John Henry (folklore)
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John Henry is an American folk hero. An African American freedman, he is said to have worked as a "steel-driving man"—a man tasked with hammering a steel drill into a rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.
Statue of John Henry outside the town of Talcott in Summers County, West Virginia
Plaque celebrating the legend of John Henry (Talcott, West Virginia)
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
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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.