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The Railroad comes to Southwest Virginia.
The Virginia and Tennessee Railroad was the first railroad company to lay tracks that followed the old Wilderness Road. The Valley of Virginia and the Tennessee Valley are a continuous region between the Blue Ridge and the Cumberlands, within the Appalachian Mountain range. This was the passage way from southwest to northeast for generations of animals, natives and colonists. By the mid-1800s, the railroads began to push into the region, following the old trails.
In the first week of October, 1856, the first train pulled into Abingdon. During the previous year's construction, the workers were housed in what is now called "the Mahaffey House" on Front Street, Abingdon, and a warehouse for materials was built close by. When the construction was completed, the warehouse was renovated into the Section Foreman House, which was completed in 1857.
Constructed of readily available materials, including the railroad ties used for the trail line, the Foreman House has withstood the years in grace. When the Civil War began, the Unionists, intent on the secession of the western Virginia counties with allegiance to the Union said, "we leave all the counties in the Valley through which runs the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad."
When Abingdon's buildings were burned during the Civil War, the Foreman House remained. When General Imboden came to develop the mineral resources of the region, with the founding of Damascus, he counted on the railroad for transportation. When Mr. Mingea built the spur of the railroad line to Whitetop at the turn of the twentieth century, to carry out the timber resources, he counted on the railroad. We now can travel that train bed on the Virginia Creeper Trail.
During the hey day of the first part of the twentieth century, when trains ran through Abingdon every day, the section foreman was responsible for keeping the tracks in top shape. When Elvis Presley rode the train from induction in Memphis to departure in New York, he rode through Abingdon on these train tracks, as did many other service men during the world wars and subsequent conflicts.
The last passenger train came through Abingdon on the Norfolk and Western trains in 1969 and the last train of the Virginia Creeper line ran in 1970. The Norfolk and Southern continues freight service through Abingdon.
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