Princeton, West Virginia Princeton, West Virginia Mercer Street (West Virginia Route 20) in downtown Princeton in 2007 Mercer Street (West Virginia Route 20) in downtown Princeton in 2007 Location in Mercer County and the state of West Virginia.
Location in Mercer County and the state of West Virginia.
State West Virginia Princeton, often alluded to as the "Jewel of the South," is a town/city in and the governmental center of county of Mercer County, West Virginia, United States. The populace was 6,432 at the 2010 census.
1.1 Coal and Southern West Virginia In southern West Virginia, in the late 19th century, coal quarrying and transit by the emerging technology of the barns s combined to form a new industry.
Much of the region's bituminous coal was sent northwest to the Great Lakes, or northeast to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's coal piers at Baltimore, or to the world's greatest ice-free port of Hampton Roads in easterly Virginia.
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway's coal piers were positioned at Newport News.
Across the harbor, the Norfolk and Western Railway's coal piers were positioned on the Elizabeth River in Norfolk.
The eastern-bound coal transported by the C&O and the N&W barns s was highly valued for small-town use and for steam-powered ships, prominently those of the U.S.
Loaded into large ships called colliers, the West Virginia "smokeless coal" was sent in coast-wise shipping to the Northeastern U.S.
Points such as New York City and New England, as well as exported to other countries worldwide.
Princeton's locale was east of the major coalfields, and most of the coal quarrying and barns activeness was initially elsewhere.
According to small-town folklore, in the early 1870s, a young civil engineer titled William Nelson Page came to West Virginia to help survey and build Collis P.
Huntington's C&O barns through the valleys of the New River and the Kanawha River to link Virginia with the Ohio River, a line which was instead of in 1873 at the new town/city of Huntington.
Ansted, a British geologist who mapped many of the coalfields of southern West Virginia.
Ansted became the namesake for the town of Ansted, where William Nelson Page moved and became his protege.
Of course, with his background with the C&O, Page was also heavily involved in barns s.
Page settled with his family in the Fayette County hamlet of Ansted, positioned high above the New River Valley along the old James River and Kanawha Turnpike.
He found time to serve as a mayor of Ansted for ten years, rose to the project of brigadier inspector general in the West Virginia National Guard, and was also an incorporator and director of Sheltering Arms Hospital in neighboring Kanawha County.
He was described by former West Virginia governor William A.
Ansted as including coal, he became fascinated with some of the most rugged terrain of southern West Virginia, and the fact that these lands were not yet reached by the primary barns s.
In 1896, Page advanced the Loup Creek and Deepwater Railway, a logging barns connecting a small sawmill on the old Loup Creek Estate at Robson with the C&O barns 's chief line at Deepwater on the Kanawha River.
In 1898, it was rechartered as the Deepwater Railway, with modest plans to extend to close-by coal mines at Glen Jean.
Around 1903, the new town of Page became the locale of one if the earliest stations on the expanding Deepwater Railway, as well as home of the Page Coal and Coke Company.
In 1902, William Page enlisted the support of millionaire industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers as a silent partner to finance the expansion of the Deepwater Railway much further, about 80 miles through Mullens to reach a N&W barns branch line at Matoaka to open up new territory with untapped deposits of high volatile bituminous coal.
Henry Rogers was also an old hand at West Virginia short line barns s.
However, as assembly of the period Deepwater Railway line got underway, William Page found he was unsuccessful in negotiating fair rates to interchange traffic with either primary barns , nor in interesting them in buying his short line barns .
As assembly on the Deepwater Railway continued, William Page's continued accomplishments to establish reasonable joint rates with the big barns s continued to prove fruitless.
To the puzzlement of the leaders of the big barns s, who were unaware of Rogers' financial backing, Page (and Rogers) did not give up.
Instead, they quietly period their plans again to build to the Virginia state line.
This expansion brought right-of-way for the prepared the Deepwater Railway through Mercer County and Princeton.
In Virginia, Page (and Rogers) formed another intrastate barns , the new Tidewater Railway, which was legally based in Staunton, a town/city located along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O).
Notwithstanding its corporate locale on the C&O, agents for the new Tidewater Railway quietly surveyed and secured rights-of-way many miles away from the C&O athwart southern Virginia, approximately alongsideing the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W).
From Roanoke, the new line ran nearly due east, missing primary cities and towns, to reach Suffolk.
