On the Porch with Jim Williams
Capturing the stories of the folks of Marion, McDowell County, and Western North Carolina. Told by those with first-hand experience.
On the Porch with Jim Williams
Mayor Steve Little - A return episode
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Steve and I discuss trains and their effect on Marion both past and future. Listen to what is in our future.
Hello, I'm Jim Williams, and you're on the porch. Well, this is gonna be an interesting day because we have Mayor Steve Little here again with us, and he's been one of our more popular podcast episodes, and I promise to try to stay out of the conversation today because we're gonna try to focus on trains because I'm interested in it and I know Steve's interested in it. Steve, thanks for coming up.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Jim. It's a pleasure to be here.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you. And it's it's my pleasure to have you here. I feel honored. In the first 30 seconds of the podcast, I've lied already. Because you are the mayor of Marion, so is there anything you want to bring us up to date on?
SPEAKER_01I want people to know that the ground preparation process is supposed to start this summer for the new four-story tall Marriott Hotel. Oh, that's good. The location of the former Bank of America building right across from First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_02That's good news.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I see a little bit of work going on out there at Copper Penny and that other restaurant called The Madness. It looks like two more, whenever they get here, two more quality restaurants are going to join a number of other already quite good restaurants here in Mary and I'm pleased with that.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right. And the new, relatively new Thai restaurant is excellent for people who like Thai food. I love it mainly because they use a lot of ginger, and I love ginger.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I do too. I think it's one of the better Thai restaurants around. I w we have eaten up in Marion, uh up in Asheville, I'm sorry. Um, and I believe this is better. I I like their food just a little bit better. Now I might be a little partial to Marion. I don't know. Right, right. That's understandable. Uh and certainly the drive is more convenient. Yes. All right, we're gonna talk. Uh by the way, uh I've I have to say this to those that listen. Steve brought me two more books, uh, and and I'm starting to get the hang of this podcast thing. I'm just gonna stay behind the microphone if people will bring me stuff. One of the books that he brought me is Andrews Kaiser, Star of the Mountain Road Railroad. Honestly, I have oh, it's got pictures. That's that's for me. I I like it when there's more pictures than oh, and color pictures.
SPEAKER_01Yes, a lot of pictures.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is this is a very nice book. Thank you. Uh thank you very much for that. And then one, the other one that I got. So now I have all the Steve Little books. Nature Hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I'm saving this one when I sit down this afternoon. I'm gonna read that. That looks good. I know I'll get into that. All right. How do you want to set the stage? How do you want to get into this?
SPEAKER_01I can start by saying that since 1995, a grassroots advocacy group called the Western North Carolina Rail Committee has been working on and whining about and planning for the goal of a return of passenger rail service to Western North Carolina. And I'll give you the end result and then we'll fill in the middle. The end result is in December of 2024, Amtrak accepted the corridor from Asheville that extends to the middle of North Carolina to the existing Amtrak network at the town of Salisbury. So our corridor is Asheville to Salisbury, not because that it goes to Salisbury, except that's where it joins the Amtrak rail system. Okay. Nothing wrong with Salisbury, it's a wonderful city, and it would be fun to go just to Salisbury, but you can get on when it's here, and it'll be probably six years. That's the question I probably am asked more than any other is we've read, we've heard that Amtrak has approved the addition of the Asheville to Salisbury corridor in the Amtrak network. Well, when can we get on a train in western North Carolina and take it south to New Orleans or north to Washington or New York or Chicago or Seattle or anywhere in the United States? And the answer is probably approximately six years.
SPEAKER_02So Salisbury must be a uh an Amtrak hub of sorts, right?
SPEAKER_01It will become a hub.
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_01Right now it's simply a pass-through on the line that goes from well, the Crescent is the name, the Amtrak name of the train that goes from New Orleans to New York City every single day, every day of the week.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And and back. It's a it's a round trip that goes through Salisbury. Salisbury is the closest point. Plus, historically, that is the loc this route, this corridor, Asheville to Salisbury, that is the corridor that was created under the name the Western North Carolina Railroad by legislative action in 1855. Really? Yes, sir. And the old Fort Loops, a world famous spot on this corridor, is just right here on this same area. So a person getting on the train once Amtrak is operationally including our corridor, they'll get on the train in Asheville to come east and they'll go through the old Fort Loops, through the tunnels, and they'll pass right through downtown Marion. And now I've got to pause to say this. There will be some intermediate stops between Asheville and Salisbury. I'm very hopeful that Marion will be one of those intermediate stops. There's no guarantee of that. But I've been very, very active in this. I've been for about 10 years co-chairman of the Western North Carolina Rail Committee. By the way, Freddie Killow, our wonderful downtown Marion Business Association director, she has been the secretary of this organization since its inception. Freddie is such a dedicated person in everything she does, and she is the secretary of this group. So I've been active in this, and as I heard a person say the other day, I got a big kick out of this. He saw me at several meetings in the past month, and he said, Well, you're everywhere. And he said, obviously, you were at the table for these conversations. And he said, You know, you're either at the table or you're on the menu. So we're after that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay, I like that. And certainly, if Marion would be a stop on the railroad, I mean, just think of what that will do to the economy. Exactly. That's got to be an immediate boost to the economy.
SPEAKER_01It would be. It would be. We would find that people would come to Marion as a destination. Yes. And I say that because of the other features that we have, not only for our lovely downtown, right. With its shops and businesses and restaurants and hotels that we will have, but also the proximity to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And the proximity to a new and rapidly expanding network of bike trails, mountain bike trails. That is becoming an extremely popular, has been already for a number of years, but continues to expand. So people will be drawn to that. They'll be drawn to our festivals, particularly the Bigfoot Festival.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01And also the fact that Mc Southern McDowell County and northern Rutherford County, that was the spot before the year 1842 where more gold was dug than any other place in North America. Yep. So the gold festival and you can still go and pan for gold down in the Polly's Spout area in Dysersfield. So that will draw people.
