Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1883-05-20
RAILROAD CONNECTION.

Not long ago q paragraph Heated
along the stream OF general newspaper
intelligence to the effect that the Ches-
apeake aud Ohio railroad was expend-
ing So, OOO, 900 on q steamship line, and
before long would have steamships
running from Newport News, Va, and
Rio Janclro, and between Newport
News and Europe. Three steamers, it
was said, would be completed shortly.
That promise has been fulfilled, and
Nav lst the Old Dominion Steamship
Company began to run daily line OF
steamers between that port and New
York and Boston. 4 semtmonrhly
line of Brazilian steamers is also in
operation, taking out flour and bringing
back coffee.
A letter from Newport News speaks
of that place as "the principal shipping
point to and from the great West"
This remark is a'liberal discount of the
future, and the hope on which it rests
may never be fully realized; hut certain
il is that already, without waiting for
anything not now provided, it is very
important port from a Western point
of view, and hardly less so to citizens of
Wheeling and of the State at large.
With the River railroad completely
through to Charleston, Wheeling and
the entire northern anu western part OF
the State will have another competing
line to the scaboard, while the West
has also reason to rejoice in the fact
that another trunk line has been fairly
Opened to through traffic. New York
had a Virtual monopoly Il few years
ago, and all the breadstutis and provi-
sions of the West went abroad through
Hell Gate; but Montreal came to the
front with some release, and Portland,
Me-, little. Then Baltimore entered
the lists as a powerful competitor, to
the great advantage Of both production
and consumption. Newport News
promises to be quite as important to
Chicago, st. Louis and the Mississippi
Valley as Baltimore.
In 1865 Commodore MAURY, the
highest authority Oh the subject in
this country, showed that that port,
then unusucd, was really the hest on all
the coast, except in the far north. 1t
was not until 1851 that anything was
done to convert the wilderness into a
seaport city. Besides ample docks and
wharves, there is now grain elevator,
nearly finished, which will hold ,5OO,-
600 bushels. This port is l57 miles
nearer the ocean that Baltimore, fact
which will always give tia great lever
age. \ large travel is morally certain
to spring up between the Northwest
and Rio Janeiro by that route. The
amount of coffee sold in that part of
the country Is enormous, and the posi-
bilities in that line alone are very great.
Then, too, there are many other lines
of traffic which will follow in the wake
of the great staples, including strictly
inland trade. In due time Virginia
and West Virginia will make liberal
contributions to the Western early
spring fruit, root and vegetable trade,
and the Newport News oyster will find
a profitable market throughout the re-
gion north ofthe Ohio. The Baltimore
and Ohio railroad has within few
years come to be one Of the Northwest's
great trunk lines, and it will not be
long before that section will adopt into
its family, on an equal footing with the
other seaboard lines, the Chesapeake
and Ohio.