"Downtown" Thurmond, and Cass

Your talking my area now!! I live in Pocahontas county and even I have not seen too many photos of old Cass. The one place that has them I am pretty sure is the local historical museum.  The museum has huge books full of photos.....but they are hard copy only and most have never been published or even scanned. You have to go in person and they give you books with your interest in them. It's been a long time since I did that....not sure what there policy is in this digital age......things may have changed. But Dad has found photos there he has used in his books and newspaper articles.

Here's the classic "Thurmond shot" of NKP 765 eastbound through Thurmond.

The double-track C&O main was the "main street" of Thurmond.

 

 

 

 

A photo runby in Thurmond from October 1991, about 1/4 mile east of the "Main Street" shot above.

 

 

There's lots of fascinating history in that part of West Virginia.

I have a good friend who loves Thurmond:

 

AMCDAVE: I THOUGHT that was an area you were familiar with.....from your previous

postings.  While I certainly won't get there soon, or in the winter, where is this

historical society located?  That cache of old photos sounds like one I have heard of

and saw a few of, but could not copy, of many unpublished photos of the mining

railroads and history around Silverton, Colorado.  That cache had detailed photos of mines that should be in one of the books about Silverton, but are not.  I was amazed that those photos existed, and had not been published.  It sounds like MAYBE such photos exist for Cass and Thurmond, both areas very interesting to model railroaders, and general train nuts.

I was on a steam passenger excursion from near Huntington (St. Albans?) to

Hinton, and return (delayed by an problem with the loco) to Huntington late

in the evening, but I have forgotten the year...I hope it wasn't THAT long ago..1991.

I saw Sandstone Falls from that train and went back to visit it by car some time later,

and this all after discovering the area on a raft trip on the New River some years

before that.  Stayed a few times in a lodge at Hawk's Nest State Park, above the

New River Gorge, but they had a budget problem the last time I was there and I

think the A/C was not working.

Rich, WOW Those are two GREAT pictures with the fall coloes as background for NKP765. tHANKS FOR POSTING THEM.

The museum is on South 219 about 1/2 mile south of Marlinton. Next chance I get I will go by the museum and see what the staus of their photo collection is.

 

I know the New River Gorge trains that run each Fall.....I have never riden them myself but ride the Amtrak Cardinal on the same route often.  On my trip for LA CA to home we had a meet with a Gorge excursion train as we were running 6 hours late!! Great trip though!

For Thurmond, see if you find anything here:

http://thurmondwv.org/

There's also one obviously old picture of Thurmond on officialbridgeday.com, but I'm not sure of the exact date. The National Park Service should have some pictures.

 

Cass is a real stumper. It appears that pictures of the town must have been few and far between.

 

 

Online, you can find a couple of the Cass pictures here...http://www.msrlha.org/p-cass/index.htmlMost of East Cass was lost in the 1985 flood, which also severely damaged the Cass to Durbin line, as well as forcing the relocation of the Roanoke Transportation Museum (now Virginia Museum of Transportation) in Roanoke, VA.Kevin

After a Zip Lining trip 800' above Thurmond we stopped in Hinton on Train Days and rummaged through ancient stores and saw a photo or two of Cass.  One building was a Museum of sorts which had a lot of local resource.

Not having a pointed interest I do not remember the particulars but Hinton's business district is only a block or so.  A side note, there is an old building there with three digit phone numbers painted on their wall.

Side note II, Hinton is also a great place to study vista domes along the entrance road.  When the excursion train is in town the domes are about 20' in front of you at waist height. tt

Today I bought a book called, "100 Years and Still Counting: The Town of Cass, WV," by Gerald M Futej & Max S. Robin.  It contains several pictures of East Cass which is where the red light district was.  It was referred to as "Dirty Street."

I know of what you speak of and I live Right downtown Hinton

I can contact a few of my Friends at the local Library and the Museum to see If I can locate any Photos of Cass or Thurmond.  I Saw a lot of Thurmond up close as I was a Taxi Driver that hauled CSX Railroad Crews to their Trains.  Another Place that you might be interested in is a place called Handley Yard which is outside of Montgomery West Virginia.  it was a large operation in its time but now it is nothing but a Two Track main line with Two sidings

 

 

You must be my closest OGR Forum member!!  Joey is up in the panhandle.....

Mr. Meixel:  Where did you find that book?  I did a search on Amazon, but turned up

nothing.  A bookish friend is searching for it but may not find it.

And if that Cass book exists, maybe somebody did one on Thurmond.  Maybe the C&O

Historical Society which I have occasionally encountered, has done articles on

these three towns, to include Hinton, in their publication?

Colorado, I bought my copy at The Model Railroad Shop in Piscataway, New Jersey. I do see it on Amazon and on chessieshop.com plus others.

There is a publication about the railroads in the New River gorge. It has a lot of info on Thurmond. It is: "Riding That New River Train"

Published by The C&O Historical Society.

 I have the "Second Edition", from 1993. It has lots of text, lots of photos, and numerous track plans and maps.

Jeff

Thank you both....I contacted the C&O HS, who are showing that Cass book on their

website.