SUBJECT: SAMUEL SPENCER STATUE FINDS HOME IN FRONT OF

GOODE BUILDING





A 99-year-old bronze statue of Samuel Spencer, first president

of Norfolk Southern predecessor Southern Railway, has been

relocated from an Atlanta city park and placed in front of the

David R. Goode Building.



Some 30,000 employees voluntarily contributed funds for a

memorial to Spencer following his tragic death in a rear-end

train collision in Virginia in 1906. Daniel Chester French, a

notable American sculptor who created the Lincoln Memorial in

Washington, D.C., was commissioned to create the statue. It

was unveiled in May 1910 on the plaza at Atlantas Terminal

Station and ceremoniously presented to the state of Georgia

and the city of Atlanta. It remained there for 60 years, until

it was moved to Southerns Peachtree Station in July 1970. In

1996, as part of preparations for the Summer Olympics, the

statue was relocated to Hardy Ivy Park downtown. Movement to

its present midtown setting was arranged by agreement with the

city of Atlanta and Norfolk Southern.



Over his career, Spencer served as president of six railroads.

But his first railroad job came in 1869 as a surveying crew

rodman for the Savannah & Western, a Central of Georgia

predecessor. He became the first president of Southern Railway

in 1894. During his 12-year tenure, the railways mileage

doubled, its annual passengers quadrupled to 12 million, and

its earnings increased from $17 million to $54 million.

Spencers passes (including one signed by Robert Todd Lincoln,

son of the president) and pocket carrying case were removed

from the train wreckage in which he died and today are

displayed in the NS Museum in Norfolk.



The statue depicts Spencer in an office chair, perched high

atop a marble pedestal in front of the glass facade of the

Goode Building. Just on the other side of the glass inside the

building lobby is another historic icon of the company, a

replica of the 1830 Best Friend of Charleston, first steam

locomotive built in America for regular service on a railroad,

on loan from the city of Charleston, S.C.

He took a young Snippy under his wing and taught him everything he knew....