Building The Virginian Railway - Southern West Virginia Natural Resources

Southern West Virginia Natural Resources

In the expansion westward of the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, transportation was largely via rivers, canals, and other waterways. European moving westward often bypassed settling in the mountainous and wooded regions of western Virginia (much of which became the newly-formed State of West Virginia in 1863) to reach the valley of the Ohio River, and the fertile plains beyond. The Native Americans and early European settlers were aware of coal deposits throughout the area, and some had small personal mines. However, timber was the only natural resource which was practical to export as a product until the railroads emerged as a transportation mode beginning in the 1830s. The earliest railroad to build through the area which is now southern West Virginia was the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), whose leader, Collis P. Huntington (1821–1900), was initially focused on creating a transcontinental route and only later developed coal opportunities and the great railroad shipping locations at Newport News, Virginia and on the Great Lakes. Building west from Covington, Virginia, the C&O largely followed a water-level route along the Greenbrier, New, and Kanawha Rivers, opening access to the New River Coalfield. To the south, following through and refining plans initially developed by William Mahone (1826–1895) and others, Frederick J. Kimball (1838–1903) is credited with developing the famous Pocahontas coalfields for the owners of the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) who also controlled large tracts of land in the area.

In an area of southern West Virginia not yet reached by either the C&O or the N&W, there was land owned by many others, including Peter Cooper (1791–1883) and Abram S. Hewitt (1822–1903) (or their estates and heirs), Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840–1909) and William Nelson Page (1854–1932). While the others were based in northern cities (Hewitt was a mayor of New York City, Rogers a vice president of Standard Oil headquartered in New York City), Page lived and worked nearby.

Locally known as "Colonel" Page, and trained as a civil engineer, William Nelson Page came to West Virginia in the early 1870s to help build the C&O, and made the mountain state his home. He lived in Ansted a tiny mountain hamlet in Fayette County on the old James River and Kanawha Turnpike (now known as the Midland Trail).

Col. Page was a protégé of Dr. David T. Ansted, the British geologist for whom the town of Ansted had been named in 1873. Dr. Ansted, a noted professor in England, owned land in the area, had studied the coal deposits, and had written several books. Page was involved many coal, timber, and railroad projects. He managed a number of coal and iron projects which were owned by northern U.S. and overseas investors. Among these, he was head of Gauley Mountain Coal Company, whose carpenters he had build a palatial white mansion on a hilltop in the center of town, where he lived with his wife Emma Gilham Page and their four children.

• See also featured article William Nelson Page