Cardinal

A Monacan village, Monasukapanough, was the first human settlement on these lands. What started as a Monacan hunting path grew into Three Notch'd Road, a trade route used by European settlers to shuttle goods between Richmond and the Appalachian Mountains. Today we call this Monacan hunting path U.S. Route 250. Without it, Charlottesville would not have become what it is today.

One of the first men to build upon this early infrastructure was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson is undeniably the most famous figure in local history. He founded the University of Virginia down the mountain from Monticello, his mountaintop plantation. He inherited this mountaintop land, some 5,000 acres, from his father at the age of 26. He then used the labor of enslaved Africans to cultivate tobacco and construct the plantation house. Albemarle County was home to James Monroe too. Monroe, like Jefferson, also went on to become a U.S. president. James Madison lived just 26 miles northeast of Charlottesville, so we like to claim him too. Jefferson and Monroe, however, were practically next-door neighbors.

In 1850, Charlottesville welcomed its first railroad service, a technology that would later dramatically expand shipping through the area and bring more growth. Then, like any community in the South, the area lost many of its sons and brothers to the Civil War. Unlike many communities, however, the town itself was left largely unscathed--despite its central role in the manufacturing of Confederate uniforms. By 1887, the city had received its first horse drawn streetcars and kept an extra horse on hand to help cars climbing Vinegar Hill, a rough stretch of Main Street. In 1888, Charlottesville incorporated and annexed surrounding land to create a city of nearly 800 acres.

History of Charlottesville and Albemarle County

Charlottesville’s Union Station was constructed in 1885 and sits between the University of Virginia and downtown Charlottesville. In 1999, Amtrak and the city of Charlottesville dedicated the newly renovated depot following a $700,000 effort. Amtrak moved out of the original station and into the former Railway Express Agency building built in the 1890s. The new facility has a more modern waiting area, ticket counter and restroom, as well as better parking lot access and the addition of a full-service restaurant. One of the unique features of this station is that its two trains serve the station on two separate tracks on either side of the station. The lines cross just south of the building.

Prior to this station’s construction, Charlottesville was a major rail hub, served by many trains daily. The first train service to Charlottesville was operated by the Louisa Railroad Company, which later became the Central Virginia Railroad (later Chesapeake & Ohio, now CSX). In the mid 1880s, Virginia Midland Railroad (later Southern Railway, now Norfolk Southern) created a perpendicular north-south route. This produced competition between the two rail companies and strengthened the local economy. Hotels and restaurants went up along West Main Street for the many new railroad workers, including those at a railcar repair shop.

Great American Stations

Amtrak passengers in White Sulphur Springs only use the platform, which is covered by a canopy. The adjacent brick Colonial Revival style depot was built for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) around 1931 and was intended to replace an older wooden building from the early 1900s. The earlier structure had been constructed as part of a larger C&O effort to repair and maintain many of its aging passenger stations and to serve the historic Greenbrier resort, located directly across West Main Street.

Control of the station passed to the Greenbrier in the 1980s to 1990s, and the resort converted the building to a Christmas store and gift shop. It is still decorated as such, with a red exterior with white accents. The entrance features a portico supported by pillars with red and white “candy cane” striping. This year-round holiday décor gives this station one of the most distinctive looks in the Amtrak national system.

What is now the Greenbrier and White Sulphur Springs were one and the same for the first 125 years. The spring of sulphur water that remains at the center of the resort property issues forth below the green dome of the white-columned Springhouse that has been the symbol of the Greenbrier for generations. Since 1778, people have come to “take the waters” to restore their health.

Great American Stations

he first station at Prince was built by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) in 1880. This wooden depot was enlarged in 1891 to serve an expanding commercial freight and passenger need. Nearly destroyed in a 1917 fire, it was rebuilt soon afterwards.

The current red brick station was erected as part of a 1942 vision by C&O president Robert R. Young, who wanted to create a stylish, streamlined and efficient passenger rail system for the post-World War II era. Designed by the railroad and the Cleveland-based architectural firm of Garfield, Harris, Robinson and Schaffer, the building opened on June 26, 1946 during a celebration attended by nearly 3,000 people. It was immediately noted for its sleek Art Moderne features, such as large expanses of glass on the north and south facades, flat cantilevered roof and terrazzo flooring.

Taking advantage of the site along the New River, the architects oriented the building so that during the winter, the sun warms those who wait along the platform and inside the depot, while during the summer, the roof and platform canopy provide shady relief from the heat. In the waiting room, visitors can still see the C&O’s original “Chessie” kitten logo embedded in the floor.

In addition to the waiting area and ticket desk, the 125 foot long by 22 foot wide depot contained restrooms, a ladies’ lounge and freight, baggage and express rooms; passengers noted modern technologies such as ultraviolet lights and radiant heating in the floor. On one end of the waiting room, there is a wall-length photo mural. The image, taken by Arnold Eagle in 1944, shows the coal tipple in nearby Crab Orchard and highlights the economic importance of coal mining to the C&O and the region. Today, many of the mines are closed, as are the steam-powered trains that carried the coal across the country.

Prince had been selected as the prototype for this visionary station because it served a great many passengers from nearby Beckley and other communities. Beckley is still a thriving community, sitting atop a mountain plateau, rather than down in the relatively cramped and difficult-to-access environs of the river gorge where Prince lies. The depot was intended to serve the railroad’s newest daylight streamline passenger train from Washington to Cincinnati, The Chessie, but it never went into regular service.

