No railroad company shall have the right, by surveying or locating its line of railroad, to defer building its line of railroad to the exclusion of other companies that may sooner and more certainly build upon such line of route, but the company which, in good faith, first actually constructs its road over such route, shall have preference in the location of the route.Acts 1899, ch. 399, § 1; Shan., § 1880a2; Code 1932, § 3147; T.C.A. (orig. ed.), § 65-607.
Tennessee Legal Code