Hot Contest in The "Breaks"

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Another gem from 1902…

Bruce in Blacksburg

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The Times (Richmond), Volume 17, Number 47, 3 April 1902, pg. 3

RIVAL ENGINEER CORPS AT WORK

A Hot Contest for Right of Way Through Mountain Pass in Dickenson County.

(Special Dispatch to The Times.)

CLINTWOOD, VA., April 2.— There is quite a railroad excitement in
Dickenson county just at this time.

The four streams—Pound, Crane's Nest, McClure and Russell's Fork
Rivers—which drain all of this county, come together and forms one
stream and is called the Russell's Fork of Big Sandy River, and this
river passes out of Dickenson coun- ty into Kentucky through a rough
gorge or canyon for some five miles through the Cumberland Mountain.
This gorge is known as the "Breaks" and is well known as one of the
points of interest in this part of the State.

This gorge is the only natural outlet for a railroad through the
county towards the Ohio River.

The railroads appreciate the fact that to hold this pass is a matter
of great advantage in reaching the fine undeveloped coal and timber of
Dickenson, which is regarded as fine as is to be found anywhere. The
fight is now on to hold this point between the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad and the Crane's Nest Coal and Coke Company. The former has
three corps of engineers and the latter two now in the "Breaks"
locating their lines and it is getting red hot in that end of the
county, and it is the news here that one or two other railroad lines
will have their engineers in there within the next week or ten days,
so we are likely to have some western excitement here for a time.

The people here have been watching with great interest the fight in
the Legislature of the Chesapeake and Ohio and Norfolk and Western
against the Gladesville Railroad charter. The people are favorable to
the Gladesville Railroad as they believe that this road means to build
and will greatly aid in the development of this section.