Great American Stations

Passengers at Thurmond may wait under the eaves of the two story, wood frame depot, which was built in 1904 for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O). During the summer months, the National Park Service opens the depot as a welcome center for visitors to the New River Gorge National River. The building, restored in 1995, once served both as passenger depot and offices for the C&O. The yardmaster’s office on the west end overlooks Thurmond’s West Yard; the office has been restored with authentic furniture, fixtures and equipment from the early 1900s. The train master’s and ticket master’s offices have also been restored and present museum exhibits relating to Thurmond and the railroad.

Thurmond, located in the middle of the steep New River Gorge, was long accessible only by rail. The town was named for William Dabney Thurmond, who received the 73-acre site in 1873 as payment for a surveying job, and settled there. That same year, the C&O opened its main line through the gorge to connect the Atlantic coast to the Ohio River. The rail line runs along the bank of the New River, and the town, which lacked a single street until 1921, climbs the steep mountain behind the tracks.

In 1883, the C&O built a freight station in Thurmond, and soon after, a railroad bridge was completed across the river to connect the coal mines with the main line. This first station burned in 1899, and was replaced with the current building.

Great American Stations

Charleston, county seat of Kanawha County and capital of West Virginia, is located about 255 miles west of Washington, D.C. on the Kanawha River, a tributary of the Ohio River. The Kanawha is navigable and is joined by the Elk River near the center of the city. Until the Civil War, West Virginia was part of the state of Virginia. Col. George Clendenin built Fort Lee on the present site of Charleston in 1788. The name honored Governor Henry Lee of Virginia. The fort served as protection for the settlers, whose encroachments on Indian hunting areas provoked stiff resistance. When Kanawha County was formed in 1791, the citizens sent Daniel Boone, who fished and trapped in the Kanawha Valley, to the Virginia Legislature to represent them. The legislature granted a charter to the community in 1794 under the name Charles Town, after Col. Clendenin's father, but that was shortened to Charleston in 1818.

History of Charleston, West Virginia

The Charleston station was built for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) in 1905, and sits on the south bank of the Kanawha River, opposite downtown Charleston. The principal architects were J.C. and A.L. Pennock. The station is located at the foot of the South Side Bridge, and the track itself sits at the bottom of a shored-up cut into the hillside along the river. The two-story Neo-Classical Beaux-Arts style structure is of blonde brick and stone construction. The façade features a shallow single-story portico of paired Roman Doric columns facing the river. The low hipped, terra-cotta tile-covered roof’s deep eaves are supported with brackets. This station is the only railroad station structure remaining in Charleston. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and substantially renovated in 1987. Today, it houses offices and a restaurant.

Great American Stations

Huntington, originally called Halderby's Landing, was named after Collis P. Huntington, a railroad baron who was a major partner in the Central Pacific Railroad, and who bought out the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. In 1869 he began construction of the western terminus to the C & O, connecting the Ohio River and trains from the Midwest to the Atlantic Seaboard. The city was incorporated in 1871 by the West Virginia State Legislature. In 1873, the first locomotive arrived from Richmond to the celebration of the entire community. The railroad was the city's largest employer for a century, until eventually becoming part of CSX in the 1970s.

City Data: Huntington History

The modern brick, flat-roofed Huntington station was built in 1983, with a waiting room and ticket office. Amtrak recently updated its signage at this station, which is also a base for train crews.

Huntington began as a railroad town and absorbed other surrounding settlements as it grew. Guyandotte, which dated back to the late 18th century, and which is now part of Huntington, was the county seat for Cabell County from 1809 to 1813. The village of Barboursville, a mile or so to the east, at the junction of the Mud and Guyandotte Rivers, was founded in 1813 and became the county seat until 1888, when it was moved to the new city of Huntington. Throughout this early period, this location on the Ohio River was a natural resting point for settlers moving westward toward Lexington from Virginia.

However, it was Halderby’s Landing on the Ohio River where Collis P. Huntington, president of the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Railway (now CSX), chose to put the westernmost terminal of the C&O in 1869. And, in 1871, the city of Huntington was thus incorporated. In 1873, the first C&O locomotive steamed into Huntington, completing a connection from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Ohio River which served to turn Huntington into a bustling city. The C&O remained the city’s largest employer for the next century, with its large rail yards. Much of the city’s fine architecture dates from this period of railroad dominance.

Great American Stations

Customers at Ashland use a shelter on the platform across from the city’s transportation center, which was built in 1906 as a freight depot for the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Railway. In 1997, the city of Ashland purchased the depot and restored it using $525,000 in federal funds from the Intermodal Surface Transportation Enhancement Act (ISTEA) of 1991. The transportation center is served by long-distance buses and local buses, and includes a waiting room, restrooms and an events space that can be rented. The facility is not open when the Cardinal makes its early morning and late evening stops.

The original C&O station, a spacious and classic multi-story brick structure with a porticoed entrance and large arched windows, was completed in 1925 and stands a few blocks away. It now houses a bank; some of its passenger canopy has been preserved, and a former passenger car still sits on the bank lot. Amtrak stopped at this facility from 1971 until 1975, when a pending change to the rail alignment caused Amtrak to move five miles south from Ashland to Catlettsburg. Amtrak relocated to the site of the Ashland Transportation Center on March 11, 1998, and the Catlettsburg station was then closed.

Great American Stations