Published by The Evansville Courier

Jones and his City Council first moved to improve the wharf and riverfront, since Evansville had established itself as the most important Ohio River port below Louisville, Ky. The city's population had grown from 2,121 in 1840 to about 3,000 in 1847.

The desperate need for a fire department was fresh on everyone's mind because a disastrous fire had burned many houses and businesses in a highly populated area just five years earlier.

Fire was a constant threat in early American cities because most buildings were constructed of wood - and because many communities had no equipment or organization to control a fire.

Since the city still had no waterworks, cisterns were built at key street intersections. Fire engines - actually large, horse-drawn pumps - were purchased for use by volunteer firefighters.

The first City Council also contracted for the construction of a new courthouse and jail in 1852. A site was selected on the northwest corner of Third and Main streets, across from the small, original courthouse.

Just as the building was nearing completion three years later, a fire that originated in a nearby lumber yard badly damaged the new courthouse, despite efforts by the fire department. Finally completed in 1857, the Greek-Revival style building served as the county courthouse until late in the century and was razed in 1891.

Construction of the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad got under way soon after the city was chartered, financed with $100,000 from the county.

Work began in 1849 and the city turned out en masse - before the line was actually completed - to see Evansville's first "iron horse" as it arrived by riverboat.

The steam locomotive was pulled up Locust Street by oxen and placed on the tracks. The crowd cheered as it chugged its way to the rail station, still under construction at Eighth and Locust streets. When the railroad finally was completed in December 1853, the train began to make one round trip to Terre Haute each day - when it could. Mechanical difficulties, weather, warping wooden rails and collisions with roaming livestock often hampered or halted rail service.

The railroad was named the Evansville and Crawfordsville because the line was to extend to Crawfordsville and then to Indianapolis some day, but that plan never materialized. The railroadÕs name was changed to the Evansville and Terre Haute in 1877, and in 1911, the line became part of the Chicago and Eastern Illinois (C&EI) system.

Competition between early railroads became an important source of advertising revenue for local newspapers. Daily ads appeared for the Evansville and Crawfordsville Railroad. In the meantime, the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad hailed itself as the "shortest and quickest line east to Cincinnati and Louisville; and 96 miles shorter to St. Louis and Cairo."