Thurmond, WV

A Tour around Thurmond, West Virginia

Thurmond wasn't a coal camp. It was a coal town, though. It was a small, incorporated commercial center in the New River Gorge serving the surrounding coal mining towns. Thurmond was also a railroading center. The mainline of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad ran through the town, and the railroad maintained a busy rail yard, as well as a locomotive maintenance shop that wasn't closed until 1985.

Thurmond was a busy town, with coal trains being assembled from mines up and down the New River. Also, the junction of the C&O main line and the Loup Creek branch of the railroad was in Thurmond. From the 1910s to the 1980s coal gushed out of this rail branch from mines at Oswald, Tamroy, Price Hill, Kilsyth, Sugar Creek, Turkey Knob, Derryhale, Sun, Glen Jean, Harvey, Prudence, Red Star, Newlyn, Minden, Wingrove, Scarbro, Whipple, Carlisle, Lochgelly, Summerlee, Garden Ground, and the Siltex Mine at Mt. Hope. After the Siltex Mine closed in the 1980s the Loup Creek line became derilict, and trees grew up between the rails. In the 1990s the railroad up Loup Creek was rehabilitated to serve the new Georgia Pacific plant, as well as the occasional car to Austin Powder at Packs Branch. But in 2006 coal trains began rolling down Loup Creek into Thurmond for the first time in years when a new loadout was constructed near Pax, WV. R.J. Corman Railroad, LLC is the new operator of the branch line that was once a main source of prosperity for Thurmond, which currently has a population of five (down from seven) and is more or less administered by the National Park Service.

