that MyWVHome website has some great vintage photo's on it of the city and many of its railroad history... Ive caught myself spending hours looking at the pictures and reading the captions... even though Ive seen them all several times..
Ve-rry interesting! Certainly doesn't fit my mental picture of West Virginia (vertical scenery and fast water.)
A funny thing happened when I went to Mapquest to have a present-day look. At not-quite-full magnification there's a towboat pushing three barges just west of the railroad bridge. Zoomed in one notch and it disappeared!
One look at the bridge explains why the ferry preceded it. When the route was the equivalent of a lightly used interchange track the ferry was adequate. It took heavy traffic to justify a long, heavy-duty steel bridge.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
http://www.mywvhome.com/1900s/levy.htm
Very Very interesting stuff... I, as a local history buff, had never heard of this until I saw it on this website... A couple of very neat pictures