Train travel was once commonplace in the Gorge, with regular routes and schedules taking travelers and locals to and fro. But little is written or documented on train travel’s role in our New River Gorge history. Maybe because it was so commonplace…our ancestors thought it would last forever.
Here are some fun reminders we uncovered this week on our long train history:
1) West Virginia’s tie to Ireland was never stronger than in the construction days of the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) Railroad. These Irish immigrants built their own church in 1876 on Irish Mountain high above the Gorge. Later many of those same immigrants were buried in the churchyard. The St. Colman Church still stands today.
2) While the Prince Station was one of the more photographed stations of the 1940s, it was for good reason. Prince was the last passenger station built by the C&O. It was completed in 1946. The C&O considered the new design “Art Moderne.” According to Amtrak, the waiting platform was designed to be oriented such that during the winter, the sun would warm those who waited along the platform and inside the depot; while during the summer, it would provide a shady respite from the heat. The depot was developed to serve the C&O’s newest daytime passenger train at the time which ran from Washington to Cincinnati. Aptly named the Chessie—this route never really caught on.
3) You know your area has arrived when someone is singing a song about you. The song “New River Train” is thought to date back to 1895, but was made quite popular by the “Father of Bluegrass” Bill Monroe in his recording in 1939. This was about the same time Monroe joined the Grand Ole Opry cast. It’s likely that Monroe rode along the New River route as he was raised in Kentucky until the age of 16.
Know any other interesting train facts about our area? We’d love to hear them.
Bridge Day is proud to have been awarded the West Virginia Association of Fairs & Festivals 2011 Environmental Fair & Festival Award.
Green Bridge Day
Saving the environment is more than just lip service to those of us who thrive on a clean outdoor surrounding to work and play in. It’s more important than ever that we remember how to live a more environment-friendly lifestyle. Here are 9 tips from Bridge Day that will hopefully help you “think green” over the year to come:
B – Buy locally…especially from local farmers. Remember the distance it takes to get produce and meats from far-away places to your table. Buying locally not only helps the local economy but cuts down on those transportation greenhouse gases.
R – Respect backyard pests. Don’t become a hater – remember some pests like ladybugs are great eaters of the pests that we really don’t like, so figure out which little creatures to honor and welcome.
I - Invest in trees. Air conditioning bills can be drastically reduced by having trees strategically placed on the southern and western sides of your home.
D – Don’t print unless it’s absolutely necessary. With the advent of electronic file sharing – we really don’t need to keep large files of paperwork any longer – saving valuable trees and space.
G – Grab all unused meds and recycle properly. Did you know that unused or expired prescriptions are one of the biggest contaminates of our streams and waterways? Help protect our rivers by taking your bottles to your local pharmacy’s recycling bin for proper disposal.
E – Enrich the soil of acid loving plants with used coffee grounds. Azaleas and rhododendrons will love you for it.
D – Don’t buy individually wrapped items. Buying in bulk helps save on packaging costs and waste.
A – Adjust your thermostat. Changing your temperature one degree warmer in summer and one degree cooler in winter will save you up to 10% on your bill and save valuable energy resources.
Y – Yearn for more info. It’s tough to remember to be green every day so subscribe to a daily or monthly blog with green tips.
363 jumpers. 100,000+ spectators. 1,030 jumps. Yep, 2010 was quite a year for the Western Hemisphere’s longest single-arch span.
While we are well into the New Year of 2011, we’d like to take a look back at Bridge Day 2010.
We all had a great time organizing the event and had a blast with you the day of. So here’s our top 7 moments from Bridge Day 2010. We’re sure you could add a few as well…so feel free!
Bridge Day is full of stories. Interesting. Unique. Funny. We enjoy posting stories from others, it helps convey the many different perspectives that go into making Bridge Day special.
Over the years, Bridge Day has served as the backdrop for many stories. From weddings and marriage proposals to historic jumps, and family rappels. People doing extraordinary things at an extraordinary place. The stories, and their variety of nature, are as unique as the event itself.
We would like to introduce you to Minna. Minna is a Finnish B.A.S.E. jumper living in Canada. She has raced kayaks, ridden skateboards….if it’s an extreme sport she likely has tried it. The video below shows her progression from tandem jumping to solo…which led her to Bridge Day.
This year, like many others, she made her first trip to jump at Bridge Day. Unlike most other jumpers, Minna is paralyzed. She also has ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). It doesn’t stop her from living life to the fullest, and it didn’t stop her from jumping off our Bridge.
How was her day? We’d like her to tell you herself.
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Bridge Day 2010
By: Minna Mettinen-Kekalainen
Truly one of the most peaceful moments of my life. On the platform, then finally jumping. The beauty of the New River Gorge.
