The communities we know today as Summerville, Lyerly and Menlo might look very different had railroad tracks been laid just a few miles in another direction.
When railroads finally arrived in Chattooga County during the late 1800s, they did much more than provide transportation. They determined where businesses opened, where people settled, which communities grew and, in some cases, which communities disappeared.
And at one point, the railroad nearly bypassed Summerville altogether.