The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-07-23
Highland Railroad.

| Messrs Editors 1t sounds big, and looks
| like keeping up with the times, to talk
about building railroads.
| Railroads are undoubtedly good things
| for large cities on the sea-coast, or fol
| towns that have manufactures, not on the
coast. But for town, like Staunton, ]
doubt the policy of building another rail.
road here. / think there is no observant
person in Staunton who will not admit
that the trade of the town was seriously
impaired by the extension of the Valley
r. r. to Lexington. The benefits of the
road to the city, in the way of furnishing
a competing line to Baltimore, were dis
counted by the loss of trade to the city
that used to come all the way from Rock
ingham to this place. 1t is now proposed
to build railroad from here to Highland
and Pendleton. What will be the result
of such an enterprise? Simply to pass all
the trade from thai section, which now
finds market here, to Baltimore and
Richmond. The trade of Highland and
Pendleton is about all that is now left to
Staunton. Build railroad out there and
you destroy this trade. because it Will not
stop here, but go on to the terminal cities
on the seaboard.
If the business men and merchants of
Staunton want to get that trade, the right
way to do it, in my humble judgment, is
to build real first-class turnpike from
here to Franklin in Pendleton county, and
| restore the Parkersburg pike to it's former
condition !; then the farmers and merchants
of Pocahontas, Highland and Pendleton
will come here with their produce and
trade IN Stanton. Trade is what we want
not produce and merchandise passing
through the town to some other point.
1t the business and moneyed men of
Staunton want to sustain values of real
estate. and keep up the trade of the town,
manufactures is tie first thing, produce
of the farmer the next. How much better
would it be for the capitalists of the city
to establish a shoe factory, say, that would
work $50 hands, than to put their money
in an Improbable railroad, that would
carry away from their doors the very trade
that they now make a profit in handling.
We have plenty of cheap coal and water
and competing railroads, why not take one
tenth OF the capital that another railroad
would cost, and put it into one or more
manufacturing enterprises that would
bring population, and give employment to
the hundreds of idle but willing hands
now swarming our streets. and make a
market for the farmer?
Suppose two or three hundred thousand
dollars were invested in manufactures
here, and the enterprises did nothing more
than pay actual expenses-no profit in the
way of actual dividends-would not the
employment of all these idle laborers be
worth many thousand dollars to the mer-
chants, house-owners, and indeed all bust
ness men in the city I?
Take million or two of dollars and in
vest in railroad, and you neither get any
dividend on your stock nor any incidental
benefits, but as have already shown, the
little trade that Staunton has left will 90
by her doors to the large cities by the sea.
1t is a great mistake to suppose that
railroads necessarily help towns situated
like Staunton. think it clearly demon.
strable that Staunton has just one too
many now. If manufactures would keep
pace with the building of railroads to a
place-then you could not have too many.
But without manufactures, and with rail
roads to carry the trade we once enioyed
right by our doors, what is the use of hay
ing any more? AUGUSTA.