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<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS">Bluefield Daily Telegraph<BR>April 22,
1909</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4>VIRGINIAN IS IN SWADDLING CLOTHES
YET</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>-----</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>Dress Suit Stage of Its Career Will Present Front That
Will Startle Industrial World</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>GREAT POSSIBILITIES STRAIN THE
INTELLECT</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center>Bunch of Short Lines Projected Will Reach Every Inch of the
Finest Undeveloped Coal Fields in the World</DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center>SURVEYING PARTIES DOING DUTY ALL OVER TERRITORY</DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left> Pineville, W. Va., April 21 (Special)</DIV>
<DIV align=left> When two ribbons of blue steel traverse the
blazed trail of the surveyors and engineers the Virginian coalfield will make
the Norfolk and Western and the Chesapeake and Ohio outfits look like infant
industries struggling for an existence. The enterprise is as yet in its
swaddling attire and ere it reaches the dress suit stage of its career it will
present a front that will startle the industrial world. The magnitude of
the possibilities that present themselves for absorption by the Virginian
strains the intellect and guides the imagination into bewildering channels, and
when the things in sight are accomplished, this section will enjoy an era of
prosperity certainly unequalled in the annals of West Virginia industry.
As has been told over and over again, the territory on which H. H. Rogers and
his associates have a grip, is underlaid with four seams of the Pocahontas
variety of soft coal--admitted to be the finest yet discovered--and the
Virginian is going after it with a bunch of short lines and branches that
will reach every inch of it, and when the field is thus covered the road will
possess mileage in this state double that of the present. Three years from
now will see the locomotives in what are now almost inaccessible mountain
fastnesses and coal tipples will decorate hillsides where once wild beasts
roamed as monarchs of all they surveyed. There are something like a
million acres of undeveloped coal territory and virgin timber lands to be tapped
by this new enterprise. The number of branch lines to be built and
operated is yet a question, but the casual observer figures on a goodly number
as there are surveying parties doing duty all over the territory, and of course
they are not climbing mountains and wading rivers for their health.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> The road may be "bottled up" in the mountains
of West Virginia, but since it was never intended for anything but a coal
carrying enterprise, it doubtless has the only outlet ever anticipated, and no
other is probably contemplated or desired.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> Logging has ever been quite an industry in
this section, but in most instances only timber adjacent to the rivers has been
tampered with and there yet remain millions of feet of standing timber that will
become available upon the arrival of the railroad, and the lumber business will
be of considerable proportions and will add materially to the Virginian's
tonnage, for saw mills of various capacities will spring up here and there all
over the district. The counties in which the road operates and will
operate are rich in rough products almost beyond the dreams of avarice, and
while most of the property has been grabbed up by "heartless corporations," the
natives will nevertheless get their share of the prosperity that will soon sweep
upon them.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> Although the taxpayers of Wyoming county
voted down the proposition to issue bonds to build a courthouse at Pineville,
the county court has taken up the matter and has purchased the handsomest piece
of property in town, paying therefor the sum of $10,000, and work on a court
house building to cost in the neighborhood of $50,000 will begin in the near
future. Tax assessors are now abroad in the land, and they are valuing
things up in the pictures, and the total figures will make last year's tax
statistics look like an original tariff bill after it has been tampered
with by both houses of congress.</DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=left>[<EM>I wish I had a way with words like some of these early
reporters.</EM>]</DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Script size=6>Gordon
Hamilton</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>