In 1890, financial disaster struck the Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad. A major investor, Baker Brothers & Company, failed in the financial panic of the time, and the courts ordered that the railroad go into receivership. In May of 1893, the railroad was sold to its bondholders and a new corporation was established - the Ohio River & Charleston Railway, in 1896.

The new company was disjointed, with management going in too many different directions with varying sets of priorities. Many investors wondered if the decades-old dream of joining the Ohio River and the Atlantic Ocean via rail would ever happen in their lifetimes.

Sometime between 1896 and 1898, the Ohio River & Charleston Railway acquired the recently reorganized Carolina & Cumberland Gap Railway, which was the Carolina, Cumberland Gap & Chicago Railroad until an 1896 reorganization.

In August of 1898, the line from Marion, NC to Camden, SC and the line from Edgefield to Aiken was sold to the South Carolina & Georgia Railroad Company, which operated it as the South Carolina & Georgia Extension Railroad Company for a short time.

In 1900, the northern line (in KY) was sold to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. This left the Ohio River & Charleston Railway with only the middle section, which ran from Johnson City, TN, into the mountains of North Carolina.

In 1902, with new financing available, the railroad changed its name to the South & Western Railroad.

Towns on Route (in SC):

SC/NC State Line

Blacksburg

Kings Creek

Smyrna

Hickory Grove > Hickory (1895) > Hickory Grove (1907)

Sharon

Yorkville > York (1915)

Tirzah

Belmont

Newport

Old Point > Oldpoint (1894)

Rock Hill

Lesslie

Roddeys > Roddey (1896)

Catawba

Lindsay > Riverside (1907)

Lancaster

Elgin (1895)

Pleasant Hill

Heath Spring > Heath Springs (1916)

Oakhurst

Kershaw

Westville

Kalb (aka DeKalb Station)

Camden