SPEAKER_02Well, I I I have to believe that just the fact that you can board the train here, like you say with all the other attractions, and then you add the ability to board the train, go anywhere, really, in the United States, that's just got to be such an attraction that I I can't imagine what it could do to the economy of Marion. And yet, I think Marion will stay a small town, don't you? I mean, I think we'll keep that small town spirit.
SPEAKER_01I truly do. Having the rail stop does not mean we're going to double in size. Right. Exactly. Not a logical expectation for that, and I don't even consider that to be one of the prospects of what could happen. I do see more people coming to Marion for short-term visits. And a lot of people that I talk to, almost everyone that I meet who I understand they've recently moved here, I ask them what brought you here. And I love the stories that they tell of why they chose to come to Marion. And this is simply one more opportunity that people would get to see what a quaint, l inviting, welcoming, friendly, convenient, attractive small city Marion is.
SPEAKER_02Well, if you just wanted to kill a Sunday or a Saturday, you get on the train, you get a cup of coffee, ride one way or the other. Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Um people who work in Asheville could take the train to Asheville for their job and then take it back. Yes. Because one thing I didn't mention yet, the once Amtrak starts, the plan is for there to be three trains a day.
SPEAKER_02Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Three every single day between Asheville and Salisbury. That's round trip. Wow. So therefore, you take the train that starts in Salisbury and heads west, assuming a stop in Marion, you step on the train in Marion, take it to Asheville, get off, either get an Uber or a taxi or a friend or whatever, and you get to your workplace, do your daily job, and then get on the train of the afternoon and come back.
SPEAKER_02Well convenient. And we know, as we've talked about before, Janet and I are coming from the West Coast, we traveled a lot by Amtrak between San Diego and LA. It's just not that expensive. You could do it daily. I mean, look at the cost of gas, which I hope will come down. Maybe not, but you still you could travel by train one. It might be, let's say it's just on par with your gasoline bill, or a little more expensive. You don't have to drive it. You just sit there, you have your coffee, you watch the world go by, you know, and then you get off in Asheville.
SPEAKER_01Or Salisbury or wherever. Yeah. So about two years ago, Jim, I decided that I had had enough of congestion and headaches and stress of driving to Raleigh. So about two years ago, I decided, and anytime I need to drive to Raleigh, I don't drive to Raleigh. I drive to Charlotte to the train station. And I get on the train and take the train from Charlotte to Raleigh. The ticket price is $24.
SPEAKER_02See, that's now where does the train, where's the depot in Raleigh?
SPEAKER_01It's right in the middle of town.
SPEAKER_02That's what I thought I read.
SPEAKER_01It is walking distance to the historic area of Raleigh to the main business area. Right. It's walking distance to the state supreme court facility and court of appeals to the county courthouse and other firm businesses, shops, etc. So it's you don't have to get a an Uber or a taxi. You can walk. It's just a few blocks. It's a and it's a new station. People who've not been there in the last ten years maybe would roll their eyes when they think they've got to go to Raleigh. That's not a attractive station. Just like the one now in Charlotte is not an attractive station. That's being replaced. Oh. And that process is underway probably within two years. There'll be a new location more in the center of Charlotte for the Charlotte station.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01But I did have to go to Raleigh about a month ago. And I drove only because on my way back I needed to make a side trip up to Reedsville.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01And so I drove. I was reminded on that trip why I decided never to drive to Raleigh. Because when you get around Greensboro, that's where Interstate 85 and 40 merge. Yep. And that is where your speed drops from 70 to whatever, down to about 30 or 20 or 10 or 3. Yep. I had to stop. I counted them because I was so vexed by this situation. I stopped 21 times, dead stop. On the interstate, four lanes or three lanes, whichever the case was at that moment, everybody stopped, full stop, and we would sit for anywhere from 30 seconds to two or three minutes. Yep. And then creep along. And that reminded me of why I don't want to have such a stressful experience anymore.
SPEAKER_02Well, and it's not only the stop and go, it's the stress. I mean, you're in the combat zone.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_02You're sitting there waiting to see who's going to hit you on the side or the back. That's exactly right. So uh yeah, I'm I'm with you. We love Marion. So uh I'm I'm happy to be here. And I can just see how nice it would be to get on a train and go somewhere. Absolutely. Because we love train travel. All right now. Are you ready to go back in history a little bit? Sure, sure. Uh do you want me to set the stage for you? Let's do you want to go back to the to the Civil War? Because there was a time when we couldn't go from Asheville down, came come down to Marion or back up the other way.
SPEAKER_01That's right. Don't or you could, but it would take a very long time. All right. There was not even a dependable road.
SPEAKER_02Now, last time you were here, we got into the fact that the convict labor was almost slave labor. In fact, it it probably was.
SPEAKER_01In my opinion, worse than slave labor.
unknownTrevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02We can skip that. We know we know that happened. Yes. And I I got s I messed you up because I got so interested in that I couldn't get off the subject. So I promised you I was gonna stay quiet today, which I already have broken my promise. But where do you want to start?
