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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Tunga>Bluefield Daily Telegraph<BR>January 7,
1910</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=5>MUCH INTEREST TAKEN IN PLANS OF
VIRGINIAN</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG><FONT size=4>Maps Filed in Clerk's Office For Two
Routes Through County</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4><STRONG>DICKENSON COUNTY COALFIELD
OBJECTIVE</STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>One Plan Calls for Line Along Foothills of East River
Mountain and Through Bluefield and Graham to St. Clair</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>NORFOLK AND WESTERN SURVEY TO PRINCETON</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left> The Norfolk and Western has finished
surveying a line to Princeton from Oakvale. About twenty-five engineers
have been on the ground for some time working out a route from Oakvale to the
county seat and another corps has been working out a route from Ingleside to
Princeton.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> These plans are only in line with a route
which was recorded in the clerk's office some years ago but whether the Norfolk
and Western will take a route through Princeton to the Widemouth territory is
not known. The men who worked on the route for about a month were silent
about any plans which the railroad might have and the people of Princeton only
know that the survey has been made.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> It was also leaned yesterday that the
Virginian has filed maps in the clerk's office for two routes through Mercer
county both of which are intended to reach the coal in Dickenson county,
Va.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> One of these routes will pass through
Bluefield, following the foothills of the East River mountain from Ingleside to
this city and from here through Graham to a point in Virginia near St. Clair or
Cedar Bluff. The Virginian has also filed a map of another line which will
run from Princeton to some point on the main line where it will turn down into
the Walton property at Falls Mills. From there the route is problematical,
as it will go into Virginia, but it was said yesterday that the plan was to go
up the hollow at Falls Mills and from there go over into Dickenson county
through some route which had been planned on a geological contour map. As
is known this is the same plan as was followed in the building of the
Virginian.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> A third route for the Virginian, maps for
which have been filed, is to take the road from Rock over to Pocahontas and from
there up Laurel Creek and over into the Virginia coal which seems to be the
objective point in all the plans of all of the roads that are coming through
this section. A man who is acquainted with the records in the clerk's
office said yesterday that the Norfolk and Western has a map filed for a route
from Ingleside to Bluefield through South Bluefield but as the local road has
its main line located on the north side of the city it is unlikely that it would
build through South Bluefield.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> Considerable interest is being taken in the
plans of the Virginian on account of the fact that the people believe that the
road intends to pass through this city and it looks as if it were up to the
chamber of commerce to have the road adopt a route through this city instead of
through another part of the county several miles from Bluefield.</DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=left>[<EM>I wonder if the maps referred to are still in the Clerk's
office?</EM>]</DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left>Gordon Hamilton</DIV></BODY></HTML>