Overall, I found the magazine informative and enjoyable…a definite “well done” goes to the staff.
I was a little surprised that there was such scant mention of the really big coal companies, it always seems like there are a couple prominent names that always come up when talking about West Virginia lore.
One item that left me wanting for more, was the discussion about George Jay Gould, and his acquisition of the West Virgina Central. I understand completely why he bought the Western Maryland, he wanted an eastern outlet for his Wabash into Pittsburgh, but following the story as written if the WM was in place from Cumberland and on eastward, of what value was the West Virginia Central to his transcon ambition?
Another great issue!! I would like to visit West Virginia and see all its beauty.
Can anyone tell me why the “panhandle” of West Virginia was created I know that the western counties of Virginia broke away from that state during the Civil War. How wide is it?
From the story I gathered that the Washington mucky-mucks were uncomfortable having the B&O line running west through Confederate (enemy) territory, and persuaded the counties now making up the Eastern Panhandle to join in with West Virginia’s desire to rejoin the union. Thus the coveted B&O line ended up in the Union friendly West Virginia, not in Virginia proper that was Confederate.
I had always understood that the move to secede from Virginia came from the people who lived in the western part of the state, and had never heard that the route of the B&O had anything to do with it.
As to the western Panhandle, when the coastal states gave up their lands in the West, after the Revolution, the people of the state of Virginia insisted that the Ohio, Big Sandy and the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy Rivers be the western boundary. There was quite a dispute with Pennsylvania about the area above the Mason-Dixon line, and it was settled by declaring the western boundary of Pennsylvania would be a little west of the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongohela Rivers.
For further, more detailed information on these matters, I recommend How the States Got Their Shapes, by Mark Stein, Smithsonian Books, 2008. The B&O is not mentioned, except that it runs through three counties in the Shenandoah Valley (the valley was called the Granary of the Confederacy) and continued to the Ohio River, and Congress stole these three counties from Virginia even though the residents of these counties had not voted to secede from Virginia at the time that the residents of the other counties in what is now West Virginia voted to become a separate state (there had been attempts before 1861 to become a separate state, but they had failed).
Quite as an aside, the task of wheeling West Virginia could be difficult.
Being raised in the northern panhandle the old wife’s tale about the northern panhandle was because the Mason-Dixon surveyors met unfriendly Indians and turned north to reach the Ohio river. I do not believe this to be correct ans subscribe to the story of the argument between Pennsylvania and Virginia as to how to handle the panhandle area. I think they turned north and tried to split the area between the Ohio and Mongahela rivers.
This group of pictures exemplify how I remember my one visit to the state. Rode up to Bald Knob the first day, and hung around the next morning for more photography. The two Shays struggled on the steepest part of the grade coming into Whittaker - I could hear each exhaust beat! I wanted to experience a Shay, and was well rewarded.
I got a real kick out of the CSX ad on the back cover. Tooting it’s own horn for repainting trackside communities in the name of neighborliness. Reading that in context with the “CSX paint your bridge” thread here elsewhere, was a good chuckle.
George Jay Gould’s obituary in The New York Times gives a fairly good account of his railroad career. It talks about his efforts to get to the eastern seaboard but does not specifically refer to the West Virginia Central Railroad. Most of all, he seems to have lacked his father’s negotiating ability and so lost out to his enemies. He also had a legal battle with his brothers and sisters over his father’s estate. Here is a link: http://www.oldpokerchips.com/NonNevada/Gould.htm
You might want to read the sidebar on page 30 of the August Issue, titled “How Railroads Helped Create the State in 1863”, because the way it reads, it appears that there was a second “Wheeling Conference” where those eastern counties did willingly decide to rejoin the Union (by becoming part of the new West Virginia.
An additional curio regarding info provided in the magazine.
The Magazine mentions Colis P. Huntington’s involvement with the C&O as being his eastern leg for a “Gould style” coast to coast transcon. But everytime I google Huntington in context with a transcon, I get sent to sites specific to the Central Pacific.
If Huntington wanted the C&O as an eastern terminus for a transcon monopoly, what lines in the mid west was he planning to use to bridge westward from the C&O?
Don’t forget that the C&O had its own line into Chicago, its own tracks to Hammond and then trackage rights into the city. Beteen Chicago and Omaha-Council Bluffs, no problem, since five railroads competed for the through traffic. But at one time was not he involved with the IC?
You’re correct–Huntngton died in 1900; the Chicago, Cincinnati & Louisville became the C&O of Indiana about ten years or so later.
Check out the name “Newport News & Mississippi Valley”. This was an affiliation of the C&O with at least predecessors of the Illinois Central; connections would have been via Louisville (which C&O itself didn’t reach directly, but something must have been done).
C&O did have a relationship with IC in the early part of the 20th Century. Before it joined the Erie line at HY Tower to go into Chicago, it had a good facility of its own right there in Hammond, and its own line, the Hammond Belt, west into Illinois, then curving up into Burnham before joining the IC main line via a connection with the IC at Dolton/Riverdale. Until a few years ago it was possible to see a small portion of this roadbed at Burnham or Calumet City (on the road that runs south of the IHB, east of Torrance, but new housing has obliterated it or otherwise made it unrecognizable.
Thanks for the information about C.P.Huntington; I did not think he had anything to do with the C&O of Indiana.
As to the Newport News & Mississippi Valley, whose main track ran from Louisville to Memphis, it was absorbed by the IC after June, 1893, and then provided the IC with an entry to Memphis from the north. In Memphis, it connected with the Louisville New Orleans & Texas, which by June of 1893 was known as the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley, and was in the IC family. By this time, the IC had absorbed the original Mississippi Central, which ran from Memphis to Grenada; after the IC absorbed the NN&MV, it ran most of its Chicago-New Orleans trains through Memphis, even though this routing was about ten miles longer.
As to C&O’s entry into Louisville, it had reached Lexington by June of 1893, and had through service into Louisville over the L&N (yes, Carl, something had been done[:)]).
