Prince, West VA

 







Prince, West VA

1870, 2 brothers, William & James Prince, purchased 300 acres of land. Brought from General Alfred Beckley would become the town of Prince. The brothers arrived in the gorge before the building of the railroad in 1873. The earliest business were the Prince Bros General Store and a ferry crossing. As the construction of the railroad began, their businesses flourished. The Stretcher's Neck tunnel construction and nearby bridge construction especially provided good business.

The C & O Railroad passed through the Prince Bros.' land ... sold the right-of-way agreement to the train folks ... agreement allowed C&O to pass through their lands so long as every train stopped in Prince.

Prince was never a mining town, one of the only few in the New River Gorge. No coal company ever own the town.   


17 people call Prince their home today. Amtrak still uses the Prince depot as a stop three days a week with over 1,000 passengers a year. Although the Prince Store closed it's doors in 1984. visitors can still see the store building along WV-41. Both the railroad bridge and Stretcher's Neck tunnel are still in use by freight and passenger trains every week. 


Amazing that there is a gorgeous train station in several towns you see in this area of West VA but the other parts of the town are just rundown. I may not get tourism but makes you wonder why they don't dress up the other areas, to perhaps bring in more tourism or local business and such???!!?!? Seems odd to have such a fancy train station if the other parts are not similar? right?! Weird. Have a super great day. Thank you for stopping by today. Take Care. Beth ( ; 

Comments

Linda said…
That’s a neat looking tunnel. We did not go down to Prince but I read something about it.

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