Participation Type
Panel
Session Title
Trains and the Transformation of the Southern Appalachian Mountains
Session Abstract or Summary
When the first train chugged into Asheville in October of 1880, Appalachian economy and culture changed dramatically. Asheville, North Carolina, long a sleepy crossroads community, more than doubled its size from slightly over 4,000 to 10,000 in 10 short years.
Mountainsides were denuded as lumber barons ravaged the region’s forests and miners scarred the landscape scouring the hillsides for iron ore, feldspar, mica, barite and copper. The large scale extraction of these natural resources was made possible and practicable by the coming of the railroads.
Summer visitors began to arrive by train, including the famed George Washington Vanderbilt and his mother in 1887. He purchased 250,000 acres and created America's largest home, the Biltmore Estate. Tourism and health spas burgeoned for the middle class as well, while businesses and towns sprang up along the rail lines. Black Mountain, Saluda, Hendersonville, Hot Springs and Waynesville, North Carolina became vacation destinations in what the railroad promoted as “The Land of the Sky.”
Presentation #1 Title
Trains Bring Commerce and Tourism to the Appalachian Mountains
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
When the steam trains rolled into the Appalachian Mountains in the 1880’s, the massive export of lumber began. The railroad opened the way for clear-cutting and the widespread destruction of the mountain forestland. Numerous mill towns and logging camps sprang up along the mainline railroads, and the Champion Paper and Fibre Company became one of the largest landholders in the region. Logging operations scaled Mt. Mitchell and ran sightseeing trains to the peak which proved upsetting to tourists who decried the deforestation of the mountain, calling for the establishment of State and National Parks and National Forests. America’s avaricious appetite for raw materials to feed its industrial development—mica, feldspar, iron, quartz, copper, barite and scattered talc, sulphur, silver, lead, corundum and asbestos were mined and shipped to the North from the mountain region by the new railroads. Trains brought throngs of tourists, health seekers and investors to the mountains. The city of Asheville more than doubled its population in the first 10 years of rail access. The Railroad began promoting the region as a vacation destination, branding it “The Land of the Sky.” Tourist hotels accommodated the middle class in their visits to the new health resorts (including hospitals for tuberculosis) which sprang up along the rail lines. Religious groups also came. The Presbyterians, Southern Baptists and Methodists were among those who established more than 22 religious camps, retreats, and assembly grounds in Western North Carolina alone. The region became known as “the South’s Summer Religious Capital.”
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Les Reker, Director of the Rural Life Museum at Mars Hill University, has been the director of an academic Museum in Pennsylvania, the Chief Curator of the Columbus Museum in Georgia, the Executive Director of the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette in Indiana, the Executive Director of the Saginaw Art Museum in Michigan, and the Executive Director of the Ellen Noel Art Museum in Odessa, Texas. He is also the past President of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries.
Presentation #2 Title
Railroads Cross the Great Appalachian Mountain Divide
Presentation #2 Abstract or Summary
Building the railroads to and through the mountains was a Herculean feat, marked by the heroism of visionaries such as the ex-Confederate officers James W. Wilson and Colonel Charles Thaddeus Coleman, who faced a wall of mountains to climb up the Old Fort and Saluda Mountains. An estimated 400 (mostly convict) laborers died building the tracks and tunnels into and out of the mountains between 1877 and 1891.
Railroad construction through the mountains took three forms:
Loops and tunnels
Loops were built up the Old Fort Mountain, a route that rose 891 feet in 9 miles, including 7 tunnels, with a total curvature of 2,776.4 degrees, before reaching the Swannanoa Tunnel at the top of the grade.
Straight up and Over
With money and time, engineers chose to go straight up and over the Saluda Mountain in a route used for the next 104 years. The first train to crest the Blue Ridge Mountains came from Spartanburg in 1878. It climbed a grade of nearly 5% over 3 miles, an elevation change of 5 feet for each 100 linear feet of track (twice the maximum recommended standard of 2% used by railroad engineers).
Shelves Above the Rivers
The third method of railroad construction was to build rights-of-way on carved-out shelves along the rivers that flowed through the region. The Western North Carolina RR ran its tracks through Marshall and Hot Springs, to Paint Rock, on the Tennessee/North Carolina border along a shelf carved along the French Broad River.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #2
Ray Rapp is the former Dean of Adult Education at Mars Hill University. He also served as City Councilman and Mayor of Mars Hill, North Carolina, before representing the region in the North Carolina legislature for over 10 years. He chaired the select committee on railroads in North Carolina; he speaks and has written extensively about the railroads in the Appalachian Mountains.
Trains Bring Commerce and Tourism to the Appalachian Mountains
When the steam trains rolled into the Appalachian Mountains in the 1880’s, the massive export of lumber began. The railroad opened the way for clear-cutting and the widespread destruction of the mountain forestland. Numerous mill towns and logging camps sprang up along the mainline railroads, and the Champion Paper and Fibre Company became one of the largest landholders in the region. Logging operations scaled Mt. Mitchell and ran sightseeing trains to the peak which proved upsetting to tourists who decried the deforestation of the mountain, calling for the establishment of State and National Parks and National Forests. America’s avaricious appetite for raw materials to feed its industrial development—mica, feldspar, iron, quartz, copper, barite and scattered talc, sulphur, silver, lead, corundum and asbestos were mined and shipped to the North from the mountain region by the new railroads. Trains brought throngs of tourists, health seekers and investors to the mountains. The city of Asheville more than doubled its population in the first 10 years of rail access. The Railroad began promoting the region as a vacation destination, branding it “The Land of the Sky.” Tourist hotels accommodated the middle class in their visits to the new health resorts (including hospitals for tuberculosis) which sprang up along the rail lines. Religious groups also came. The Presbyterians, Southern Baptists and Methodists were among those who established more than 22 religious camps, retreats, and assembly grounds in Western North Carolina alone. The region became known as “the South’s Summer Religious Capital.”
