Thurmond: The Town Where the Railroad Was Main Street, West Virginia

Deep in the New River Gorge, there was barely enough flat ground for a railroad, let alone a town. Thurmond was built anyway. In 1873, Captain W. D. Thurmond received 73 acres here as payment for a surveying job. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway built a station in 1888, and the town was incorporated in 1903. Coal was everywhere in the surrounding hills. Short mine trains came down the branch lines, and at Thurmond they were assembled into long trains bound for the main line. There was no room for a conventional downtown. For much of its history, Thurmond’s commercial district had no street. Banks, stores and offices faced the tracks directly, and until 1921 the only way to reach the town was by rail. Across the river, the 100-room Dun Glen Hotel opened in 1901 and became a nationally known resort. It burned in 1930. A card game at its successor site is said to have run for 14 years, and Ripley’s Believe It or Not lists it as the world’s longest-lasting poker game. Thurmond’s population peaked at 462 in 1930. After that, the town lost its banks one by one. Then, in the 1950s, diesel locomotives replaced steam engines, and trains no longer had to stop here for coal and water. In the late 1980s, the National Park Service began buying properties. The 2020 census counted 5 residents. Freight trains still roll past the old storefronts, and the restored depot now welcomes visitors.