THE NEW RAILROAD

"When word got around in the big eastern cities like Newton and New York and Slippery Rock about all that coal down in Hope, swarms of greedy Philadelphia lawyers plotted together to find ways to build railroads and plunder the coal. But these big city lawyers failed to take into consideration that statesman, civic leader and part time lawyer Atticus Darrow Clagwell, Esq. Atticus, who almost finished the course in Law and Small Appliance Repair at the Intergalactic Correspondence College, got together with all his cousins and together they incorporated the New River and Pocahontas Railroad Company. As soon as the NR&P was chartered by the State of Hope, the state legislature (90% of whose members were Kings or Clagwells or owed money to the Kings and Clagwells) passed a law that gave the exclusive right to build and operate railroads in the State of Hope to the NR&P. This far sighted and public spirited law gave the NR&P a certain undeniable advantage over other, out of state, competitors.

"The heart of the new coal territory lay along deep canyons cut by the New River through the Appalachian Mountains. The first small mines were dug into the bowels of Bear Mountain on land belonging to Pearly Phue and his wife Desire Phue. Pearly and Desire got 50 cents an acre for their coal. They sold 500 acres to the Clagwells for $250. At the time, the Phues bragged that they had taken the Clagwell boys to the cleaners. There were four seams of coal under the Phue land and the largest was 12 feet thick. In the early days the coal was hauled to the mouth of the mine where, in bee hive shaped ovens, it was converted to coke. The coke was hauled down the mountain on a small switch back railroad (owned by the NR&P) called the Kilsythe, Glen Jean and Eastern. The eight mile long KGJ&E became the gateway for all the Bear Mountain Coal hauled for the next 50 years from the State of Hope. That first small operation was abandoned in 1919 when a new opening was made in Bear Mountain two miles south of the original mine. In turn, that was abandoned in 1934 when the present great coal grading and cleaning tipple was erected. Now this new mine, Bear Mountain #3, can load 100 hopper cars a day and production continues around the clock. Don't you bet ol' Pearly and Desire would like to re-negotiate that contract?"