If you take the time to stop in West Virginia's New River Gorge, our newest national park,

and listen, you might hear intertwined within the sound of birdsong flowing water and the wind billowing through the trees,

the whistles of a train. I'm Jason Epperson, and today on Parkography, the legend born from the gorge

that would echo through generations to come.

A man named John Henry.

Following the New River through the gorge, the original Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Company line

was constructed between 1869 and 1872.

In the early 1870s, construction of the CNO along the Greenbrier and

New Rivers employed thousands of workers. Many of these men were African Americans who migrated

to West Virginia in search of jobs. Jobs on the railroad were labor intensive and low-paying,

requiring long hours and were at times extremely dangerous.

Railroad workers primarily used shovels, wheelbarrows, mules, and black powder to move

millions of tons of rock and dirt to prepare the railroad bed. Workers used axe and ads to

cut and shape hundreds of trees into ties, bridge timbers, and lumber for rail cars.

They sweated in the hot summer sun and froze in the cold mountain winters as they worked

to connect Tidewater, Virginia with the Ohio River Valley.

In February of 1870, workers began drilling the Great Bend Tunnel, where the Greenbrier River

makes a seven-mile turn around Big Bend Mountain.

Over 800 men cut a 6,450-foot-long tunnel through the mountain. The workers cut through layers

of red shale, which tended to disintegrate when exposed to air, making the tunnel a dangerous

place to work. Rockfalls were common and death was always a possibility.

At nearly a mile and a quarter long, the Great Bend Tunnel is the longest on the C&O Railway.

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