Ruins, pt. 3

Railroad history is probably my second love, behind Civil War history. The Toe River Valley has some great railroad history that I’m sure that I’ll spend a lot of time talking about.

This photograph was made in the Micaville area not long ago. In 1907, construction began on a branch line from Kona to Micaville, and then on to Bowditch. A separate branch line from Micaville reached Burnsville in 1912, and then Eskota, at the base of Mount Mitchell in 1913. I thought that I had read that a spur of the line from Eskota reached the top of Mt. Mitchell, linking up with the Mount Mitchell Railroad. The line running out of Kona was known as the Black Mountain Railroad, and was for all practicable purposes, a subsidiary of the Clinchfield.

The line was sold in 1955 to a group of investors and renamed the Yancey Railroad.

There is a lot of history to the little line. We will explore more of it later.

There were other railroads in the area. Probably the most famous was the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad. That ran to Cranberry. The Linville River Railroad ran from Cranberry, through Newland, and Montezuma, and then on to Boone. There was also the Caney River Railway, a short line running from Huntsdale to Bald Mountain. Add to that the Crabtree Creek Railroad, along with several other lines that only existed on paper, such as the Mica Belt Railroad (Cranberry to Altapass)and a Southern and Western project from Cranberry, through Montezuma, and down the mountains.

As I said before, lots of great railroading history in the area to explore.