SPEAKER_01Do you want to start Civil War or prior to or Well, we if we started the Civil War, we're at a point where the tracks had come as far as between Morganton and Marion. And I say that because it depends on your source. I've read some old sources from the 1800s. Some of them say the Civil War that the tracks came just on the Marion side of Morganton. Other sources say no, it came all the way to Marion. Other sources even say it went as far as Ofort. I don't think that's true. I think Civil War at the most the westerly construction ended at Marion and probably a little before Marion. Okay. Maybe the area we call Clinch Cross at the eastern edge of the Marshall. Yes, all right. But then, of course, the Civil War killed so many, so many thousands of men and boys, and that's what led to the utilization of convict labor to do the construction. Right. It was October the second, eighteen eighty, when the tunnels had been finished, and the additional distance between the top of the mountain at the Swannanoa tunnel, right at what we call Ridgecrest, from there to Asheville had been completed. And the first train went all the way up, passing Marion, passing Old Fort, through the tunnels, through the Old Fort Loops, passing Ridgecrest, Black Mountain, Swannanoa, Oteen, and entered the village of Asheville, October the second, eighteen eighty. And it was a village at that point. I may have mentioned that Asheville was best known for the two pig paths that merged in in the village of Asheville. Well, the bringing of the world into Asheville by way of the new railroad, the first time since the formation of planet Earth, that there was a dependable way to get up the mountain and that far to Asheville, caused Asheville to explode in terms of construction, development, people loving it and moving there, including some pretty well-known people like uh the Vanderbilt family and the Grove family for Grove Park Inn. Sure. So that changed everything. Now, in 1884, a couple of years after the train was coming regularly to Asheville, there still weren't the big hotels in Asheville yet. It was still a small village.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Growing, but not not a city yet. And so Major James W. Wilson, one of my heroes, because of his ability to manage with some compassion, working with the convicts and laying out the path for and managing the construction of the tunnels and the old Fort Loops. When that was done, he owned a piece of land at what we call round knob. Sure. And he built, along with a partner, a hotel, a five-story tall hotel in the spot that we now know as Andrews Geyser. Almost exactly, if you were to stand today with your heels on the pavement of Mill Creek Road, looking at Andrews Geyser in front of you, on your left, about 50 yards, which takes you on the other side of Mill Creek, which is about eight to ten feet wide and about six inches deep. That is where that hotel was built. And it was built right beside the tracks. That was built because there was a need for a place to stay. So When it was constructed in approximately 1884, the work was done begun in 83, five stories tall. This was the largest hotel west of Greensboro in the state of North Carolina. It had the largest dining room of any place west of Greensboro in the state of North Carolina. It would hold a hundred people.
SPEAKER_02My goodness.
SPEAKER_01Now, what made that successful is there was a telegraph station at that hotel.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01Telegraph then was the equivalent of a cell phone today. Right. That was the only way you could communicate uh rapidly was by telegraph with Morse code and things that are so odd-sounding to us today. Correct. But when the train would leave Marion or even Morganton as it heads west, or when it would leave Asheville heading east, a message would be sent by the ticket agent telling the people at the hotel, which was called Round Knob Hotel, that spot where Andrew's geyser is today. That's called Round Knob. Yes. So they the hotel was Round Knob Hotel. The telegraph would be sent to the folks there at the hotel telling them how many people were on the train. And then the train would stop right beside the hotel. They would get off the train, walk into the dining room, and they would eat their meal. Now this was not a cafeteria where you pick what you wanted. Your choice was do you want lunch or do you not want lunch? Right. Do you want supper or do you not want supper? So that and the cost was paid, and the train would wait. This was not a scheduled stop. This was not a depot, but the train would nevertheless stop to accommodate the passengers. There was no such thing as a dining car, and people would pack their hoe cakes and whatever they wanted to have and take it with them. Or now that the Round Knob Hotel was there, they could get a good meal. And the train would stop and they would eat and then they'd get back on and the train would continue its journey, whichever direction was going.
SPEAKER_02Were these ordinary folks or were they well-to-do folks?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Oh, okay. It was it was both. All right. Okay. Now I will tell you when you say ordinary folks, uh there were a lot of people who still couldn't afford, even though it was not expensive. There were a lot of people who just didn't have money in those days. And of course they did not ride, but there were a variety of middle class and people who had more financial assets.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And in the winter months uh and hunting seasons, the Round Knob Hotel functioned as a hunting lodge of sorts. People would come great distances. They would come down from New York riding the train to Old Fort, to the Round Knob Hotel. And they would stay for weeks or even a couple of months sometimes. And then they would go out and have day trips with a local guide to take them into the hunting grounds, hunting bear up on Mitchell area, uh, even going down to Cotabba Falls. Not for hunting, but just to enjoy the scenery. Of course, that was before Lake James was constructed. Right. So there was no Lake James back then, but it was a beautiful area.
SPEAKER_02And I'm trying to visualize this. We're before automobiles. We're in horse and carriage.
SPEAKER_01That's exactly right. Uh huh. And there was a stagecoach before the train was completed to Asheville in October of 1880. A stagecoach was how you could get from the Asheville area down to Old Fort or to Marion, where you could get on the train and go east.
SPEAKER_02I believe I'd pass on that ride.
SPEAKER_01One of the fascinating things about that stagecoach was that passengers who would pay their nickel or whatever it was to ride, it was first of all, it was not a comfortable ride.
SPEAKER_02Well, I guess.
SPEAKER_01And because it was going through a muddy area. Trees were shading the area as you look at the mountains as you're going up or down on the interstate today, and you cast your eyes out either side and you see mountains. And if if there's a road, a dirt road, you can't see it because the canopies protect it. Right. So therefore, when it rains, it stays muddy longer than if the sun were shining to dry it up. So it was often muddy. And if the wheels of the carriage got stuck, um, and the horses could not by themselves pull it out. Guess who helped?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The passengers had to get out and help push. Doesn't matter if they were wearing their nice clothes. People in those days didn't have a lot of them nice clothes, or if they did, it was just one set of nice clothes. Doesn't matter what they were wearing. They were standing in the mud pushing the carriage to get it past this place of being stuck. Yeah, I'd want my nickel back. So that was not a great uh alternative.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Well, I can see how the train was just Actually, you know, Steve, it's just like we were just talking about what it would mean to put a depot here in Marion now. It's almost like the way it was then. Um you know, it was just a boost to the overall uh lifestyle. Exactly. You know, to be able to do that. Now I I want to talk to you about, and this is off the track, but off the track. Um my cousin Kevin asked me, he said, why in the world would Salisbury be important? Was there anything about that location as a hub, or it just worked out that way?
