A closer look
James A Garfield was desperately rushed to the New Jersey shore after being shot by an assassin in eighteen eighty-one, requiring engineers to frantically build an entirely new railroad spur overnight just to deliver the dying president directly to his beach house. Over two thousand local townspeople essentially threw a massive construction party, ripping up standard tracks and laying down over three thousand feet of iron rail right up to the front door of his cottage in less than twenty-four hours. Despite their incredible logistical miracle, Garfield's doctors had already doomed him by constantly poking his wounds with unwashed fingers, meaning the president eventually died anyway. Still, the fact that an impromptu team of volunteers built a functioning railway overnight puts your city's ten-year highway expansion project into a truly depressing perspective
