Mount Airy & Ore Knob RR

[matthewsaggie]

I visit Sparta on a regular basis and have never seen any evidence of a RR grade and have never heard any references to a RR ever arriving there. There is an Alleganey County Historical Society that you could probably google and ask them. I won't get up there again until June.

[jward]

I found a reference to this railroad in northcarolina.com. According to the site, this line built west from Mt Airy to Ore Knob to service a copper mine. It was listed as merged into the Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley RR in the 1870s. the stations were listed as follows:

Towns on Route:

Mount Airy

Caddells Creek (1877) > White Plains (1877)

Dobson

Judesville > Kapps Mill (1878)

Good Spring (1878)

Cherry Lane

Glade Creek

Sparta (1879)

Laurel Springs

Ore Knob (1874) > Transon (1937)

 

I have scoured old and new USGS topographic maps for any trace of the railroad grade but can find none. Tracing the route listed, the line would have run into a severe climb up the Blue Ridge escarpment between Good SPring and Cherry Lane with a climb of around 1500 feet.  This has me wondering if the railroad was ever built, and if it was, how long it ran before being abandoned. It seems like a lot of railroad to build through inhospitable territory just to service one marginally profitable mine, and there has to be a fascinating story behind this company.

 

Does anybody know more about this line?