Virginian in 1909--Possibilties

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
April 22, 1909

VIRGINIAN IS IN SWADDLING CLOTHES YET
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Dress Suit Stage of Its Career Will Present Front That Will Startle Industrial World
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GREAT POSSIBILITIES STRAIN THE INTELLECT
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Bunch of Short Lines Projected Will Reach Every Inch of the Finest Undeveloped Coal Fields in the World
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SURVEYING PARTIES DOING DUTY ALL OVER TERRITORY

    Pineville, W. Va., April 21 (Special)
    When two ribbons of blue steel traverse the blazed trail of the surveyors and engineers the Virginian coalfield will make the Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio outfits look like infant industries struggling for an existence.  The enterprise is as yet in its swaddling attire and ere it reaches the dress suit stage of its career it will present a front that will startle the industrial world.  The magnitude of the possibilities that present themselves for absorption by the Virginian strains the intellect and guides the imagination into bewildering channels, and when the things in sight are accomplished, this section will enjoy an era of prosperity certainly unequalled in the annals of West Virginia industry.  As has been told over and over again, the territory on which H. H. Rogers and his associates have a grip, is underlaid with four seams of the Pocahontas variety of soft coal--admitted to be the finest yet discovered--and the Virginian  is going after it with a bunch of short lines and branches that will reach every inch of it, and when the field is thus covered the road will possess mileage in this state double that of the present.  Three years from now will see the locomotives in what are now almost inaccessible mountain fastnesses and coal tipples will decorate hillsides where once wild beasts roamed as monarchs of all they surveyed.  There are something like a million acres of undeveloped coal territory and virgin timber lands to be tapped by this new enterprise.  The number of branch lines to be built and operated is yet a question, but the casual observer figures on a goodly number as there are surveying parties doing duty all over the territory, and of course they are not climbing mountains and wading rivers for their health.
    The road may be "bottled up" in the mountains of West Virginia, but since it was never intended for anything but a coal carrying enterprise, it doubtless has the only outlet ever anticipated, and no other is probably contemplated or desired.
    Logging has ever been quite an industry in this section, but in most instances only timber adjacent to the rivers has been tampered with and there yet remain millions of feet of standing timber that will become available upon the arrival of the railroad, and the lumber business will be of considerable proportions and will add materially to the Virginian's tonnage, for saw mills of various capacities will spring up here and there all over the district.  The counties in which the road operates and will operate are rich in rough products almost beyond the dreams of avarice, and while most of the property has been grabbed up by "heartless corporations," the natives will nevertheless get their share of the prosperity that will soon sweep upon them.
    Although the taxpayers of Wyoming county voted down the proposition to issue bonds to build a courthouse at Pineville, the county court has taken up the matter and has purchased the handsomest piece of property in town, paying therefor the sum of $10,000, and work on a court house building to cost in the neighborhood of $50,000 will begin in the near future.  Tax assessors are now abroad in the land, and they are valuing things up in the pictures, and the total figures will make last year's tax statistics look like an original tariff bill after it has been tampered with by both houses of congress.
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[I wish I had a way with words like some of these early reporters.]

Gordon Hamilton
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