If there was little progress in population, the community was nevertheless advancing in other respects. The State road needed an engine to run between Atlanta and Marietta, and the first one ever seen by the inhabitants of “Terminus,” was shipped from Madison. There was then no railroad from that town, and the engine, with great labor, was placed on the stoutest wagon that could be constructed. It was then drawn all the way, some sixty miles, by sixteen mules. For the first time in our history a crowd gathered here, but it was composed of several hundred residents of Decatur and the surrounding country who came here to do honor to the occasion. As soon as a boxcar could be procured from Milledgeville, the engine Florida and car made a trip to Marietta on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1842 with Mr. W. F. Adair as engineer
(History of Atlanta, Georgia by Wallace P. Reed, 1889 , p. 36)
