Early Raleigh County industrial history recalled

RALEIGH COUNTY, WV (LOOTPRESS)—An early Raleigh County industrial history recall will be honored with the unveiling of an official state historical marker at 9 a.m. on Thursday, June 27th.

Officials from the National Service Park (NPS) and the Raleigh County Historical Society (RCHS) will deliver remarks at the Raleigh County Industrial History dedication ceremony.

The location of the historical marker is just outside the entrance to the Grandview Section of New River Gorge National Park , on State Route 9 (Grandview Road). Members of the public are encouraged to attend the event, and carpooling is recommended. Raleigh County’s initial major industry was timbering rather than coal mining. Lumberjacks would harvest, process, and export timber, particularly white oak, to markets along the East Coast.

Timbering in Raleigh County became prominent in the 1890s. Lumber companies had to find innovative solutions to overcome challenging logistical barriers—a terrain known for its ruggedness, the absence of navigable rivers, and extremely primitive roads. However, an opportunity arose with the construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway, which was extended through the New River Gorge in 1872.

The C&O established a significant depot on New River at Quinnimont in neighboring Fayette County. James Robert Beaty was a pioneering figure in Raleigh County’s timbering industry. In 1891, he constructed a circular sawmill at Crow and devised two methods to transport milled products to the depot.

Firstly, the company implemented a tram or wooden railway to Grandview, utilizing mules, horses, or oxen as driving forces. Raleigh County clerk records indicate that Beaty obtained an easement for a tramway or another road across Raleigh Coal & Coke land from S. F. Carper’s property to the New River.

This transaction also included the right to establish a lumber storage site and a monitor or incline on top of the mountain overlooking the gorge—a monitor being a structure designed to safely transfer lumber and other materials down a steep slope or cliff, in this case, approximately 1,950 feet down a nearly vertical cliff face.

An article in the Beckley Post-Herald’s 1950 Centennial Edition concisely described the operation: “Mules, eight miles of wooden rails, and monitors combined to transport the abundance of wood that once covered the Grandview section down to the railroad at the base of the mountain. The wooden-rail road extended the eight miles from Crow to Grandview around the turn of the century. When the mules that pulled loads of lumber on small wagons reached the edge of the hill, their loads were transferred to ‘monitors,’ with one car bringing the wood down the hill while another rose to the top to be reloaded.”

Additionally, county clerk records show that in 1890, Beaty sold a half-interest in a ferry across New River from Mill Creek to one of the incorporators of J. R. Beaty & Company.

The Mill Creek ferry transported people and materials from the base of Grandview Cliff to the Fayette County shore, from where they continued to Quinnimont. To improve efficiency and reduce costs, Beaty introduced a significant innovation by constructing the first steam locomotive railroad in Raleigh County.

Narrow-gauge steel rails ran from a point—later the village of Hamlet—opposite the C&O’s Glade depot in Fayette County, through a tunnel under Crow Ridge, and down Little Beaver Creek, terminating in the town of Raleigh.

The Glade Creek and Raleigh (GC&R) Railway was the first of many short-haul steam rail lines serving the timber industry.

The tramming-monitor operation ceased with the construction of the GC&R Railroad. The methods employed by Beaty and his competitors caused significant environmental damage across West Virginia.

Shortly after 1910, the insatiable timber industry effectively put itself out of business by depleting nearly all of the state’s virgin forests. The West Virginia historical highway marker was acquired through a Community Grant from the Beckley Area Foundation.

The Grandview Monitor marker is the 39th installed by the RCHS Historical Marker Program since its launch in December 2016. It is also the final marker in the series.