Terminus: The Railroad's Embrace

Lyrics

Before the name, before the noise.
Just red clay sleeping.
December twenty-first, eighteen thirty-six.
A governor's signature, a single pen stroke.
Wilson Lumpkin.

Then the surveyors came.
A man named Long.
His chains sang a sharp, metallic song.
Clang against the silence.
They drove a stake right here in the ground.
The spot where the Western & Atlantic would be bound.
And they called you Terminus.
End of the line.
A simple promise whispered in the pine.

Oh, Zero Mile Post, buried heart of steel.
From your quiet anchor, everything is real.
Every street that spiders out, every whispered boast.
You are the reason, you are the host.
The railroad's embrace, a patient hold.
The first page of a story to be told.

They tried a girl's name on you for a while.
Marthasville, with a borrowed smile.
A governor's daughter, a fleeting claim.
Then J. Edgar Thomson spoke a different name.
Atlanta. A contraction of Atlantic.
A word with motion, less romantic.
And a city was born.

Oh, Zero Mile Post, buried heart of steel.
From your quiet anchor, everything is real.
Every street that spiders out, every whispered boast.
You are the reason, you are the host.
The railroad's embrace, a patient hold.
The first page of a story to be told.

And now you're sleeping, eighteen feet below.
Underneath the Forsyth Street viaduct's flow.
A buried secret, a stone so deep.
A promise the modern city couldn't keep in the light.
But I know you're there.
Breathing iron into the air.

From this single point...
Every other point began.
To Inman Park.
To Virginia Highland.
The tracks run straight from you.
The pulse remains.