SPEAKER_01It just worked out that way.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01All right. However, because it worked out that way, and that was the spot, let me back up to say that the basic shape of the first main railroad in North Carolina was a crescent from Charlotte going up toward Greensboro and then out toward Moorhead City and Wilmington to the coast. So in that crescent, the spot that made the most sense topographically, geographically, to strike out west and go to the Tennessee border, because that's what the legislature in 1855 authorized was the construction of a railroad to go from actually they said Spencer. Spencer is a teeny, well, a small town. I won't say teeny, it's a nice town, small, just barely south of the town of Salisbury. Okay, and and it goes from there west all the way. And interestingly, the original statute didn't even mention Asheville. Asheville was such a small little spot, but because of the geography and the topography, the train, the authorizing statute passed by the legislature said from Salisbury to a point on the French Broad River. Oh, okay. Then fork and go north to what's called what was then called Paint Rock and goes south to what was then called Duck Town. Well, the northern route goes up toward Madison County and into Tennessee in the in the northern area. The southern route goes out to where the town of Murphy is now and then entered Tennessee.
SPEAKER_02Now is that active today?
SPEAKER_01Not the one toward uh Murphy, but the one through Madison County. Yes, it is. Really? It's active today. And and we now that Norfolk Southern spent millions, tens of millions of dollars rebuilding the old Fort Loops. Oh. Freight service is back into Western North Carolina. We can see and hear the trains coming through Marion. Not as many as there used to be, but they're coming and they're here. You can see them every single day. So Salisbury or Spencer became, because it was the intersection of the existing North Carolina Railroad in the Crescent shape, and the spot where the Western North Carolina Railroad started and went west. There was the the main workshop there to work on, repair, uh, even build locomotives was at Spencer. That spot is now owned by the North Carolina Transportation Museum.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir, in Spencer. And they have an a fully operational round house.
SPEAKER_02Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01And if you go there today, and I would encourage everyone to do that, it's a fun, fun trip. They have old locomotives, they have some new locomotives. You can pay one dollar and you can ride. They will get let you ride all the way around on the round table, which is where a locomotive coming into Salisbury, into Spencer, from whether it's from the east or the west, they pull in, but they need to turn around. Well, how do they turn around? They they get on the round table and it turns half circle and they keep driving forward and they're turned around. Yep. And the train that they're gonna hook up to is on a siding, and they go to the front of the siding and then back up, hook up, and they're ready to go. So Asheville used to have one of those that was torn down, broke my heart, torn down about 12 years ago. Yeah, roughly.
SPEAKER_02I hate to say this, but I'm gonna have to tell you a war story. One year for my birthday, Janet took me to some town. I don't remember what the town was, and uh it wouldn't tell me what the birthday present was all about. We get out and and it's at a it's at a little railroad yard. And uh so I think, okay, we're going on a train ride. You know, that's good. And as we're walking into the train yard, this gentleman is coming out, and he goes, Oh, are you here to drive a locomotive? What? Yes, what? And uh Janet just wrote, it's the town of New Hope. Okay. Yes, yes. So, Steve, uh we used to we used to own a Porsche, and when we could get out in the woods and drive it, my hands would sweat. I could understand that, yes. When that guy told me that I was gonna it he spoiled a surprise, but he told me I was gonna drive a locomotive, my hands started to sweat. We go up and the engineer is there. Janet had it all arranged. We get in the cab of the locomotive, uh, and he invited Janet to get in with us just so she could take pictures and stuff. Yes. And the to make a long story short, I drove this locomotive for four, five, six miles. I don't know. I mean, it's a big locomotive. And when you're in the engine and you're uh you have the control of it, that's a powerful machine. Yes. We drove it out to the end of the line, we're coming back, and he says, now there's another train coming. We're gonna have to get off on a siding. Well, all right, that I guess that's fine. I step back so he could take over, and he goes, No, you have to drive, because I have to switch the track all by myself, just Janet and me in the cab, and he gets off and he goes up and he switches the rail. I drive the train or the engine, I put the engine over on the siding and stop. He waves to me that that's good, and I stop and we're idling there. Another train goes by. Then he goes up and he changes the track again, gives me the sign, I pull up, and as I'm pulling up on the main track, he hops on the engine just like you expect to see. Uh one of the, well, not one, the best birthday present I've ever had.
SPEAKER_01It was just unbelievable. That is the most fantastic story I think I've ever heard.
SPEAKER_02And he I got to ring the bell, I got to blow the whistle.
SPEAKER_01I'm just sitting here going crazy. Well, that would be the coolest thing in the entire world.
SPEAKER_02It's it's New Hope, North Carolina. You, of all people, you need to look into that and see if they still do it. Because when you get on, when you're on the train, there are little signs along the railroad that you don't notice as a passenger or certainly a car driver. Yes. And those little signs tell you when to blow the whistle. Yes. And what the signal is and stuff like that. And uh it was just great. So anyway, I I had to tell you that story. I knew you'd like to.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'm so glad you told me that. That I I am in awe of of you, Jim, for being a locomotive engineer. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I have a coffee cup and everything, so that does make it official. Uh and when we're to when we're to stop, uh, I'll critique the train when it goes by to make sure the whistleblowing is right. Yes. You know, because I'm I'm authorized now.
