Virginian in 1910--Plans

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
January 7, 1910

MUCH INTEREST TAKEN IN PLANS OF VIRGINIAN
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Maps Filed in Clerk's Office For Two Routes Through County
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DICKENSON COUNTY COALFIELD OBJECTIVE
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One Plan Calls for Line Along Foothills of East River Mountain and Through Bluefield and Graham to St. Clair
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NORFOLK AND WESTERN SURVEY TO PRINCETON

    The Norfolk and Western has finished surveying a line to Princeton from Oakvale.  About twenty-five engineers have been on the ground for some time working out a route from Oakvale to the county seat and another corps has been working out a route from Ingleside to Princeton.
    These plans are only in line with a route which was recorded in the clerk's office some years ago but whether the Norfolk and Western will take a route through Princeton to the Widemouth territory is not known.  The men who worked on the route for about a month were silent about any plans which the railroad might have and the people of Princeton only know that the survey has been made.
    It was also leaned yesterday that the Virginian has filed maps in the clerk's office for two routes through Mercer county both of which are intended to reach the coal in Dickenson county, Va.
    One of these routes will pass through Bluefield, following the foothills of the East River mountain from Ingleside to this city and from here through Graham to a point in Virginia near St. Clair or Cedar Bluff.  The Virginian has also filed a map of another line which will run from Princeton to some point on the main line where it will turn down into the Walton property at Falls Mills.  From there the route is problematical, as it will go into Virginia, but it was said yesterday that the plan was to go up the hollow at Falls Mills and from there go over into Dickenson county through some route which had been planned on a geological contour map.  As is known this is the same plan as was followed in the building of the Virginian.
    A third route for the Virginian, maps for which have been filed, is to take the road from Rock over to Pocahontas and from there up Laurel Creek and over into the Virginia coal which seems to be the objective point in all the plans of all of the roads that are coming through this section.  A man who is acquainted with the records in the clerk's office said yesterday that the Norfolk and Western has a map filed for a route from Ingleside to Bluefield through South Bluefield but as the local road has its main line located on the north side of the city it is unlikely that it would build through South Bluefield.
    Considerable interest is being taken in the plans of the Virginian on account of the fact that the people believe that the road intends to pass through this city and it looks as if it were up to the chamber of commerce to have the road adopt a route through this city instead of through another part of the county several miles from Bluefield.
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[I wonder if the maps referred to are still in the Clerk's office?]

Gordon Hamilton
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