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Book explores little-known chapter of region’s railroading history
Many people recognize the names of the three mainline railroads that served this region in the heyday of railroading -- the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O), the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) and the Norfolk & Western (N&W). But the region was home to a number of other, smaller rail lines. Among them was the Kanawha & Michigan Railroad (K&M) that linked Ohio and West Virginia more than a century ago.
Huntington rail fan Donald L. Mills Jr. has spent a decade researching the Kanawha & Michigan. The result of his efforts is his newly published book, "The Kanawha & Michigan Railroad: Bridgeline to the Lakes, 1888-1922," a comprehensive word-and-picture account of a little-known chapter of the region's railroading history.
A self-described "coal miner's son born on Buffalo Creek in Logan County," Mills grew up in Wayne County, graduated from Ceredo-Kenova High School and went on to Marshall University, where he earned a B.A. in social studies and safety education and a Master's Degree in safety. Now retired, he's a former member of the Marshall faculty.
Interested in trains since he was a youngster, Mills is a 25-year member of the National Railway Historical Society and its Collis P. Huntington Chapter. He's the president of the Eastern Kentucky Railway Historical Society and a member of the C&O and N&W historical societies. He met his late wife, Patty, on a rail fan trip to the Ohio State Fair.
As fellow Huntington rail fan Bob Withers notes in his Foreword to Mills' book, it's easy to find information about the larger, better-known railroads "but the inside stories of the tiny, long-obsolete lines such as the K&M often remain elusive."
Today, most railroads are shrinking -- they're abandoning sections of track they don't deem sufficiently profitable. But Mills' account of the K&M takes readers back to a day when railroads were busily laying new track that overnight turned sleepy little places into thriving towns.
Despite the "Michigan" in its name, the K&M had no tracks in that state. Beginning at Corning in Perry County, Ohio, the Ohio Central Railroad, the predecessor of the K&M, extended its track on a roughly southerly course, serving the region's many coal mines. It depended on connecting rail lines to carry the coal north to Great Lakes customers.
Reaching the Ohio River, the railroad originally crossed to Point Pleasant, W.Va., by ferry. The first rail bridge across the Ohio there was built in the 1880s. One of the stockholders in the company that built it was Hetty Green (1834-1916), the notorious "Witch of Wall Street" who was said to the richest woman of her day.
In 1919, the K&M replaced the original span with a new bridge that remains in use today. When the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant collapsed on Dec. 15, 1967, taking 46 lives, the nearby K&M bridge was pressed into service to carry commuter rail traffic across the Ohio until a replacement highway bridge could be constructed.
From Point Pleasant, the railroad pushed its track on through Putnam County and into Kanawha County, serving communities such as Buffalo, Red House, Poca, Raymond City and Dunbar.
Although coal was the mainstay of the K&M, it also did a brisk business hauling oil, chemicals and passengers.
In 1883, the first Ohio Central (later K&M) train arrived in Charleston. In 1897, the railroad built a handsome Charleston depot. The depot at the north end of Broad Street, Mills explains, "marked the line of demarcation between the city's residential and industrial districts." It was demolished in 1975. The only surviving portion is an old railroad warehouse that's now the indoor part of the city's Capitol Market complex.
In 1893, the railroad completed an extension to Gauley Bridge, in Fayette County, thus linking the West Virginia coal fields with the Great Lakes.
The C&O bought a controlling interest in the K&M in 1910, hoping to make it part of a projected rail route to the Great Lakes, but the anti-trust laws forced the C&O to abandon its plan.
In 1917, the U.S. government embarked on building a huge military explosives plant -- and a town to house the plant's workers -- at a site that would become known as Nitro, W.Va. The project, Mills says, was a "temporary gold mine" for the K&M. Everything needed to build the plant and the town was delivered to the site by the K&M. Construction at Nitro continued for a year, with the K&M delivering more than 100 carloads of material every day of that year. And, of course, such a mammoth project required thousands of construction workers, with virtually all of them traveling by rail.
"People find it hard to believe me when I tell them that at one point the K&M was regularly running a 21-car commuter train between Charleston and Nitro," Mills says.
In 1922, the K&M leased its line to the New York Central System (NYC). Eventually, it became a part of the NYC. Later, the old railroad was operated by Conrail. Today, it's part of the Norfolk Southern Railway.
"The Kanawha & Michigan Railroad" is available for purchase at local bookstores, at Amazon.com or from Publishers Place, 821 4th Ave., Suite 201, Huntington WV 25701. The price is $35 plus $3 for shipping and handling.
James E. Casto is the retired associate editor of The Herald-Dispatch and the author of a number of books on local history, including "Towboat on the Ohio," recently republished by the University Press of Kentucky in a paperback edition.