SPEAKER_01You know, I can't. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's that is fantastic.
SPEAKER_02One of the things that we did after you were here the last time, and you talked about some stuff uh up past Ofort. So Janet and I went up there and we were looking at the railroad, and one of the things I saw that, believe it or not, I did not know existed. I had to look at it on a map after I saw it in person. There's some really big loops. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Can you who thought of that idea? That was surveyed in the 1850s by a fellow named Walter Gwynne. Now, imagine, imagine you're in the mountains, and the only break in the woods is some a few pathways that the Cherokee used or other local people, and they had made a few well, when I say few, maybe, maybe not but one path wide enough for a buttboard railroad to go. Well, that still doesn't mean that that's where a train can go. Right. Because the train has to have a a more gentle grade, and thus the need for the loops. Yeah. So Major James W. Wilson joined the construction process in 1877, and he's the one who then took information on a piece of paper where the survey was drawn, and he would walk out into the woods and say, Here's the spot. And you go this way for this many feet. Well, if there is a rise in the ground, then of course the convicts have to dig down and remove the dirt so that it's flat. Right. But not exactly flat. Flat with a slight incline. Yes, okay. An incredible task, but Major Wilson is the one who would identify where to put the rails. And seven locations, there was in the pathway part of a mountain. If the mountain or the part of the mountain was lower than twenty to twenty-five feet, the convicts would make what's called an open cut. They would take out the dirt and rocks in the middle and have a wall on each side and down to the level it needed to be, and they would put the tracks in. If it was more than that height, then they would have to pound out a tunnel. So that the the tunnels were created because there's a piece of a mountain in the way of where the tracks had to be. Wow. And in some of these spots, one in particular, the high ridge tunnel, which is unique among the tunnels on this strip, because the tunnel itself curves. It is a part of a loop. Oh, really? So you start on the eastern end of that tunnel and you look in, even today, you look in through that tunnel. You don't see the other end because it curves. Imagine the skill needed in 1875, 1879, in the late 1870s to determine where you're going into a solid rock mount. And Major Wilson has to tell them you go at this angle and you curve it at this degree. He had to go in every day and check on the degree. How did he know that? Yeah, yeah. That is bewildering to me. We can use computers and we can make calculations, but he had to use his brain. And he could and he did it. And every one of these tunnels worked. Even the Swana Noah tunnel, the longest one at the top.
SPEAKER_02Now, I know that there were some tools, some some big machinery. But there was a lot of handwork, right?
SPEAKER_01No big machinery.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_01Not not when this was done, partly because if if there had been, it wouldn't have fit. But there wasn't. It was done by brute force. Sledgehammers. Now they did have the benefit of the the first version of what we now call dynamite. Right. The liquid version, the nitroglycerin. And Major Wilson arranged to purchase nitroglycerin, which they then would mix, they being the convicts, in a shed. They would mix it with sawdust and a little bit of cornmeal and make a pasty substance. And they would pound a hole in the rock and they would put this paste carefully put this pasty substance in the hole. And then they would use leaves to make a fuse. Sometimes they had to put a board up if it was a spot five or six feet above ground level. And then they would light the fuse and run like crazy to get out of the cave because it was a cave at that point.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01And then it would explode. Well, they had to do the right amount. If it was too strong, it would cause chaos and it would not work. It would be unstable. And if it wasn't enough, they'd have to do it again. An incredible ord undertaking to do that. But once the the nitroglycerin explosion occurred, then the convicts had to go in, pick up the pieces, carry them out. And they were walking on not a smooth floor, on a jagged rock area, going kind of downhill. When they got out, that was not necessarily the point where they could put it down. Guard or the boss man would say, we have a low area, about uh 150 yards, one and a half football fields. You've got to carry that 40-pound rock another 150 yards and put it down where we need it.
SPEAKER_02Well, you told me last time, but I don't remember, how many men lost their lives on that project?
SPEAKER_01A minimum of 139. Really? Yes. That that part we can identify.
SPEAKER_02And that is a in distance. How long is the distance of the build, say, from Old Fort to Ridgecrest?
SPEAKER_01Excellent question. And a straight line, just to give you some perspective. As the crow flies, they say, from the point called Henry Station, that blue house at the corner of Mill Creek Road and Old 70. That was the eastern end of the mountain division. That's the old Fort Loops section. And the western end of the Swannanoa tunnel was the other end. That's 3.4 miles straight line. The tracks 8.4 miles.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_01So almost three times longer because of the loops. And the loops they had to do because the grade for the climbing has to be moderate. And what's actually even more important than climbing is going down.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because that is more risky for the trains than going up. They can pull an incredible amount of weight. It's a slow speed, but they can do it. Going downhill, that's where they need the stopping power. Right. And it can't be too steep or they won't be able to stop. And that's what causes uh trains to derail. Yes.
SPEAKER_02With those numbers, looking at the eight miles, looking not going as the crow flies, but looking at the eight miles, you're still losing about fifteen men per mile. Fifteen deaths per mile. Right?
SPEAKER_01That's pretty remarkable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's that's right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so for every 2,500 feet, seven men die. Wow. That's a lot. That's big numbers. And some of these guys, as you told me last time, might just be in for like a two-year hitch. Maybe they didn't commit a serious crime. They just got rounded up really, is what happened.
SPEAKER_01That happened a lot. Yeah. That's not just opinion, that's factually supported evidence.
SPEAKER_02I think I'd rather go to prison than work on that railroad.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's where they had been.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then once they got to prison, they said, okay, this is just where you get issued your clothes, and then you get on a boxcar, and we're going to send you to go work on Old Fort Mountain.
