Iron Horse Records launched in 2006 under the auspices of athensmusic.net. As the parent company's name might suggest, Iron Horse was designed to showcase new, old, unreleased, and upcoming music... from our hometown and music capital of the world Athens, GA.
 
The co-owners, Troy Aubrey and Jeff Montgomery, have been Athens music evangelists for years and wanted to find a way to make great Athens music available once again or for the first time to everyone who could hear it. It follows closely with the athensmusic.net mission to educate the world about Athens music and support the bands that come from the Classic City, both new and old.
 
Athens, GA is the home of the University of Georgia and it's 30,000+ students. Iron Horse Records takes its name from a particular piece of 'modern art' that was unveiled on the campus in front of Reed Hall in 1954 by artist-in-residence Abbott Pattison. The 12-foot, 2-ton welded metal sculpture was a new - and not necessarily welcomed - type of art for a small Southern town.
 
Students painted it, put hay in its mouth and manure behind it, set a mattress aflame under it, and constructed a wooden mockery of it dubbed the "$5000 Modern Mule."
 
''I was struck with the idea of ancient Athens where people lived with sculpture all around them, and even if they didn't like it, they left it alone.," said Pattison to the Atlanta Journal on May 28, 1954."I wanted Athens, Ga., to have a piece of sculpture to look at. And I think the least I could have expected, even if they didn't like it, was a little Southern courtesy.''
 
The horse was subsequently removed from campus and put in hiding for a while. In 1958, L.C. Curtis of the University Horitculture Department offered to put the horse on his land in a Greene County field 18 miles outside of town. It has remained there since December 1959 along an expansive curve of road, visible to anyone who drives by.
 
L.C.'s son Jack told the Athens Banner-Herald that they had to put the feet in concrete in the '60s to keep it from being tipped over so often by pranksters. Despite some mild attempts to bring the Iron Horse back to UGA and Athens, the horse has only grown in legend while remaining proudly attached to the Curtis' farm. Go take a look at it.
 
We hope Iron Horse Records is welcomed a little differently in town, but it makes for a great story that illustrates the juxtaposition sometimes in Athens with the music and arts scene, the Southern climate, and the student body. But that's what makes Athens...