Peninsula Extension - Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway

Opening at the outset of the final quarter of the 19th century, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) was the fulfillment of a long-held goal of Virginians.

Many years before the American Revolution, George Washington, a Virginian licensed as a surveyor by the College of William and Mary during the colonial era, identified the importance of a transportation link between the navigable waters flowing to the Atlantic Ocean and those across the Eastern Continental Divide in the Allegheny Mountains which lead to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. He had mapped out several potential routes, and in 1785, he been an early investor in a canal venture.

The James River was navigable east from fall line at Richmond and Manchester to Hampton Roads, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. However, from these sister cities at the head of navigation, seven miles (11 km) of rapids marked the transition to the Piedmont Region, and only very shallow craft such as bateau boats could navigate portions of the river from that point west. Over 250 miles (400 km) from Richmond, across the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Shenandoah Valley, and what was called the "Transmountaine" region in old Virginia, better known in modern times as the Alleghany Mountains, were the falls of the Kanawha River. They similarly marked the head of navigation, but from the west. From the falls of the Kanawha, ships could follow the river to its confluence with the Ohio River, which in turn, flowed west to the Mississippi River. In the earlier periods during which a transportation link was contemplated, the Colony of Virginia (according to the British and its own calculations) extended all the way to west to what is now Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers join. Of course, transportation was the only obstacle to developing these western regions, as both the French and the Indians did not see it the same way.

In any event, that 250-mile (400 km) gap in the navigable waters became a major focus for Virginians. By the end of the 18th century, efforts to link these heads of navigation were underway with building of turnpikes and canals. Work on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike and the James River and Kanawha Canal, prominent infrastructure improvements, was partially funded by the Virginia General Assembly through the Virginia Board of Public Works, although the canal was never completed. By the 1830s, railroads were an emerging as a favorable technology for such purposes, and Virginia's network of turnpikes, canals and railroads grew, substantially guided by the civil engineering skills of Claudius Crozet. Both railroads and canals had conquered the Blue Ridge Mountains and entered the Shenandoah Valley region when the American Civil War broke out in 1861, bringing new work to a virtual halt. By the end of the War in 1865, many of Virginia's railroads, turnpikes and canals lay in ruins, although the related debt which had helped fund building them was still outstanding.

After the War, part of Virginia had been subdivided to form the new state of West Virginia. Both states were heavily in debt, but wanted to encourage completion of a rail link to the Ohio River, which they saw as vital to rebuilding and expanding commerce. To do without government funding, the state legislatures of both Virginia and West Virginia tried to attract investors several times in 1866 and 1867. Finally, under a plan offered by the Virginia General Assembly, in 1868, the new project was merged with the extant Virginia Central Railroad, connected Richmond with the westernmost point at the time. The new enterprise was to be known as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O).

The head of the Virginia Central Railroad was former Confederate General Williams Carter Wickham of Hanover County, Virginia. He was a descendant of several former Virginia governors and the grandson of constitutional lawyer John Wickham, who had set up shop in Richmond after the American Revolutionary War and served as a respected agent of financial interests in England and Scotland. However, in the volatile period of the late 1860s, General Wickham failed in his efforts to secure either southern or British financing as had been hoped. Finally, he journeyed to New York City, where he successfully attracted the interest of industrialist Collis P. Huntington and gained access to the new financing needed. Huntington had been one of the "Big Four", the men involved in building the Central Pacific portion of the Transcontinental Railroad, which was at that time just reaching completion.

Under the new leadership and financing, during 1869-1873 the hard work of building through West Virginia was done with large crews working from both ends, much in the manner the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad had been built to complete their transcontinental rails.

The final spike ceremony for the 428-mile (689 km) long line from Richmond to the Ohio River was held on January 29, 1873 at Hawk's Nest railroad bridge in the New River Valley, near the town of Ansted in Fayette County, West Virginia.