SPEAKER_02Well, I got off subject. Let's go back to that loop. How many I don't know how to say this, how many switchbacks in that loop? It's not just you don't just go out one time and then come back, do you? You loop a couple times.
SPEAKER_01There's there's several, and all most of them are in the area around Round Knob, near Andrew's Geyser.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we could see them.
SPEAKER_01You you can be at Andrew's Geyser having a picnic in the grassy area where there are picnic tables at the edge under the trees. And a train you can see coming, if it's going west, it will be coming from your left as it goes around Andrews Geyser. And then it will disappear, and then you will see it on your right, higher elevation up the mountain, as it's making the first major loop.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Well, what you can't see is when it gets past there, it makes another curve and comes back again, and it's higher than the one you could see. You cannot see because of the topography. The third level, right there, you could draw a straight line, and from a bird's eye view, from a drone, you could see three spots that line up. The third you can't see from standing on the ground. So that's the biggest area, but then there's another loop when it when you're at Andrew's Geyser and it makes the first curve, it then goes up into another area that has another large loop. So there's several, there are four major loops. It it looks from a drone like it's just a few inches. Yeah. Even though elevation separates it just a few, sort of a few feet, but it's not but about fourteen feet from being a full circle.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01That is an incredible architectural accomplishment.
SPEAKER_02You know, for that time period, we sit around and we marvel at the pyramids. Yes. You know, and the the genius and the architecture and the thought behind the pyramids or whatever, whatever we've we see in Europe, especially. Yes. And here, right here in Old Fort, we've got something that's pretty doggone fascinating.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Keep in mind the pyramids, as fascinating as they are, they're on flat ground. Right. Yeah. One thing I want to point out for some perspective is the first big loop that you encounter coming from Old Fort heading west, after it's gone first on your left, then on your right from Andrews Geyser, as that continues around, there's an area called Big or High Fill. High fill simply means when the work was starting, there was a ravine where the tracks needed to go.
SPEAKER_02Oh my God.
SPEAKER_01So what do you do then? Well, they built trestles. Now, in my book here that uh you've already gotten before, Tunnels, Nitro, and Convex. My original version, by the way, had a dark green cover. Oh. I made a revised edition.
SPEAKER_02I've got the brown one.
SPEAKER_01With the brown cover. The brown cover is certainly, it's got a lot more information, a lot, and a lot more pictures as well. You you can see some pictures of the trestle that they created. That trestle was five levels tall. Really? And this trestle was made from the wood that, from the trees that they cut down, that the convicts cut down, took to a sawmill there at Round Knob, sawed it into these posts, and then they had to assemble the posts. So Major Wilson had to supervise the construction of trestles in several places, including that astonishingly tall section. Today that's been filled in, and there's no trestle there anymore. Oh, really? Okay. So therefore, it gives you the opinion, the impression, oh, that's just a flat land. Well, it's flat only because the initial rails were built on top of a wooden trestle structure, and over the years it's been filled in with dirt and rock.
SPEAKER_02Well, just the geometry involved in building a trestle, I don't care how high, any height, a trestle that will withstand the weight of a fully occupied training. Yes. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yes. The locomotive itself today would be in the neighborhood of 20 tons. Just the locomotive. And then the rail cars, the freight cars hauling freight of various uh weights of material inside. It's immense. Oh, and by the way, this high-fill trestle curved. Really? Yes, it wasn't a straight line, it was a curve that was built. So the the amount of skill necessary just is mind-boggling. For a person to be in charge of making these decisions, he had to be brilliant.
SPEAKER_02Obviously, he was a gifted person. I mean, and as happens in history, he was the right person at the right time. Absolutely. But uh that is really hard to believe. Now I'm gonna ask you a question, and I need an official answer, Steve. Not an answer between me and you. Is it legal to hike the railroad?
SPEAKER_01It is not. It is not legal to do that. Okay. And if there is a person from the hired by the railroad security who catches a person up there, they have their choice of either ordering them off or even giving them a ticket on a several hundred dollar fine.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Now, years ago, when I say years ago, I'm talking 50 years ago and 30 and 2015. I've done that many times. I should not have. At that point, it wasn't as big of a deal.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01But now it it's a major, major security concern. Sure. Because we're in a different world in the last ten years or so than we've ever seen in terms of violence and people who are angry and full of hate and do things that we would never have even imagined could be done. I used to walk along, and when I would hear the train, and by the way, if you're walking downhill, you're not gonna hear the train.
SPEAKER_02That is correct.
SPEAKER_01They are silent when they're going downhill. So I would walk and I would look constantly over my shoulder. I would just step off and I would wave to the engineer and they'd wave back. Not a big deal. Today, if they catch you, they'll arrest you or they'll give you a ticket. They could arrest you for doing that. So no, you cannot. Nobody can, not even me, uh, either, cannot legally walk along the tracks on the easement.
SPEAKER_02And and I know that you've been in those tunnels, let's say a hundred years ago. You've been in those tunnels, they're pretty narrow, aren't they?
SPEAKER_01Well, they're about 15 feet wide. Maybe 18 feet now. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So you get caught in there with a train, you're kind of it's tough going, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01One in particular, yes. In theory, we'll say it that way. The Swan Noah tunnel at the top, that's the one that is six football fields long.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now that's six football fields, end to end, that's how long that is. If you were going through, which you shouldn't do, but theoretically, if you did, and a train began to come, you had better know which way to run. Yeah. Which is, of course, the same way the train is heading, and get out of there before the train comes. Otherwise, you have to lie down.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh. And let the train run over you.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't mean on the middle of the track, on the side. Yeah, but that's because you've got to be out of the way because on the on these freight cars, you don't know what it's carrying. Right. And that's why it's as wide as it is, because sometimes things being transported stick out beyond the edge of the train. So you you don't necessarily have room to stand with your back against the tunnel. You have to, in my opinion, a person would have to lie down. Well, just think for a minute. You're in there and you're lying down, spiders and little critters, and it's wet, and but there's also a part that's very, very dry in the middle, and it stirs up dust. And you have to breathe that. Sometimes these trains are sometimes they're not so long. Sometimes they're extremely.
