By Kathy Steele
Staff Writer
Web-posted June 21, 1996 at 4 p.m.

The city of Aiken can trace its roots to a land deal with the South Carolina Railroad and Canal Co., and a steam locomotive that never traveled farther than six miles outside of Charleston.

Historians note that when the Best Friend of Charleston chugged out of the city on Christmas Day 1830, 141 train passengers were saluted with gunfire and bands played stirring music. The one-way, six mile journey marked the first scheduled steam locomotive travel in the United States.

Three years later, 136 miles of track linked Charleston to Hamburg, S.C., making it the world's longest railroad and the first to carry the United States mail. It steamed toward Aiken's future and cut through Horse Creek Valley, leaving towns such as W arrenville and Gloverville in its wake.

``It's like the interstate is today,'' Aiken County Councilwoman LaWana McKenzie said. ``Where it went growth came. So many people have memories of (the railroad).''

Ironically, the Best Friend, often associated with Aiken, apparently never made it to the town. In a freak accident, the engine exploded on an early trip out of Charleston. Parts of the Best Friend were reportedly used to build another locomotive, the Phoenix. Historians say it's unclear which locomotive brought the first train to Aiken on Oct. 1, 1833.

When South Carolina Railroad and Canal Co. decided to build its railroad, Aiken was a crossroad community with Whiskey Road and Edgefield Avenue the main highways. Coker Springs was a stage coach stop on the way to Augusta.

French engineer James Achille de Caradeuc surveyed the route, and engineers Andrew Alfred Dexter of Boston and Cyril Ovear Pascalis of New York oversaw the Aiken portion of the construction. The railroad reportedly cost $951,148.

In land deals, prominent citizens gave right of ways-- to the railroad company for the railroad's route. In 1834, Mr. Dexter and Mr. Pascalis planned a city laid out in square plots of land owned by the railroad. The 27 original plats were bounded on t he north by Edgefield Avenue, the east by Williams Street, the south by Railroad Avenue (later Park Avenue), and on the west by Newberry Street.

In another irony, the man for whom the city was named probably never visited the area.

William Aiken Sr., the first president of South Carolina Railroad and Canal Co., was killed in a buggy accident in Charleston in 1831, two years before the first train stopped in Aiken. Company officials named the railroad junction in his honor, and it was later adopted as the town's name.

The town of Aiken was incorporated on Dec. 19, 1835. The rail line ran along Railroad Avenue toward present-day Warrenville, and on toward Augusta.

Company officials hoped the railroad could compete with river traffic on the Savannah River, and carry passengers, goods and services from Charleston toward Augusta. It always had more passengers than freight, historians say.

Longtime Valley resident Bobby Rutland remembers the passenger trains that came through until 20 years ago, most headed to a train station in Augusta.

``My dad and I went to Pond Alley to watch them,'' he said. ``I remember the lonesome sound of the steam whistle. We often heard it morning and evening, and there was a passenger train that came in midday from Charleston to Augusta.''

Today, an obscure sign along the Augusta Highway in Warrenville commemorates South Carolina Railroad and Canal Co. and its railroad.

But in other ways, residents remember the railroad's history. Three years ago, to honor the history of the Best Friend, Aiken County's public bus service was named the Best Friend Express.