Page is a
census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
(CDP) and
coal town in
Fayette County,
West Virginia
West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...
, United States. As of the
2020 census, its population was 152 (down from 224 at the
2010 census).
It was named for
William Nelson Page (1854–1932), a
civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...
and
industrialist who lived in nearby
Ansted, where he managed Gauley Mountain Coal Company and many
iron
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
,
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal i ...
, and
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
enterprises.
Page owned a coal and
coking company at Page and was the first president of
The Virginian Railway Company (now a part of
Norfolk Southern).
William Nelson Page, coal, railroad
In 1896, Page founded the
Loup Creek and Deepwater Railway, a logging railroad connecting a sawmill at Robson with the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) at
Deepwater on the
Kanawha River. In 1898, it was rechartered as the
Deepwater Railway
The Deepwater Railway was an intrastate short line railroad located in West Virginia in the United States which operated from 1898 to 1907.
William N. Page, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, had begun a small logging railroad in Fayette County, W ...
, with plans to extend to nearby coal mines at Glen Jean. The town of Page became one of the earliest stations on the expanding Deepwater Railway. Around 1903, it also became the location of Page Coal and Coke Company.
In 1902, Page enlisted the support of
millionaire industrialist
Henry Huttleston Rogers as a silent partner to finance the expansion of the Deepwater Railway much further, about 80 miles through
Mullens to reach the
Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) at
Matoaka to open up new territory with untapped deposits of high volatile
bituminous coal
Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the coal seam, ...
.
As construction of the expanded line got underway, Page was unsuccessful in negotiating fair rates with either major railroad, Thus, he and Rogers quietly expanded their plans again to build all the way to the sea, forming what became the
Virginian Railway in 1907, completed all the way from Deepwater to
Sewell's Point on
Hampton Roads
Hampton Roads is a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond, and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point near whe ...
in 1909.
Growth and decline
Page became the site of a switching yard,
roundhouse, and station on the Virginian Railway (VGN). During the first half of the 20th century, it was a busy place. However, after the railroad eliminated
steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, Fuel oil, oil or, rarely, Wood fuel, wood) to heat ...
s in 1957, and the existing coal mines had been largely depleted, most of the facilities and personnel at Page were unneeded. The VGN was merged into the
Norfolk and Western Railway in 1959, which itself became part of
Norfolk Southern in 1982.
During the latter part of 2007, construction had begun on a 200-foot coal silo that will be fed from a ridge nearly a half mile away, along with an inter modal transport facility; however, this has not contributed to the economy of the area, as mainly non-local contractors have been used.
The silo was never put into service and the mine closed in 2014, the silo remains standing and acts as a reminder of better days in the past for Page.
Notable people
*
Alexander K. Tyree, U.S. Navy Captain and double Navy Cross recipient
References
External links
Virginian Railway (VGN) Enthusiastsnon-profit group of preservationists, authors, photographers, historians, modelers, and railfans
{{authority control
Census-designated places in Fayette County, West Virginia
Census-designated places in West Virginia
Coal towns in West Virginia