A commercial railroad was slow in reaching Graham County for the same reason that roads were: it was due to the steep, rugged, mountainous terrain.
The earliest railroads in Graham County were built for the purpose of transporting logs and or lumber. Porterfield and Grandlin built the Porterfield Gap Railroad on Little Snowbird in 1897, and operated a sawmill at Long Bottoms, also on Little Snowbird.
Kanawha Hardwood Lumber Company began logging operations in Graham County in 1899. They logged thousands of board feet of timber on West Buffalo.
In 1905, the Southern Railway built a railroad line from Bushnell to Fontana and Eagle Creek. Also that year, the Snowbird Valley Railroad Company was formed and extended railroads up Big and Little Snowbird Creeks.
In 1909, the railroad was extended up Little Snowbird for six miles. The Snowbird line was discontinued in 1917, and the steel rails sold to France.
In 1912, Whiting Lumber Company – aided by a $50,000 bond, passed by Graham County – graded a roadbed for a rail line to connect Robbinsville to the Murphy Branch Railroad (later Southern Railway) at Topton. The rail bed was not completed until 1922, when Bemis Lumber Company purchased the holdings from Whiting Lumber Company.
Bemis completed the rail line to Robbinsville and the first rail cars entered town on July 4, 1925, to a big celebration. In 1926, Bemis continued the railroad from Milltown up Atoah Creek, through IU Gap and on to Big Snowbird. A spur line also ran up West Buffalo.
In 1916, the Kitchen Lumber Company and then Babcock Lumber Company in the 1920s operated a logging railroad in Slickrock Creek, Bear Creek and Deep Creek. The railroad was abandoned in 1929 due to the construction of Calderwood Dam.
A railroad was operated by the Knoxville Power Company that ran from Calderwood, Tennessee, to Tapoco and Santeetlah Dam. The line was discontinued from Maryville, Tenn., southward in 1932.
The Plank Road Gap Railroad ran from Little Snowbird to Hyatt’s Creek near Marble in Cherokee County and had wooden tracks. It was built by two men named Smith and Eggers.
Another railroad with wooden tracks was located on Yellow Creek and was operated by the C.M. English Lumber Company.
The Whiting Lumber Company built narrow gauge railroads up Panther Creek, Fax Branch, Welch Cove and the site present day Fontana Village. Many of these old railroad beds are still visible throughout the woods in Graham County today.
Marshall McClung is a columnist for The Graham Star.