The whole experience was so much different then I imagined. When I have jumped before, it’s always with few people around. Yet at Bridge Day, despite the crowd being large, as it came time to jump, the noise faded away.
When I was up on the jump-platform, I heard nothing. As if no one else was there.
Later, as I recounted the day, I was surprised by this. Why? Because I have never jumped anywhere with so many people and so much noise. As I listened to the announcer while others jumped, I thought to myself, “This never happens at my other jumps!”. The jumpmaster told me I was clear. Just the couple of words I needed to hear.
As I left the platform, my mind turned the voice of the announcer silent. The crowds went silent.
Time seemed to stand still, as if this particular moment, were only for me. As I flew I noticed the tree branches and their leaves. Ripples in the water. I felt the movement of air upon my face, with the greatest intensity. For those few seconds it was as if everything were magnified and I had the whole world to myself alone.
It was a peaceful feeling. One I doubt I will ever be able to fully explain.
Later as I was talking with a friend, I explained, “If I died tonight I would be ok with that. I felt the most peaceful moments of my life during that jump”.
He laughed and said, “You always say that when you jump”.
This was different. I tried to explain it like this:
It reminds me of past kayak races at the Nationals and some International events. During sprint races, time would blur. With each paddle stroke I took, I felt the intensity throughout my body. Each heartbeat seemed to echo. Bridge Day was like this for me. As our team sport psychologists would say, I was’in the zone’.
This is what the jump gave back to me. As my ALS adventures have brought me far from those racing days, I have only experienced that feeling jumping on a few other occasions. The intensity of that feeling can’t compare to what I experienced on the New River Gorge Bridge.
I did one jump. I had only planned to jump once and then to soak in the moment. Much like you, I enjoy watching people, visiting the booths, and taking in the surroundings. For me, it is SO much more about the whole experience, then rushing to try to jump again.
I needed that jump. I needed to be on that Bridge.
It brought me peace. That jump has liberated me from the feeling of uncertainty of my future and my ability to continue on fighting with this illness, knowing what is coming in the future. I was growing tired, and was thinking that soon I wont have the mental tenacity to keep on dealing with the various things that I will be facing in the future.
I didn’t join the evening festivities following the day of jumping. I felt the need to hold on to the feeling I had found earlier.
Being sick with ALS, I know that jumping at another Bridge Day will never be in my sights. Being there to jump this time, has meant more to me then I am able to describe. The experience is one that helps me to accept my ‘fate’ in life before I leave someday to move on to some other existence.
It is really impossible to describe, you just need to go out and do it. Experience it for yourself.
When visiting Bridge Day, it is difficult to look at the surroundings and imagine what the New River Gorge was like many years ago. Times have changed.
Building the New River Gorge Bridge
The 1930′s brought hardship to the Gorge as the world’s economic forces started to change. The Dun Glen Hotel at Thurmond had burned and entire coal towns like Kaymoor were changing as the railroad and mining companies started developing more efficient processes.
During this time only 40% of families owned an automobile so travel over the New River Gorge was minimal. The Fayette Station bridge at the bottom of the canyon was the only means of carrying folks over the New River and further north. West Virginia at the time was a house divided with few southerners ever yearning to go further north.
It wasn’t until some 40 years later that the state proposed the creation of a massive bridge that would lessen commute times and open up the state that was previously so north/south divided. This last piece to Route 19 (Appalachian Corridor L as it was called) took $37 million and more than three years to complete.
Today the New River Gorge Bridge stands proudly as that well-needed connection. The year was 1977 when it was completed and the first Bridge Day Festival followed in 1980. It’s hard to imagine it’s been 33 years and she still looks as good as the day she opened. A true beacon of the endurance and solidarity all West Virginians have exhibited through the years.
I always wanted to learn to fly an airplane. I had no idea where it might lead me.
In 1960 I showed up at Fayette Airport, just a hop and skip from my hometown of Oak Hill, and asked famed-pilot Frank Thomas (“Five-Dollar Frank”) if I could work for him. I was willing to cut grass, wash airplanes, just about anything I could do in-trade for flying time.
The Author and First Man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong
Thankfully, he was kind enough to hire me and I proudly learned to fly from what I feel is one the greatest pilots in history. A true pilot’s pilot.
In January of 1960 I took my first flying lesson in a Piper J-3 Cub. Not long after, at the age of 15, I took my first solo flight. During my years at Fayette Airport I was a member and Squadron Leader of Air Explorer Squadron 3, earning the coveted Air Explorer Silver Award. While working at the airport I made many flights over the New River Gorge before the New River Gorge Bridge was built.