SPEAKER_02And going uphill, they're not going very fast.
SPEAKER_01No, they're not.
SPEAKER_02So it takes a while.
SPEAKER_01Right. And and even going downhill, they're they're slowing down in preparation of going downhill. So either direction, they're not going fast as they go through the tunnel. That is not a place anybody wants to be. I've never been inside the tunnel when a train was coming. I don't want to. And of course I won't. I won't. I'll just say that.
SPEAKER_02Janet and I were, I think we were hiking. We might have been biking up the old highway. You know, what's the name of that trail? Uh Point Lookout. Point Lookout. Yes. So we're hiking up Point Lookout, and there's a couple places where you can see the railroads. Yes. Couple of, I'm going to say teenagers, maybe yeah, I would say teenagers, kind of middle teens. They took their mountain bikes up and and we saw them head into one of the tunnels riding on the tracks. Well, you get caught in there, and maybe they knew what they were doing. I don't know. I I can't believe they did, but you get caught in there not only with your body, but your tr your bicycle. I just think that's a not a smart thing to do. Now, kids do that, I get it, but you're right.
SPEAKER_01It is not a smart thing to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. You know we've been here an hour already.
SPEAKER_01Doesn't seem like it.
SPEAKER_02No. Uh what else about the railroad building? What do you want to tell me? Have we missed anything?
SPEAKER_01I want to mention, I may have mentioned this before, I don't remember if I did or not, about the two monuments.
SPEAKER_02Well, it's worth doing again.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I was a part of another group. We call ourselves the Rail Project Committee, Railroad and Incarcerated Laborers is R-A-I-L. Our objective was to raise money to build a monument. We got permission from the town of Old Fort because they own Andrews Geyser. We got permission to place the monument there. We did a lot of research. The the monument is as you're facing the Andrews Geyser with your heels on the pavement of the road. It's on the right side, and it's the closest one to the road that was built to honor those who worked on the railroad. It was in October of 2021. Okay. Several hundred people attended that event. It was a powerful event. And it was dedicated to all of the convicts, many of whom were improperly, illegally detained, but they were forcibly brought to do this brutal work that opened up Western North Carolina. And we dedicated that monument, and it's a very handsome monument. Two fine people, Paul Tweety and Jimmy Logan, were the rock masons, multi-generational rock masons who constructed that monument. We thought we were finished at that point, our committee. That was our objective. And we talked about it and realized that because so many convicts had died doing this work, we thought that it would be appropriate to put another monument for those who died doing the work. Anecdotally, anecdotal history, oral history is that there was a cave in at the western end of the Swannoa Tunnel on March 11, 1879. The day that the two crews, it was so long, there was one crew in the McDowell Eastern End and the Bunkham County Western End that were working toward the middle. They met, they met. Centers and grades matched exactly. I can't believe it. Another unbelievably awesome and astonishing accomplishment. But the same day, the oral history is that there was a cave in that killed 19 convicts, and they were buried in a mass grave at Ridgecrest in a spot. A friend of mine who is presently in her 90s showed me where through her grandmother telling her mom, her mom telling her her grandmother was alive when it happened. Wow. And showed me the spot where they were buried. Our group got a human remains detection dog, sometimes referred to as a cadaver dog. And we took that dog with the trainer to this spot for that dog to give us the dog's opinion. Is this really a burial site? Yes. The dog detected. And what happens when these these were buried without caskets? Where the human body deteriorates buried. Um the process changes the chemical composition of the soil where the body was. And uh the dogs can detect that. Humans cannot. Our noses just don't detect that. Right. The dog can. It was a uh a Labrador retriever. And the lab spotted and the lab sat nineteen times within an area, maybe twenty by thirty.
SPEAKER_02I must have put the hair on the back of your neck. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So very close to that spot, our committee placed a second monument. This time, it wasn't a a structure built by rock masons. We got a boulder quality stone here in Harry and I picked out the perfect boulder. It weighed almost two tons. And Greg Daniels with uh his equipment took it up to the spot. We ordered through Greg a plaque, a bronze plaque. Beautiful. And it was installed, and we dedicated that in October of 2023, two years later. So now there is at Andrews Geyser the monument to those who worked, which probably was about 3,500 people over the four years that they were working at that spot. Right. Because some would work for a few months and leave, some would work for a few months and die. And some would work for a few years, and some would work the entire time and still be in prison. So we have that, and then we have at Ridge, and that's at Andrew's Geyser, at Ridge Crest, right beside Yates Avenue, which is near the spot where the Yates Avenue crosses over the interstate on the bridge that is closer to where the top of the mountain, where the trucks pull over. First big bridge you encounter, if you're going toward Asheville, you crest the mountain and start to go downhill and you see a bridge over the interstate. It's on the left. You've got to go down to exit 66 and make a circle to get there. But that is where that's located. And so our now we are finished. We we talked about should we try to identify the families of these people and track them down? And we determined number one, it is almost impossible to do that. Secondly, why should we interfere with With the lives of people who maybe don't want to. If we have publicized this widely, anybody who wants to, and there's been one, only one family that I know of that has contacted us to ask if we could help them identify and confirm whether a particular person was their ancestor. So basically we have accomplished what we set out to do.
