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Picture of the day -
September 1, 2006
The Watauga Trestle On The Virginia Creeper Trail
Click photo to enlarge
The
Virginia Creeper Trail in southwestern Virginia was a trail long
before the Virginia-Carolina Railroad Company even laid the first
rail on its route from
Abingdon to the
North Carolina line. In fact, it was a trail long before the first
Europeans even set foot on the North American continent! By the time
they arrived in the area, the local Indians had already used the scenic
trail for hundreds of years, and later Daniel Boone and his men used
it on a storied trek through the region.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the decision was made to build
a railroad along the ancient route to haul the area's abundant
timber and iron ore after it was harvested. Progress on the new
railroad was slow and tedious because the numerous cuts and fills
around the steep hillsides and "hollers" had to be dug by hand. To
make the project even more difficult, dozens of trestles
(bridges) had to be
built in order for the the locomotive and its heavy cargo to cross
the numerous rivers, creeks and ravines that lay in the path of the
railroad - and they all had to be built using manual labor!
Those wooden trestles are marvelous feats of engineering, some of
which span hundreds of feet in length and rise high above the ground
below. Today's picture features one of the most recognized trestles
on the trail: the long, scenic trestle located in the Watauga
community just south of Abingdon.
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