Engine coal question

[NW Mailing List]

On Fri, Jul 20, 2012 at 2:03 PM, someone wrote:


> Regarding the engine coal question raised earlier and the post from  Bruce

> in Blacksburg regarding the Empire Mine:

>

> I feel fairly certain that the Empire Mine and the Altoona Mine were two

> different mines located on slightly different areas of Little Walker Mountain.

>  Every source I've found indicates that it was the Altonna Coal & Iron

> Company that constructed the narrow-gauge railroad leading from the

> Virginia & Tennessee RR at Martin's Station (present-day Pulaski) to the

> mine site known as the "Altoona mine" in 1878.

>


Right. I never said they were the same or operated at the same time. I did
a quick check of various historic topo maps I have and the 1887 maps shows
the narrow-gauge line and Altoona Mines up Altoona Branch (a creek). Where
Brookmont Rd. meets Robinson Tract Rd., the line took a sharp bend to the
west to reach the mine. On later maps (one was from the '30s, I'm not able
to check right now) there is no trace of Altoona Mine, but the line headed
in a more northerly direction to reach Empire Mines. I probably have notes
about these somewhere in my personal research archives.

 A source from 1886 mentions the Belle Hamilton as being another mine

> operating near the Altoona mine and a 2003 source indicates that the Belle

> Hamilton mine was also known as the Empire mine.

>


Bad source, maybe. I've never seen a reference to "Belle Hamilton" in my
diggings. "Belle Hampton" was a mine north of Dublin (see
http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Pulaski/077-0003_Belle-Hampton_1989_Final_Nomination.pdffor
a description of the property). It worked the outcrop on Cloyd's
Mountain and was served by a narrow-gauge line from Churchwood (now
Belspring).

I'll gather what I have and eventually get a web page up with the maps and
notes.

Bruce in Blacksburg
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