1904 Dry Fork Extension is Let to Contract

[NW Mailing List]

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
November 16, 1904
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After postment several times the Dry Fork Extension of the Norfolk and 
Western
Railway was let to contract last Saturday to the following firms.  J.W. 
Oliver
and Company get the upper fifteen miles and the last fifteen is divided 
between
Lane Brothers, Walton, Witten & Graham and Boxley and Company.  This new
line will use the roadbed of what is now the Iaeger-Southern its length, 
five miles,
but it will be reconstructed, many change being made, as this road when 
built was
expected to be temporary and not permanent.  Work will begin on the 
construction
of this railway at once and be pushed to completion.  It will traverse one 
of the richest
coal fields in the state, which owing to the greater territiory, may in a 
few years exceed
the production of the Elkhorn field and its branches.  The new field that 
this route will
develop does not commence proper untill above Perryville, which for many 
years was
the county seat of McDowell.

The junction of the new line will be at Iaeger, twenty three miles west of 
Welch, and will
extend into Tazewell County, going to the town of Pocahontas, a distance 
from Iaeger
of fifty-five miles, the survey for the entire line having already been 
made.  It is predicted
by those who are familar with the situation that this will eventually  be 
the main line and that
the road which is now the main line through the Elkhorn field will be 
numbered with the
numerous branches of thsi great railway system.

There will be a numbe rof branches from this new line, four of which are 
already contemplated.
Only one tunnel will be necessary in its construction and it will be within 
five miles of Iaeger, and
only 400 feet long.

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Alex Schust