I remember taking the long and winding road into the New River Gorge. Myself and other members of The Air Explorers would head to the river for a swim and on our way back we would load the truck up with river rocks. We used those rocks to make a small building at the Fayette Airport. It is still standing.
Over the years I moved to Indiana Pennsylvania, and became a charter board member (and 3-time President) of the Jimmy Stewart Museum. In July 2009, representing the Stewart family, I attended the National Aviation Hall of Fame induction ceremony. At the event, I had the opportunity to meet 13 Apollo astronauts including Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Gene Cernan, James Lovell, Charles Duke, Tom Stafford, Fred Haise, Vance Brand and others.
Learning to fly in Fayetteville, WV led me face-to-face with the first, second and last man on the moon: Armstrong, Aldrin and Cernan. It allowed me to meet the men behind “Houston we have a problem”, (Apollo 13 crew members Lovell and Haise) and the first woman commander of the space shuttle Eileen Collins. What an experience!
Each time I travel through Fayetteville and over the New River Gorge Bridge, I am reminded of my beginnings as a pilot. It brings a warmness to my heart and a tear to my eye.
Either as an emergency life saving device or in the sport known as skydiving, generally when one thinks of parachuting it is in combination with airplanes. However, parachutes have been around long before airplanes first took to the skies.
Bridge Day B.A.S.E. Jumper - Photo: Melvin Grubb
The ancient Chinese of the 11th Century used small parachute-like devices to retard short falls during gymnastic demonstrations. In the 16th Century, crude parachutes were tested to allow the occupants of tall stone towers in medieval Europe a means of escaping fire.
When the hot air balloon was invented 1783 by the Montgolfier Brothers they also began testing parachutes in earnest. And that same year Sebastian Lenormand successfully jumped from a tall tower using a 14-foot diameter parachute.
Parachutes soon went from being made from heavy fabric held open by a rigid framework to foldable devices made of silk.
The best early documented use of parachutes to jump from stationary objects is in the year 1912. That year a New York steeplejack (a craftsman who makes repairs on tall towers) named Fredrick Rodman Law, jumped from the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and a Wall Street bank building!
Later, in 1942, a Milwaukee airplane mechanic parachuted from the rafters “inside” a large blimp hangar. In the 1960s a European dentist made a jump from a cliff in the Italian Dolomites. And in 1966 Mike Pelkey and Brian Schubert jumped from El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park.
In the mid-1970s jumps were made from the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado and from the World Trade Center Towers in New York.
The “sport” of modern BASE jumping officially began in 1978 when a California skydiver named Carl Boenish organized four jumpers who successfully jumped again in Yosemite National Park. Carl proved these types of jumps, using modern gear and techniques, were not only repeatable, but well within the grasp of most experienced skydivers.
Carl Boenish also coined the acronym “BASE” which stands for Building, Antenna (tower), Span (bridge), and Earth (cliff). These are the four types of jumps BASE jumpers make. And there are BASE jumping sites open to us all over the world.
And today, at Bridge Day 2009, what you are seeing is a sport being practiced by people from all walks of life. Ask ten jumpers why they BASE jump and you’ll get as many answers. But the one constant will be, “Because it’s fun!”
One of the first true extreme sports, modern BASE jumping is now a stand alone sport with its own guidelines, its own events, and a thriving equipment and training industry. The equipment used by BASE jumpers today has pushed parachute technology to ultra reliable levels.
And while “incidents” do occasionally occur, just like in any human endeavor, most can be traced back to user error. So, while you may believe you are witness to the ultimate in craziness, what you are really seeing is the latest chapter in humankind’s age old and never ending dream of flight.
Last year I was walking across the catwalk with a friend who suddenly said, “My dad built this bridge.”
Last year I was walking across the catwalk with a friend who suddenly said, “My dad built this bridge.” I thought he was kidding, but nope, Elwood Zornes did indeed help build that bridge 30 years ago and a whole lot of other structures we take for granted in cities across the U.S.A., and now his son, Terry (TZ), hangs off those same beams rigging ropes for the crowds of participants who want to ride the ropes for the day each October during Bridge Day.
Of course, we have all seen the famous pictures of the men eating lunch on the steel beam hundreds of feet in the air, but until I actually walked out on those same beams, I wasn’t able to actualize how casual they were acting over what really is a very precarious situation. For the most part, they had no protection, nothing much from keeping them from falling and not a whole lot of safety regulations. Nowadays, people have a fit if a person doesn’t safety in during every second they are above the ground under the bridge, and that’s the way it should be.
It sort of makes me proud to be a part of an event that so aptly commemorates their work.
