ALEXANDER BONNYMAN COLLECTION
c. 1905-11 and undated

East Tennessee State University
Archives of Appalachia
Box 70295
Johnson City, TN 37614-0138

Request Information here.
Telephone: (423) 439-4338

INTRODUCTION

ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

Provenance: The Alexander Bonnyman Collection was donated to the Archives of Appalachia by Isabel Bonnyman Stanley, Bonnyman's granddaughter and professor in the Department of English, East Tennessee State University, on February 18, 1994.

Access: The collection is open for research.

Processing Information: Ned Irwin completed processing, and the collection was opened to researchers in March 1997.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Alexander Bonnyman was born December 8, 1868 in Edinburgh, Scotland and moved with his family to Lexington, Kentucky in 1870. He studied engineering at the University of Kentucky and began a long and distinguished career as a civil engineer and businessman, including work for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, the Central of Georgia Railroad. He served as chief engineer and general manager (1905-12) for the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad. After 1912, he became a coal company executive, serving for many years as president and later chairman (1915-52) of the Blue Diamond Coal Company of Knoxville, Tenn. He received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Kentucky in 1950. Bonnyman died April 15, 1953.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

The Alexander Bonnyman Collection consists of four notebooks related to Bonnyman's work as an engineer for the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad, c. 1908-11. The notebooks contain drawings, charts, photographs, reports, tables, and maps related to construction and operation of the railroad.

Organization: Notebooks are arranged chronologically with undated ledger stored last. One folder of oversize documents is housed in the map cabinets by accession number.

Important subjects in the collection include:

Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad Company
Bonnyman, Alexander, 1868-1953
Railroads--Alabama--Design and construction
Railroads--Georgia--Design and construction
Railroads--Southern States

BOX AND ITEM LIST

Box 1:

1. Notebook 1. Report on the Atlanta, Birmingham & Atlantic Railroad, April 1911 (compiled by George W. Ristine)
2. Notebook 2, 1911 and undated
3. Notebook 3, 1911 and undated

Box 2:

1. Notebook 4, undated. (Consists of undated and mostly unidentified photographs related to railroad construction and operations; general descriptions are given by sheet number below.)

Sheet 1

1. Railroad cut by river
2. Workmen and dogs at tunnel entrance

Sheet 2

1. Building trestle

Sheet 3

1-2. Trestle construction

Sheet 4

1. Construction crew laying rails

Sheet 5

1. Culvert at mile 36
2. Arch at mile 37
3. Crossing at Buck Creek, Helena, Alabama
4. Railroad bridge spanning river

Sheet 6

1. Construction of rail viaduct
2. Rail lines and viaduct

Sheet 7

1-2. Bridge construction at Crooked Creek, Alabama

Sheet 8

1. River view
2. Steam shovel
3. Alexander Bonnyman and two other men on rail hand cart, c. 1905
4. Survey crew

Sheet 9

1. Rail cut
2. Railroad tunnel entrance
3. Railroad line
4. Steam shovel

Sheet 10

1. Steam shovel
2. Construction crew digging rock

Sheet 11

1. Man in ox chart
2. Unidentified group on steps
3. Men and horses crossing stream on ferry boat
4. Group at Manchester, Georgia (Mr. Fuller E. Callaway of LaGrange, Georgia only person identified), January 29, 1908

Sheet 12

1. Unidentified building
2. Railroad station (unidentified)

Sheet 13

1. Workers on arch
2. Bridge pier
3. Railroad trestle
4. Arch

Sheet 14

1-2. Railroad station
3. Water tower and house

Sheet 15

1. Railroad station
2. Cars on railroad trestle
3. Southern Express Company office at Manchester, Georgia
4. Men and cart on rail lines

Sheet 16

1. Men beside camp tents
2. Men on horseback
3. Tents
4. Men beside building
5. Men at ferry boat landing (mule and cart on boat)
6. Men in horse drawn buggy

