100 years ago... Logan County and Upper Guyan

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The Roanoke Times article of 100 years ago confuses me.

I can understand that both N&W and C&O "were undoubtedly compelled" to join 
forces to meet the new Deepwater competition, given that both were under a 
Pennsylvania Railroad corporate umbrella at that time, and apparently they 
had a general gentlemen´s agreement about their respective territories.

What is confusing is about the Deepwater buying rights of way to connect 
with the Island Creek railroad at Holden.  Rogers of Deepwater did announce 
later the intention to build West (by Jack Feller´s account), but didn´t 
actually ask for permission to go west towards Gilbert until 1927, and 
anyway on my map, Holden is southwest of Logan, a not so convenient way 
station to go northwest up the valley, so how was it an "easy matter" for 
the Deepwater to connect with "them"?
According to Lambie (From Mine to Market), N&W and Deepwater came to an 
agreement on Guyandot Valley proposed lines at a "peace conference" in 
Oceana in 1904, which did not hold up later in reality, and didn´t inhibit 
the N&W along with the C&O to try to prevent the Virginian Rwy. from getting 
loans during the 1907 panic.   In 1907, N&W, through the Guyandot and Tug 
River Railroad, was securing the right of way through the whole upper 
valley, which seems to coincide or conflict with the newspaper´s atributing 
right of way purchases by the Deepwater as far as Holden.

Did it become clearer later who really was
putting in the coal transfer piers near Huntington, mentioned in the 
newspaper article?

Are we dealing with some typical journalistic mis-construing the situation 
or wishful thinking?

An even bigger puzzle to me is that given the competition to occupy the 
upper Guyandotte River, for both its own coal reserves and its convenience 
in moving coal both East and West, why so much time elapsed before it came 
about, the C&O not getting to Gilbert until 1923, with the N&W line from 
Wharncliffe and joint Gilbert yard with the Virginian until 1933?    After 
all, Jack Feller in his excellent compilations of South Mullens (then Guayan 
City or Mullins or Lambert) town history notes G&TR, C&O and Deepwater 
buying right of way in Wyoming County as early as 1902-4 (even referring to 
"the N&W shop").
Supposedly the WWI and Federal Control intervened, but a decade after the 
Oceana "peace conference", and then N&W and C&O (and according to Feller, 
NYC) attempts to lease the Virginian, separately or jointly, and finally a 
ICC decision in favor of the Virginian, but with surprising lapses in all of 
this given the more aggressive competitive occupying of other spaces.   A 
Feller extract says that real development along the Virginian line to 
Gilbert didn´t come about untili 1943.

Lambie says that the people of the territory (the valley?) preferred the 
Virginian as opposed to the C&O or N&W, but the Feller journalistic extracts 
from that period report more audacious and home spun tactics by the 
Deepwater right of way purchasers in present Mullens itself.

Finally, what are the real reasons for the curious present weed grown 
abandonment of use of the tracks connecting CSX and NS across Gilbert?



Subject: 100 years ago...



> Roanoke Times - February 16, 1907

>

> RAILROAD ACTIVITY IN LOGAN COUNTY

>

>   Bluefield, W.Va., Feb 15 - That railroad development in this state

> is in its infancy is an indisputable fact. The state is experiencing

> an era in railroad development which is only seconded by the unusual

> activity in the opening of coal and timber lands.

>   The latest developments are taking place in and about Logan. The

> Chesapeake and Ohio, the Norfolk and Western, the Deepwater and the

> Island Creek railroads are all trying to secure inlets and outlets to

> this territory in which many new leases are being opened.

>   The Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio appear to be

> working in conjunction to secure eastern and western outlets from

> this new field.

>   The Chesapeake and Ohio has a corps of engineers located at the

> mouth of Buffalo Creek. These men, it is thought, are planning a road

> up Gilbert Creek and then down Ben Creek to connect about

> Wharnecliffe with the Norfolk and Western.

>   The Norfolk and Western, it is said, will extend along the

> Pinnacle Fork of the Guyandotte down to the mouth of the Gilbert

> Creek, where they can secure a western outlet over the Chesapeake and 

> Ohio.

>   In this way it is expected that this entire territory will be opened up.

>   The Norfolk and Western would have a western outlet while both

> roads will secure eastern privileges, by throwing their tonnage over

> the main line of the Norfolk and Western down the Big Sandy.

>   The Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio were

> undoubtedly compelled to join forces to meet the action of the new 

> Deepwater.

>   The Deepwater has bought the rights of way to connect with the

> Island Creek railroad at Holden.

>   The Island Creek railroad is owned by the United States Coal and

> Coke Company, a subsidiary of the Standard Oil interests are back of

> the Deepwater, it is thought that they will build a branch line to

> connect with the Island Creek railroad and go along Guyan Valley, and

> by this route reach Huntington.

>   The Deepwater or some line is putting in piers near Huntington for

> the evident purpose of transferring coal to barges, which ply the

> river at that point.

>   The Island Creek railroad already covers the territory between

> Logan and Holden and it will be an easy matter for the Deepwater to

> connect with them at that point and in this way have considerable say

> in the fixing of rates for carrying coal from this immediate tract of

> coal lands.

>   Then again they will secure a cheap western outlet because they

> will be able to load coal on barges at Huntington, shipping to

> various points by water, while the Norfolk and Western and Chesapeake

> and Ohio will be compelled to haul overland by a more difficult route.

>   It is difficult to understand the actions of the various

> railroads, as the plans are in their infancy and no official

> information can be secured. It is very evident that something is

> being done which will undoubtedly affect most materially the

> prosperity of Logan county.

>   Judging from the present activity the town of Logan will shortly

> receive an impetus which will undoubtedly place it in a class with

> other West Virginia towns which have doubled and trebled and in many

> cases quadrupled their population since the last census.

>   The advent of the Deepwater and Tidewater has probably done more

> than anything else to open up the state and develop it to such an

> extent that last year it ranked second as a coal producing state.

>

> Ron Davis

>

>

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