Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond to the Ohio River by 1873, where the railroad town of Huntington, West Virginia, was named for him.
The original Blue Ridge Tunnel built by the Blue Ridge Railroad and used by the C&O until its replacement during World War II
Coal cars at the Danville, West Virginia, yard in 1974
Postcard showing the Chesapeake and Ohio Terminal in Newport News, c. 1930–1945
The Chesapeake and Ohio's Sportsman at Alexandria, VA in August 1964.
Collis Potter Huntington was an American industrialist and railway magnate. He was one of the Big Four of western railroading who invested in Theodore Judah's idea to build the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad. Huntington helped lead and develop other major interstate lines, such as the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O), which he was recruited to help complete. The C&O, completed in 1873, fulfilled a long-held dream of Virginians of a rail link from the James River at Richmond to the Ohio River Valley. The new railroad facilities adjacent to the river there resulted in expansion of the former small town of Guyandotte, West Virginia into part of a new city which was named Huntington in his honor.
Collis P. Huntington, c. 1872 by Stephen W. Shaw
CSX (the former C&O Railway) Huntington Division Headquarters, with a statue of Collis P. Huntington by Gutzon Borglum in the foreground.
Share of the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad Company, issued 18 August 1882, signed by Huntington
Huntington in later life.