Sheet 17

1. Men observing rail cut
2. Men having shoes shined

Sheet 18

1. Horse
2. Men with mule drawn wagon
3. Men standing below and above rock wall of a rail cut
4. Men on foot bridge over stream
5. unidentified people in tent camp

Sheet 19

1. People on bridge over railroad west of Talladega, Alabama, 1908

Sheet 20

1. People in boat in stream
2. Four men on rail hand cart
3. Unidentified group of people
4. Horse
5. Tent
6. Men and women inside tent
7. Men below railroad pier
8. Men at back of railroad car

Sheet 21

1. Steam shovel and train engine and carts
2. Rail cut by river

Sheet 22

1. Well house and Stewart & Kleckley General Merchandise store
2. Stream flowing through woods
3. Waterfall
4. Mill dam and buildings

Sheet 23

1. Camp Ridley menu, June 24, 1905
2. Steam shovel and train engine with open cars
3. Men by tent

Sheet 24

1. Culvert arch between two hills
2. Tie laying machine

Sheet 25

1. Trestle under construction
2. Men on culvert arch and large rock embankment

Sheet 26

1. Culvert

Sheet 27

1. Viaduct construction
2. Building piers in stream

Sheet 28

1. Trestle span viewed from woods
2. Construction train atop trestle

Sheet 29

1. Gravel embankment at trestle construction site
2. Train and open cars moving across field

Sheet 30

1. Workmen at ridge cut
2. Mule team hauling equipment

Sheet 31

1. Culvert
2. Workmen and teams in ridge cut

Sheet 32

1. Well house
2. Road bed
3. Stream and woodland
4. Man in mule drawn mail cart (titled "The Fast Mail"), Tombigbee River
5. Woodland view

Sheet 33

1. Steel beam being raised on trestle
2. Railroad station
3. Construction workers with mule teams and wagons near culvert arch (along the Manchester-Atlanta line)

Sheet 34

1. Men standing atop railroad bridge beam over Tallapoosa River
2. Men standing by railroad trestle

Sheet 35

1-2. Waterfall
3. Lake
4. Ox team hauling log (titled "The Through Freight"), Tombigbee River
5. Unidentified town

Sheet 36

1. Railbed by stream
2. Trestle under construction
3. Men and horses
4. Men on horseback
5. Unidentified group of men near tents
6. Unidentified man seated beneath tree

Sheet 37

1. Trestle under construction
2. Railroad bridge over stream
3. Steam shovel
4. Viaduct

Sheet 38

1. Railroad viaduct, c. 1907

Sheet 39

1. Trestle under construction over viaduct

Sheet 40

1. Concrete piers

Sheet 41

1. Concrete piers

Oversize Material:

Folder 1: Contains an oversize map, a drawing, and a blueprint removed from notebooks 2 and 3 and filed in order in which removed from notebooks.

INDEX TO MAPS/PHOTOGRAPHS *

* Citation refers to the notebook number in which a photograph of the subject will be found.

African-Americans: 4
Animals: 4
Arkwright, Alabama: 1-2
Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic Railroad--Buildings: 1-4
Atlanta, Georgia: 1-2

Bessemer, Alabama: 1-2
Birmingham, Alabama: 1-2
Birmingham Southern Railroad Company: 1-2
Bonnyman, Alexander: 4
Brunswick, Georgia: 1-2

Callaway, Fuller E.: 4
Camp Ridley: 4
Chalybeate Springs, Georgia: 1-2
Clay County, Alabama: 1-2
Cordele, Georgia: 1-2

Fitzgerald, Georgia: 1-2
Housing, railroad: 1-2
Manchester, Georgia: 1-2, 4
Railroad construction: 3-4
Railroad stations: 1, 3-4

Railroad workers: 4
Senona, Georgia: 2
Talladega, Alabama: 1-2, 4
Tallapoosa River (Ala.): 4
Tampa, Florida: 1-2

Tifton, Georgia: 1-2

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MTC 06/01