Rail Terminal Planned For Former Brick Factory Site Where Convicts Were Forced To Work

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September 1st, 2020

The northwest Atlanta site is mostly vacant now, but it had been the location of the Chattahoochee Brick Co., a factory that used forced convict labor. Activists had been pushing to make it into a park, with a memorial to the people who suffered under the convict-leasing system. Norfolk Southern is leasing the property for a rail terminal.

Bita Honarvar / Special to WABE

Updated Wednesday at 9:48 a.m.

Atlanta-based railroad Norfolk Southern is leasing property in northwest Atlanta for a rail terminal. The location had been the site of a brick factory that used forced convict labor, and advocates had hoped to block any industrial development there and build a memorial and a park instead.

Norfolk Southern is planning to build a facility adjacent to its tracks at the location, to transfer ethanol from trains to trucks or to storage.

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