Thurmond Depot

Thurmond Depot. New River Gorge National River. , The Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Railway built this depot in 1904 to manage passengers and freight, mostly coal. This building replaced an earlier depot that burned the year before. The railroad was the only practical way in and out of New River Gorge. By 1906 there 36 rail stops in just 53 miles through the gorge. Thurmond was the busiest. , During its heyday the entire depot bustled. At one time 20 passenger trains stopped here each day. An estimated three million people passed through this building between 1910 and 1950. The C&O closed Thurmond offices in 1984. The National Park Service restored the depot and opened it as a visitor center in 1995., [Captions:] , A postcard view (above) from the early 1900s illustrates the crowds that once greeted trains here. In 1910 alone Thurmond’s depot served 76,000 passengers., The depot was long and narrow due to limited space between the mainline tracks and the riverbank. The downstairs served passengers; the upstairs housed offices., Mr. William Bennett, track supervisor, was photographed in his depot office in 1906.