With the help of small-town leaders in Norfolk, (and more funds from Rogers), a route was obtained set which passed around the City of Norfolk (and the N&W) in a wide, 13-mile long circular path through non-urban Norfolk County to be headed nearly due west again when it reached the site for a new coal pier on the harbor at Hampton Roads at Sewell's Point.
By the time the leaders of the big barns s finally realized that the Deepwater and Tidewater barns s were related, the rights-of-way were secure, and the new competitor could not be blocked.
Johnson was brought to the Standard Oil building at 26 Broadway in New York City by Andrew Carnegie to meet with one of Carnegie's old friends: Henry Huttleston Rogers.
Thus, the leaders of the big barns s finally learned the origin of William Nelson Page's deep pockets.
Victoria, a new town created in Lunenburg County, Virginia, became the Division Headquarters east of Roanoke.
Using more undivided techniques than had been available to the older primary barns s amid the 19th century, and the Rogers fortune to build to the highest standards and acquire the finest equipment and rolling stock, it was widely considered an engineering marvel of the times when instead of all the way from Deepwater to reach a port near Norfolk, Virginia on Hampton Roads in 1909, a distance of about 450 miles.
Princeton was designated to be the command posts of the New River Division, extending from Roanoke westward.
Throughout its lifetime, the biggest number of Virginian Railway employees were concentrated at Princeton.
In the 1930s, the VGN even added the capacity to build barns cars to the Princeton Shops.
The tiny Class 1 barns was very profitable and became known as the "Richest Little Railroad in the World." Finally, as the Interstate Commerce Commission began to realize that barns s needed to be able to compete successfully with trucking and other modes of transit more than primarily each other, in 1959, the Norfolk and Western succeeded in reaching a merge with the VGN and gaining regulatory approvals, marking what became called the "modern consolidation era" in North American barns ing which eventually resulted in Princeton's current service by Norfolk Southern Railway, one of only 6 large class 1 barns s operating in the United States in the 21st century.
The shifts from steam to diesel-electric motive power and the consolidation s and consolidations resulted in elimination of many shops and jobs, aggravated by a reduction in coal quarrying activity in West Virginia.
However, despite the community's loss, a new replica of the VGN's two-story Princeton Passenger Station and Offices had been recently built, the biggest such accomplishment in the entire state.
A undivided structure functionally, while appearing like the initial assembled 100 about years earlier, the new Princeton Station Museum should last for future generations.
It hosts a exhibition to the town's rich barns ing tradition and the Virginian Railway.
The old Victorian mansion on the knoll overlooking the town as a testament to the area's coal quarrying tradition and the man who prepared the barns through Princeton: William Nelson Page.
Princeton has a populace of 6,347. The town/city is a secondary core of the Four Seasons Country area[clarification needed What is the Four Seasons Country area?] of Southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia.
Immediately outside of the town/city limits, a number of hotels, restaurants and shopping areas have advanced near the intersection of the West Virginia Turnpike and U.S.
The cultural core The Chuck Mathena Center, which opened in July 2008, includes a 1,000-seat theater and meeting rooms for civic groups and affairs. Other cultural endeavors include the Riff - Raff Arts Collective, the remodeled Princeton Public Library and a Railroad Museum.
The Mercer Street Historic District and Virginian Railway Yard Historic District are nationally recognized historic districts. According to the United States Enumeration Bureau, the town/city has a total region of 3.05 square miles (7.90 km2), of which, 3.01 square miles (7.80 km2) is territory and 0.04 square miles (0.10 km2) is water. The average altitude of Princeton is 2400 ft, with highest points at 3100 ft and lowest points at 1700 ft, above sea level.
Climate data for Princeton, West Virginia 19.4% of inhabitants were under the age of 18; 9.2% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 24.4% were from 25 to 44; 26.6% were from 45 to 64; and 20.7% were 65 years of age or older.
In the city, the populace was spread out with 18.4% under the age of 18, 7.9% from 18 to 24, 24.1% from 25 to 44, 23.8% from 45 to 64, and 25.8% who were 65 years of age or older.
About 16.0% of families and 24.1% of the populace were below the poverty line, including 35.9% of those under age 18 and 15.9% of those age 65 or over.
"Monthly Averages for Princeton, WV".
Princeton, West Virginia travel guide from Wikivoyage Princeton, West Virginia Municipalities and communities of Mercer County, West Virginia, United States Municipalities of West Virginia
Categories:
Cities in West Virginia - Cities in Mercer County, West Virginia - County seats in West Virginia - Bluefield micropolitan region - Princeton, West Virginia
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