Prince, West Virginia

How many of you have heard of the small town of Prince located in the southern region of the U.S. state of West Virginia?  Unless you live in that region or work for the National Park Service or are a railroad historian, you most likely have never heard of this town.  It is a suburb of Beckley that is on the New River inside the New River Gorge which is famous for its beauty and an engineering marvel, the New River Gorge Bridge.

Some of you are saying, “I bet that the town is named after some prince in a foreign country.”

Sadly, you are wrong.  That town is named for William Prince, who happened to be a settler in the region and was never part of any royal family.

What is this town known for?  Well, it is mostly a ghost town like the nearby town of Thurmond.  Like Thurmond, it is a railroad town as the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (now CSX Transportation) passes through.  Like Thurmond, the town has three amazing features.  The first is the New River.  The second is the surrounding natural beauty.  The third is the train station.  Both towns are known for their train stations.  The train station in Prince has a special history.

What is special about the train station in Prince, West Virginia?

The train station in Prince, West Virginia serves as the Amtrak station for the city of Beckley as the city does not have its own train station.

There is more to the story.  The railroad line was originally built by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway serving the region’s coal industry by transporting coal from the mines of West Virginia to the ships in the harbor of Norfolk in the U.S. state of Virginia.  The town of Prince, West Virginia did not have a rail yard.  What put the town on the railroad map?  It is on a junction of two railroad lines with the main line going into the gorge and the other line going to the southern region of the state, but what put the town on the railroad map was the train station.

Well, many towns were put on the map by their train station, but what makes the town of Prince, West Virginia special?

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway had a plan to build modern train stations on their railroad lines between Charleston, West Virginia and Norfolk, Virginia.  As you look at the train station, it looks old with the old C&O symbol on the side.  When the station was built, it was very modern.  Of all of the planned stations, this was the only station to be built.  Yes, you are looking at the only planned station by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway to be built on the line.

Today, the train station retains its original look.  It is the main building in the town.

The next time you think about the town of Prince, West Virginia, think about a town surrounded by natural beauty that had railroad royalty.