Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1897-08-28
ArioNa THE TIMBER AND COAL,
A Thunder Storm in the Mountains,
Scenes Along the Route.
Especial correspondence.l

not be interesting to many OF your
readers to learn about just what is
taking place deep in the heart Of the
forests. or down in the mines OF
our own State! 1t is needless to say
that the return Of promised prosperity
is nowhere more apparent than up
here in the mountains. If any OF
your many readers will go with me,
/ will show them that, after leaving
the w. Va. Junction, above Piedmont,
until you arrive at Davis or Elkins-
all the way along, even to Grafton
unwonted energy and booming activ-
ity prevails, where ten months ago,
the calamity bowler was telling
his wierd tale of woe in singing the
praises Of Bryan and his Free Silver
myths.
At German I noticed the large tan
nery of ]. Hoffman & Sons, is run
ming full time, and counted twenty
three cars laden with bark to be
added to the more than acre of barns
already filled and prices have very
much advanced. The workmen are
busy on the mountains peeling or
gathering bark, often hauling it If
teen miles. Bark brings SIS per cord
where it used to be So. At Bayard,
the same thing is repeated, one lum-
Der company having cut over 5000
tons and hauled it to the mills. At
Windo. m Wilsonia, Dobbin and a
hundred other small towns, that line
the West Virginia Central, the same
busting activity is manifest, and
mills that have been silent for years
are whirring with the whizz of the
saw an piling their lumber skyward
waiting for the car to haul it away.
have met and talked with fifty or
more buyers from sister states, all up
in here looking after the purchase OF
tracts of timber and the supplies
already sawed and marketed. Some,
no doubt, are anxious to know how
long our forests will continue at the
advance OF the invading woodman S
axe and l might answer, generation
or more.
One of the largest concern told me
they had enough to last IS or 40
wears. Indeed, the forests of West
Virginia, the leading lumber state,
are almostinexhaustible At Thomas
and Elk Garden, where are situated
the largest of our coal mines and
where the best coal is found and the
only coal that people OF Martinsburg
care to use, the mines are running
full capacity. There must be 500
coke ovens ablaze at Coketon. near
Davis; and if you would travel after
dark to Davis and look down some
400 feet to the ovens below and see
their wide mouths belching forth hire
and smoke, you could not but be
IMPRESSED with a scene of terrific
grandeur as the flames light up the
heavens and sides of the mountains
with lurid brightness.
AS passed on through there next
morning, 1 was yet to witness sight
not so impressive perhaps, but far
more enhancing. A thunder storm
on the Alps couldn't have been grand
er. Along one OF these deep gorges
ran the train, when suddenly storm
gathered along the mountain sides
its deep shadows thickened over the
black, abysmal depths; below, a
thousand feet or more, the heavily
drifting clouds leapt across the chasm
and flung their curtains of darkness
and gloom below, so that, though in
broad day, we could hardly distinguish
an object except when fork of lurid
lightning would flash across the
peaks and illumine the mountain
sides only to hear again the wall Of
the distant thunder and the roar of
the moaning winds and tumbling tor
rents Astounding everywhere here.
Athwart the driving darkness again
cleaned the snakelike Lightning and
the roar of the tempest was upon us.
The kissing rush of the rain while
the storm burst around us, alive and
furious, until the pitiless force had
spent itself in riotous floods all about
us, shrieking through the deep
ravines.
To pass through this gorge was the
desire and event of my life. In a
railroad car, the passengers felt free
from harm and to witness such
sight among the elements at war,
there is nothing more inconceivedly