Sep. 2024 image by author A coal train rolling through Thurmond, W.Va.
Nov. 2007 image by author Visitors enter Thurmond by coming across the single lane for automobiles on this bridge across the New River.
Public Domain image by Jet Lowe, Historic American Engineering Record [HAER] The first thing a person sees after crossing the bridge over the New River and entering Thurmond is the old C&O depot. This is how it looked in 1988 before the Park Service restored it. It was featured on NBC's "Fleecing of America", but I believe the park service actually needed a visitors center here, and the public seems to enjoy it.
April 2006 image by author And this is how the depot looks now that it has been restored. The Park Service visitor's center is inside.
Oct. 2005 image by author CSX coal trains (loaded and empty) still rumble past the depot every day.
Oct. 2000 image by author In this photo a special passenger train from the Greenbrier resort stops at the Thurmond depot.
Nov. 2007 image by author This large tower remains where the rail yard was once located.
October 2000 image by author The coaling tower for steam engines at Thurmond. Steve writes, "My father was born and raised in Thurmond, my uncle was one of the last residents down there. I took my wife just three weeks ago for her first visit. Quite a culture shock for her! I'm 36, I've laid awake and listened many nights while they were assembling trains in the yard right below my uncle s house. My grandfather, his younger brother, their uncle and about 15 other men ... came to Thurmond in May of 1912. My family members worked as freight car repairmen on what is known to all of us as "shop track." ... In 1937, my grandfather was promoted to shop track foreman. That s when my family moved into the big white house right beside the church (up on the hill, pretty much right above the depot). Anyway, my oldest uncle, Bill, worked in the mines, first at Oakwood and then at Lochgelly until that mine closed. He was a fabricator and welder, he mostly worked above ground. The next two brothers in line, Harry and Edward, both worked for the C&O. Edward was still working at Thurmond when I was a kid. We used to go down to the roundhouse (even though it wasn t round, that s what everyone called the locomotive repair shop) and talk to him. I wish I would have known and would have taken a camera, we would be in Ed s office while they were working on locomotives right outside! Anyway, my father ... got a job as a fireman on the C&O. He never got the chance to fire a steam engine (as you may know, the last steam revenue run on C&O was out of Peach Creek in September of 56). According to my father, he got laid off when the C&O realized that with diesels, they didn t need pushers on Allegheny Mountain ... My uncle Bill (we always called him Billy) lived alone in that house in Thurmond until 1997, I think. He died in February 2001, half of the remaining population of Thurmond attended his funeral (2). Our family sold the house to the National Park Service."
Dec. 2005 image by author Looking past the now defunct Thurmond post office toward the remains of the commercial district of Thurmond.
Apr. 2006 image by author The front of the Thurmond post office at twilight.
Public Domain image by Jet Lowe, Historic American Engineering Record [HAER] This photo could be titled "Things that are no longer at Thurmond." The two water tanks, a reminder of the steam locomotive era, have been removed. The water column, the spout on the right, was another vestige of steam railroading. It, too, has been removed. The post office is in the center background, and it is still in existence. Note that the railroad kept a thin layer of ballast down as a walking surface in the yard.
Public Domain image by Jet Lowe, Historic American Engineering Record [HAER] A clearer view of the water tanks that have unfortunately been removed from Thurmond, though the foundations remain.
Oct. 2000 image by Bruce Bowersock As this view of the remnants of the commercial district of Thurmond shows, during warm, sunny days many tourists can be found walking around Thurmond.
Dec. 2005 image by author This was probably the best preserved storefront in Thurmond.
Aug. 2005 image by author One can almost feel the hot, sticky humidity and hear the insects buzzing around in this summer photograph taken in "Downtown" Thurmond.
Dec. 2005 image by author The tourists are mostly gone in the middle of winter, and then Thurmond feels more like the ghost town that it is rather than a "tourist trap."
Oct. 2000 image by author This water pump station has survived. The sign reads, "City Water - Thurmond - No Loafing."
Dec. 2005 image by author Pass the commercial district and the coaling tower(center) that used to serve the steam locomotives and you will move into the north end of the town.
Dec. 2005 image by author Looking back from the north side of Thurmond to the heart of the town.
Dec. 2005 image by author Some of the residential structures, of which none are inhabited, in the north end of Thurmond. In the foreground are various elements of the railroad system from past and present.
Dec. 2005 image by author Yet another picture of the north end of Thurmond.
Dec. 2005 image by author This large home along the railroad in Thurmond just might be the nicest house in the entire town, even if it has no inhabitants.
Dec. 2005 image by author At the north end of town the road veers up the mountain to the seldom photographed and primarily residential upper level of the town. Here is a view of the coaling tower from the upper level. The repair shop and rail sidings would have filled the area around the tower 25 years ago.
Dec. 2005 image by author A few of the homes on the upper level of Thurmond.
Dec. 2005 image by author This home is practically built into the mountainside, and to have any kind of yard at all means terracing with retaining walls.
Dec. 2005 image by author These houses, with cliffs for backyards, are still called home by Thurmond's few remaining residents.
Dec. 2005 image by author Garages and homes on the upper level of Thurmond.
Dec. 2005 image by author A church still exists on the upper level of town, but it is unclear whether services are still being held or not.
Dec. 2005 image by author Storage sheds for the residents of Thurmond. This is where the road on the upper level of town starts to descend back down the mountain, where travelers will end up where they started.
Nov. 2007 image by author This is the view visitors to Thurmond will have as they exit the town.
Sep. 2024 image by Joey DellaMea Thurmond at night.
Sep. 2024 image by Joey DellaMea Moon rising over Thurmond.
Sep. 2024 image by Joey DellaMea
Oct. 2005 image by author
David writes, "I am a former resident of thurmond WV. I stumbled on to your site one day and it was like a trip back in time. I lived in Thurmond until I was 18 years old. The red house with the front porch torn off is my old home. It now belongs to the dragons. I remeber the night the old round house burnt down. At the time it didn't seem like much, but now I know that a valuable piece of history is gone. My grandfafther was the postmaster of Thurmond for many years. I have only been back there few times since moving out of state. The last time we visited I took some pictures ... one of the pictures is of the face on the mountain. It is on the opposite side of the river from tThurmond. My family told me that when the coal companies were blasting there was a rock slide and what looks like a face appeared. They also said that President McKinnley was assinated at the same time and that it resembles him."
Apr. 2006 image by author
In a 1974 newspaper article titled, "Thurmond Restaurant Is Old Bank," author Shirley Donnelly wrote, "A new eating place has been opened up at Thurmond. It is called the Bankers Club. It is housed in the building that was occupied by the National Bank of Thurmond until that old counting house closed its doors more than forty years ago and left the risky business of lending and losing money to others ... This is the only good building left in Thurmond. All up and down the town's long and only street the other structures are in ruins. Seeing the town's store buildings, the old LaFayette Hotel, the drug store, the jewelry store and other structures of old, now a mass of waste and decay is depressing. But the 68-year-old bank building stands out in all its glory ..."