N&W in 1907 -- Early Bluefield

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
November 10, 1907

BROKE DIRT FOR THE CITY OF BLUEFIELD
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    What Has Happened Since the Moving Work First Began on the Round House
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    INTERESTING HISTORY OF THE FIRST DAYS OF THRIVING CITY
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    Anything that treats of the early history of a city, even as young as Bluefield, is always a matter of great interest to those who are proud of the growth of the city they helped to build.
    Ground was broken for the round house in this city on February 17th, 1888.  Three well known Bluefield men did the work.  They were J. S. Thompson, George P. White and Isaac Brayer.  At that time there was one track through what is now the city of Bluefield--the main line and one switch, which would hold about fifty cars.  The Higginbotham house, which stood on the hill, which was removed a few years ago, making the Red Lot square and the Davidson house, which still stands in the Hicks addition, were the only houses here at that time.  John P. Pettyjohn had a contract to erect thirty company houses and the hotel known as the Bluefield Inn.  Bluefield had no depot, only a box car by the track and the place was a flag stop.
    It seems almost miraculous that in the short time elapsing since then such a city could have sprung up on this mountain top, and that the railroad traffic has become so large that Bluefield now has one of the largest yards south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi.
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[If this account is true, it is surprising that Bluefield had only one main track and one siding almost five years after the coal started moving through there.]

Gordon Hamilton 
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