The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1948-07-15
True Tales About Ohio
Concluded from page I

Concluded from page ID
life to keep from being shaken off. |
Lets take the trip from Woodsfield
to Bellaire over the B. z. & c. +. K.
with an oId-timer who made it Fri
day, May %, IS, 1877-seventy-one
years ago:
Train to Bellaire
Left Woodsfeld this morning on
the train for Bellaire. Only one car
and few men was on the train. No
women were aboard the train; felt |
sorry because they liven things up
little.
"The town had left behind,
placed high up in the hills, was
quite primitive. 1t had changed
little since | was there in 1840. In
few minutes we were zigzagging,
twisting down in a little run IN a
winding chasm among the hills,
wooded to their SUBMITS. The seen
cry was very wild. Every moment |
the cars, changing their directlon'
were shaking us about like pebbies'
with their constant jar and grind,
wobbling to one side and then to the
other.
an twenty minutes | was peeplng
through charming vistas into wild
valley. A few more minutes and
we were in it. We crossed little
bridge some six rods long and paus-
ed at the other side by little cot
tage, more domestic than railroad
like, which bore the sign: 'Sunfish
Station
Sunfsh Station
"The little stream we had crossed
was the Sunfsh-down the valley a
deep chasm, narrow and tortuous,
with its wood-clad hills, all glorious
in the morning light. The stream,
filled with speckled sunfsh, was lost
in the Ohio River, 20 miles away.
"At Sunfish Station a woman,
humbly clad, with children and
bundles got on the train. The con-
ductor made the men throw their
stogies away.
"Then up out Of the chasm our
train went, twisting, wabbling,
squaking and screeching with the
same deafening, Internal grind, the
engine first poking its nose this way
and then thai, like Bruno or Snow
Flake searching for bone. We
were going up to the birthplace of
a mountain rill that was on its way
to help fill Sunfish creek.
"After a little my attention was
caught by living object-in a
cleared space about 10 rods away in
a cleft in the hillside was a miser-
able log hut. Beside it was the
living obiect-a boy in a single
garment, about six years old
watching the train go by. He may
have b4en future Jay Gould.
Belmont County Hills
Before long we were in the
beautiful, open country of elevated
Belmont County. 1t seemed as
though we were on the roof of the
world. No forests in sight-just
huge, great hills on which sheep
We're grazing. A billowy sea OF
grass all around, broken here and
there by huge colored patches-new-
ly plowed fields.
"The valley of the Captina was
soon reached by a rapid descent
from the table lands and then g
few moments stop at a mining point
-Captina Station Bridge.
"Then into a narrow valley, pass
ing by some small, neat, white cot
tages with long porches and chick
ems in the yards, and suddenly the
Ohio River valley burst into view
Following its bank the little trair
soon was in busy Bellaire."
The Poor Mans Railroad was the
last narrow gauge line to be built
in Ohio. The first, "The Erie
Kalamazoo" or Pioneer line, built
between Adrian, Michigan anc
Toledo in 1886, was pulled by horses
and also was the first railroad into
the state. The horses were changed
for locomotive in May, 1887.
The next railroad built was 9
standard gauge one, the Lad River
& Lake Erie, running between San.
dusky and Dayton in 1874. Charter.
ed in 1882, the road was finished
for the 16 mile between Sandusky
and Bellevue in 1889.
1t was the wheel-span of it's loco,
motive, the "Sandusky," which deter
mined the present standard gauge
tracks and put the narrow gauge
out of date.
4