Sylvester began in 1893 as Isabella Station after the Brunswick and Albany Railway came through southwest Georgia, shifting trade and commerce south from the county seat of Isabella, three miles north of the railroad, and making Isabella Station the economic engine of Worth County. In 1894, citizens voted to rename it Sylvester, and on December 21, 1898, it was incorporated as a town. Its rapid economic growth in the 1890’s led to the county seat being officially moved there in 1904. Railroads remained central to Sylvester’s history: after repeated setbacks in efforts begun in 1835 to build a rail line from Brunswick on the coast west into south Georgia, the Brunswick and Florida Railway was completed to Waynesboro in 1860 and became the Brunswick and Albany Railway in 1861, a line that was the single most important factor in opening the interior of South Georgia to development. In May 1922, businessman J. N. Pidcock organized the Georgia–Ashburn–Sylvester–Camilla Railroad, known informally as the Gas Line. Old Engine 100, a 1930 steam locomotive, operated on that railway from 1930 to 1948 until diesel trains replaced it. Clarence W. Jackson of Ashburn, Georgia, served as its engineer from 1930 to 1941; he was born in Rome, Georgia, on July 17, 1884, died on February 3, 1942, and was married to Nora Pearl Mathis. The railway had originally purchased Engine 100 from the Baldwin Locomotive Company for $40,000.00. On December 3, 1957, the G.A.S. and C. Board of Directors voted to donate the locomotive to the Worth County / Sylvester Chamber of Commerce and the City of Sylvester. Under the leadership of A.K. Booth, it was moved from the train station down Sumner Street to Jeffords Park in October and December 1959 by placing temporary short tracks in front of it and walking it inch by inch to its final location, where it remains as a prominent landmark and gateway into the county’s past.