N&W in 1909--Excursions

[NW Mailing List]

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
July 27, 1909

BUSINESS MEN URGE EXCURSION FROM NORFOLK
------
Tidewater Virginians Would Doubtless Welcome Opportunity to See Mountains and Blazing Coke Ovens

    There is a movement on foot among the business men of Bluefield to run an excursion from Norfolk to the coalfields in the near future.  It is argued that a trip to Bluefield and the neighboring coal operations would be vastly of more interest to the average resident of Norfolk than a trip to Norfolk would be to the citizen of Bluefield.  It is urged that probably a majority percent of the people of Bluefield have been to Norfolk or have seen the ocean at some point or other, while the people of Norfolk and surrounding country who have seen a coke oven or a coal operation would figure as a very small percent.  Yet excursions to Norfolk are of frequent occurrence, while there never has been an excursion from Norfolk to the coalfields.  Besides the attractions in the matter of sightseeing which the coalfields hold out along New River and the entire line of the proposed excursion, the scenery is unrivalled in the entire Atlantic slope.  All these things would be of consuming interest to the clam digger, and he would probably avail himself of the opportunity of seeing them if attractive excursion rates were given.
    The present plan, if the Norfolk and Western people will agree to it, is to have the special train leave Norfolk early in the morning, reach Bluefield by early candle lighting, and allow the excursionists to remain over night.  The next morning to leave Bluefield and proceed to Gary, the location of the United States Steel Company's plant.  Returning at night the excursionists would have an opportunity to see the coke ovens along the line in full blast, lighting the hills and valleys along the route.  The average clam digger or tidewater webfoot never saw anything like this and the business men of Bluefield think it would be of more interest to him than the ocean, the roads where the Monitor and Merrimac rammed  each other, or the old church which the British fired a cannon ball about the size of man's fist into, or Virginia Beach, Ocean View or the rest.  Bluefield is solicited, the people say, to gaze upon these sights semi-periodically, yet Norfolk has never been asked, "excursionatically" speaking, to view greater sights in the black diamond belt.
------
[I wonder how the "clam diggers" and "webfoots" would have responded if the proposed excursion ad would have addressed them as such?]

Gordon Hamilton
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20090417/e1b2027f/attachment-0001.html>