According to the L & N Historical Society’s website (www.lnrr.org),

The Louisville & Nashville Railroad was born March 5, 1850, when it was granted a charter by the Commonwealth of Kentucky “…to build a railroad between Louisville, Kentucky, and the Tennessee state line in the direction of Nashville.”  On December 4, 1851, an act of the Tennessee General Assembly authorized the company to extend its road from the Tennessee state line to Nashville.  Laying of track began at Ninth Street and Broadway in Louisville in May of 1853.  By 1855, the founding fathers of the L & N, most of them Louisville citizens, had raised nearly $3 million to finance the construction.  The first train to operate over the railroad ran on August 25, 1855, when some 300 people traveled eight miles from Louisville at a speed of 15 mph!

A little more than four years later, on October 27,  1859, the first train operated all the way from Louisville to Nashville, joining the two namesake cities.  For all practical purposes, the 187-mile railroad was complete.  Scheduled trains began running a few days later, and with the exception of war, fire and several floods, they have been running ever since.  The total cost of construction was $7,221,204.91.

This is where the city of Madison entered the story.  Madison Stratton, a leader within the Haysboro community, sold land to Charles E. Woodruff on which a new station and tracks could be built. In his honor, the town was renamed “Madison Station,’ which would later be shortened to just Madison.

With the start of the Civil War in 1861, the Confederate and the Union armies had reason to be concerned about the area around Madison Station, as the railroad including the Louisville Branch and Gallatin Turnpikes, were firmly established at this time.

In 1864, Confederate General John B. Hood conducted raids against Federal rail lines to Chattanooga. Sherman sent troops to Tennessee, where they defeated the Confederates in battle near Nashville. The Confederates retreated from Tennessee for the last time, leaving the state’s railways completely in Federal hands.

Tennessee’s railroads were damaged with most of its railroad companies in financial straits by the close of the Civil War. The governor set about reconstructing the entire railroad system, and by 1869 the General Assembly had appropriated millions of dollars for the railroad companies.

In 1873, Madison Station was described in the Nashville City Directory as a “small station of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.”  In 1910 L & N built Amqui Station and Madison continued to grow around a switching train depot that changed the landscape of the community.  At its height, Amqui Station served as many as 40 to 50 trains daily.   But with the need for modernization of the switching and signaling railway system, L & N vacated Amqui in the second half of the 20th century. 

Because of his great love of trains, country music superstar Johnny Cash purchased the old train depot in 1979, saving it from demolition.  He moved Amqui Station to his property in Hendersonville, a suburb northeast of Madison, and restored it to display his collection of train memorabilia.

Over the years, Amqui Station served not only as a mini-museum adjacent to the House of Cash, but also as an antique shop for June Carter Cash’s vintage treasures collected during her international travels.

Upon Cash’s death in 2003, Halo Properties purchased Amqui Station and donated it back to Madison.  It returned home in June 2006 to be revitalized as a museum and education center.

After many fundraising efforts, which are still ongoing, Amqui was put on its final foundation in May of 2008, and in July 2008, the top of the station was rejoined with the bottom.  Restoration is scheduled to be completed in 2010.