Southern Railway, whose predecessors date from 1827, merged with Norfolk & Western in 1982 to create Norfolk Southern, which today is one of the nation’s largest freight railroads.  The archives represent the history of Southern Railway and more than 200 predecessor companies, many of which had ties to Atlanta.

The $500,000 grant will allow Atlanta History Center to digitize, catalog and preserve the collection.  Norfolk Southern and Atlanta History Center have earmarked $50,000 to hire archival interns from underrepresented communities over the next five years.

Among the historic materials in the archives are menus from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s train trips, telegrams announcing the sinking of the Titanic, more than 30 years of editions of the Southern Railway’s Ties Magazine, as well as advertisements, contracts, an extensive collection of photographs, and construction plans for rail stations and yards. The donation process is expected to be completed by early 2022.

-via Press Release