Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1884-08-16
GREAT RAILROAD CENTRE.
So Wheeling is Now Regarded Over
4 the Country. (; Pr -
I.naginatiOns Of Railroad Msa Turned This
way-4-0ur Connection With Carl
sons System---Gseat In q
ducements Offered.

"Gath's letter to yesterdays Enquirer
is devoted to sketch Of the railroad enter
prise Of Commodore Garrison, in which he
has he following Of interest to this local
ity:
TEMPTING RAILROAD POINT.
The railroad property Garrison invested
in conferred about Wheeling, West Virginia.
Wheeling is very tempting point for rail
road men to strike. The development Of
the finer kinds of blasting powder and OF
superior machinery to pierce rocks has rev.
lutionized railroad engineering. If you
take the two railroads which lead TO CIn-
cinnati from Pttsburg, you will lind
that In q very timid manner they
both follow the Ohio river around
its windings, and while one Of them keeps
down BY Steubenville, and finally crosses
the Ohio by grades more or less severe, the
other railroad, the Fl Wayne, runs up the
Beaver and begins to wind over the high
plateau between the Ohio and the Cuyaho-
ga. On both of these roads they are now
tunneling through impairment cliffs in
order to avoid circulating hauls around
after the manner of a snake chasing It's
tail. Finally the Panhandle Railroad,
as it is called, was pushed through
The hills from Pittsburg, directly across the
great bow Of the Ohio River, like the cord
of that bow. This made the shortest route
the Southwest and West, and it has al
wsys been able to make better time than
any Of the railroads in the CINCINNATI region
Of country.
About the time Garrison found himself
full of the money derived from the sale of
he Missouri Pacific the imagination ofraii-
road men had begun.
TO CENTRE ABOUT WHEELING.
In the first place, Wheeling had better wa
,er than Pittsburg; it had probably more
sarieties and possibly better coal. The
.;:sdes rather ran toward it. 1t Yves the in
tial point toward the great coke field, wn,ch
Sas making so much money for the dlrec-
-ors and pools inside of the different rail-
roads. The great undeveloped mineral re-
ZION ofWest Virginia lay back of Wheeling
rot only full of minerals, petroleum, salt,
etc, but full of the timber Immediately
rquired Throughout West Virginia
here seemed to be the very best
nance for development, buying everything
cheap and selling it at once. Even 1t the
and titles were not good there; in some
.ases the lumber could be chopped of and
.un away while the lawyers were feeding
he Courts with spoon. Then Wheeling
oad fine region Of Ohio adjacent to the
Limestone hills, all plentiful with wheat
oottoms full of corn, towns beginning to
pant in chimnies and FORCES for more in
iustries, mechanical and cheerful popula
ion. and il was represented to Mr.. Garrison
hat on the line Of the Lake Shore Rail
cad in Northern Ohio, in Michigan, and
sherever the Vanderbilt properties went,
there was no coal to be had.
WHEELING AND LAKE ERIE.
The timid policy of Yanderbits father
had been to keep close to shore, not TO ven
.ure anywhere and when that old man died
ne did not touch one pound of coal any
where on the globe. BE had taken from
Condit Smith, with many a sigh and a
groan. a railroad which dropped to the oil
regions, but there was coal the
great cargo Of the present and coke
and othe forms Of fuel, and it
looked like brilliant idea to build rail
road from the lake shore to Wheeling
Wheeling already had double railroad 70
It from Pittsburg one on either side of the
river. Another railroad from Little Wash
ington, which is now being extended back
o the coke field, and third railroad was
he Baltimore and Ohio, while at the pres
ont time more railroad is being built along
he Ohio toward ParEersburg, and finally
toward the field of the kanswha.
THE TCsCARAwAS VALLEY.
Garrison began to endorse for the rail
road builders, and the result was the Wheel
ing and Lake Erie Railroad starting from
Toledo and running 262 miles to Marietta,
with branch from near Canton direct to
Wheeling. This latter branch, l think, is
not fully opened. 1t would seem strange
| hat man of Garrison's timidity should
! 20, into an enterprise ike this, where
there has existed for several years an other
railroad from Wheeling to the Lake
Shore Railroad The latter is the
Chamberlain road, which starts from
DrldgepOrt, opposite Nneeungi puus VI tue
Tuscarawas Valley, aud finally strikes the
Lake Shore road about Elyria, in the gen,
eral direction Of Toledo, or somewhere near
Sandusky. From Elyria to Wheeling is
about $50 miles, against probably 220 miles
from Toledo to Wheeling The Garrison
system, including the Marietta division, is
put down at $50 miles. The little railroad
which runs from the side Of the viaduct at
! Cleveland seventy-fve miles to Valley juno
lion was designed to be the direct north arm
/ of the Garrison system.
More recently, if correctly remember,
Mr. Garrison had undertaken to stretch his
property in to Pittsburg, which point, | hear
railroad men say is the most important
freight point in the whole interior of the
United States For q long time
the PENNSYLVANIA railroad had the
most valuable thing on the globe
the monopoly of Pittsburg freights
They not only had coal and coke, but the
prodigiously heavy manufactures of Pitts
burg, such as great pistons for water-works
huge engines castings in almost unmeas
urable quantity, glass, nails and those
things which the outer world perpetually
demands, such at pillow shares, but which
Pittsbdrg not only had acquired the skill tc
make, but the tact to monopolize.