SPEAKER_02Well, do you think pretty good records were kept of those men? No. No, okay. Yeah, they were just cattle. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. They were tools. Yeah. Human tools.
SPEAKER_02All right, I'm gonna ask you a tough question, and you don't have to answer it. Someone once said that we will always have war as long as tears of pride fall from a mother's eyes onto her son's casket. Worth it or not, the death of those men.
SPEAKER_01That is a very difficult question to answer. You look around and see what Western North Carolina looks like now compared to what it looked like before. Again, there was no Interstate 40, there was no Highway 70, there was no Highway 10, which was the predecessor to Highway 70.
SPEAKER_02And you said that there was a lack of men willing to work because the war took them all.
SPEAKER_01Right. Not only lack of those willing, lack of those available.
SPEAKER_02Yes. So how do we judge those men who decided we're gonna use the convicts? How do we judge that? On one hand, a major improvement and a major boon to the state of North Carolina. And on the other hand, pure unadulterated cruelty.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Is that just us as a human race?
SPEAKER_01I think it is. One of the imperfections of humanity is that there are always, always have been, probably always will be, yeah, some who through their abilities, through their intellect, through their birth, who just happen to be in the right place, to have advantages, who will use that advantage for their own personal gain without regard to the torture that it results in other people.
SPEAKER_02But in this case, I would make the case, and I certainly I'm not gonna make the case against an attorney, but I would try to make the case that these men who use this I'm gonna call it what it was, slave labor, didn't do it necessarily for personal gain. They did it for the good of the country.
SPEAKER_01And that is correct. That that is what distinguishes the use of convicts for this particular project because it opened up Western North Carolina from other situations where the incredibly wealthy pay minimal wages to workers who were desperate. That's in my opinion, that's a different category.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, I agree. Well, that's about as philosophical as my little podcast gets. So I won't I won't go with that anymore. Anything else? Anything at all? It's just it's just so good to have you come up here. Anything you want to talk about?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I'll just say I'm looking forward to the day when the train, the passenger trains come through. I'll I'll bring it full circle and come back to that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, wouldn't that be nice?
SPEAKER_01I I'm I'm already imagining what it will be like when the train stops at the Marion Depot, and I have purchased my ticket, and I'm stepping on the train to ride to Asheville or to ride to Washington or to New York City. Alice tells me about her parents doing Virginia Hobbs stepping on the train back in the 60s and taking the train to New York for a three or four-day excursion, going to a couple of Broadway shows and coming back.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_01And getting off the train. Yeah, yeah. Just a few blocks from their house.
SPEAKER_02I really when I think about what the future could hold for Marion, because in my mind every train depot needs a subsequently, they need a good steakhouse. So uh there's got to be one of those available. The tourist trade is just gonna get so much better uh with the availability of there we must, we must have a depot in Marion. There's just no question. Right. It has to be.
SPEAKER_01Quite honestly, I'm quite comfortable with our historic depot. That's a nice blessed. I think it's fine. Yeah. The the method of purchasing tickets now is not what it used to be. You do all that online. Of course, you can go to most stations, and not all are even staffed anymore. No. You do it, there's a kiosk there, and you can do it in person at the kiosk, but there's not a human there doing it, and you get your ticket and you step on. So we we don't have to have a a staffed depot to be a functional depot.
SPEAKER_02Well, our our depot is is a fine-looking structure. It is. It is. So there would be nothing wrong with utilizing that and the way I think about things. I don't know why it couldn't be possible for the train to pull in here for a few minutes.
SPEAKER_01I think it could. Yeah. I think it could, yes, sir.
SPEAKER_02Well, Steve, I I I've said it many times and I mean it. I appreciate you coming up here.
SPEAKER_01I've enjoyed this very much.
SPEAKER_02Well, so have I, and thank you again for the the other two books. I'll put them in my collection. And and I'll read, especially the one with the most pictures, I'll read that right away. I'll get to that.
SPEAKER_01I will tell you, I'm working on a novel.
SPEAKER_02Really?
SPEAKER_01Yes. And the novel will be based on the life of an unidentified person who was wrongfully accused, but nevertheless convicted in Wilmington and sentenced to prison and then sent up to work on the old Fort Loops.
SPEAKER_02Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_01So I've been working on that for several years, and my goal is to finish it this summer.
SPEAKER_02Will you let me know?
SPEAKER_01I will let you know.
SPEAKER_02Will you, if we're still around, will you come up and talk about it? I'll be glad to. Oh man, that that sounds great. That gives me that gives me something to look forward to. All right. Well, uh, I guess that concludes another episode. If you have any suggestions or questions, uh you can email me. It's on the porch with Jim Williams. That's one word. On the porch with Jim Williams at gmail.com. We have some more guests coming up. Uh hopefully, I keep my fingers crossed. Hopefully, they'll be as entertaining as Steve has been today. We do have uh, do you happen to know Kim Clark? I do. Well, Kim is coming up and a wonderful historian. Yes, she's going to talk about the massacre over at the uh Marion May Factory. Yeah, yeah. So I'm looking forward to that because I know nothing about it. I don't I don't know what questions to ask, and that's the way I want to keep it. I want it to be fresh and get her take on it.
SPEAKER_01So she's an ideal person to talk about it.
SPEAKER_02I got to talk to her over the phone and I'm looking forward to it. So she's coming up. We have a couple of other things coming up uh that I think uh you, my listeners, will enjoy. I want to thank you all for helping this podcast grow. We're uh up with we have well over 500 followers, getting close to 600 now, and I appreciate that. Uh all I can say is uh thanks again, enjoy your day, and see us next week on the port.