The Cy Crumley Scrapbook
ET&WNC Railroad
Tour 2: Early Years of Railroad


     
 

Your host and narrator for this tour is Ken Riddle, close personal friend of Cy Crumley, legendary conductor of this great railroad. From 1906 until 1960, Cy worked on the ET&WNC as Brakeman and Conductor. This is his scrapbook of those years and his story.

 


Click on each photo to see a larger view.
 

Famous Pose at Pardee Point
Date: 1882

This is supposedly the first passenger train to Cranberry stopped at Pardee Point in the Doe River Gorge.  The man with the doctor's bag is Dr. Abraham Jobe, who said in his diaries that he moved to North Carolina "on the first train through".  His diaries are available at the Archives of Appalachia at ETSU.

That is engine Number 1 when it still burned wood.  I think this is in 1882.  Notice that the engine has a yard jockey mounted on the front for a decoration.  The first three locomotives the ET&WNC owned had names as well as numbers,  No. 1 was the "Watauga", No.2 was the "Cranberry", and No. 3 was the "Unaka".  All three engines were still on the railroad when Mr. Crumley went to work as a brakeman in 1906.

Mr. Crumley had an original print of this shot in his collection but it wound up being "borrowed" and never returned.  I made this copy negative in 1972.

Note: Accucraft offers a live steam model af an engine exactly like the ET&WNC No.1 the "Watauga."


 

Woodburner
Date: 1890s

This is a fantastic old shot of Engine 2, the "Cranberry", while she still burned wood.  Look at that rack on the headlight.  Mr. Crumley had several of these old pictures that pretty much matched.  I have suspicion that they were derived from the collections of Burr Harrison, and all but two of them got gone from Mr. Crumley's collection in the early 1970's.  Luckily, we have good copy negatives and much original Burr Harrison stuff survives in the Archives of Appalachia at ETSU.  The engineer is either Scott Dean or Brown Davis, most likely.  Johnny Graybeal says this is made at Shell Creek, and he would know. When Tighteye Simerly was in the first grade at Shell Creek school, he saw Engines 2 and 3 hit head-on across the field from the school.

Note: Accucraft offers a live steam model af an engine exactly like the ET&WNC No.2 the "Cranberry."

 

 

 

Pass Signed by Ario Pardee, Jr.
Date: 1884

From the Mike Hardin Collection are two historical gems. The pass above is signed by Ario Pardee, Jr. President of the ET&WNC Railway and a noted Union Army Commander in the Gettysburg Campaign. Shown below is a stock certificate issued to Jordan C. Hardin, a Board of Director and father of George Hardin, later Vice-President of the railroad. Jordan Hardin, with a background in surveying and mining, was involved with the ET&WNC Railroad from its inception until his death in 1898. He oversaw development of the Johnson City operations.

 

Jordan C. Hardin
Date: 1880
 

Jordan C. Hardin
Photo: Cargille Studio

 


 

Scott Dean
Date: Late 1890s

Here's a really old shot of Engine 3, the "Unaka" on the Johnson City yard. This is another mysterious disappearance from Mr Crumley's stuff since the copy negatives were made. Anyway, I got this out of the prints I did in the early 1970's. The only ones that were identified were Burson Love and Scott Dean. Scott Dean was one of the original ET&WNC engineers. He is buried in The Cranberry Cemetery. Many great photos are found in Mr. Crumley's collection of train crews proudly posed with their locomotives.

 

Unaka National
Bank Currency
Date: 1882
 

Freight Receipt
Date: 1885

 

 

 
TRAIN WRECK!
Date: 1904

Here are two photos from the Mary Hardin McCown Collection in the Archives of Appalachia showing ET&WNC Engine 2 laying flat on its side near the "Uptegrove Plant" in Johnson City. This plant has been identified as the American Cigar Box Manufacturing facility. John Waite, in The Blue Ridge Stemwinder, places this location near the current Clinchfield Railroad Depot at the corner of Buffalo Street and State of Franklin Road with the building in the far right of the photo being the original ET&WNC engine house.

The photo above shows the wreck scene and crowd. The photo below shows Engine 2 (with its fragile headlight removed) in the process of being hoisted to an upright position. Observe these historic photos carefully at the higher resolution as the detail views of the railway equipment, buildings, and the obvious excitement of the crowd clustering at the accident scene are fascinating. Original photos attributed to the collections of photographer Burr Harrison.

 

Hoisting Up
Date: 1904
 

American Cigar Box Co.
Date: 1905

 

 

Church Excursion
Date: 1906
First Christian Church in Elizabethton had an excursion to Cranberry in 1906.  Here they are stopped under the hanging rock at Pardee Point in the Gorge on the way back.  This is the same place we stop the excursions today, but the train is pointed the other way.  That is supposed to be engine 5.

The ET&WNC went through some of the most scenic country east of the Rocky Mountains and fortunately the Doe River Gorge is still viewable by rail today. Read the Johnson City Press news article on a recent excursion. Remember these black and white photos do not adequately represent the colorful scenery or the grand views that the steam-powered locomotives themselves provided in earlier times. The color photo below taken in 1950 gives a better feel for what the Tweetsie narrow gauge experience, in which the trains used tunnels carved out by hand tools and hugged the cliffs of the Doe River Gorge, actually looked like to the riders and railway employees.


 

Engine No. 5
Date: 1905

"Rabbit Foot" Watson brings a load of dressed lumber across the Cranberry scale track with engine 5 when she was nearly new in 1905.


 

Running Hot
Date: 1905

"Rabbit Foot" Watson has the brand-new number 5 hot enough to "pop off" the safety valve as he passes the photographer in Cranberry in 1905. Look at his picture made thirty years later on the second 8 and you sill see he still stands in the cab exactly the same way.

 

 

 

Crew Ready to Work
Date: 1909

Here is a photo of yard engine 7 in Johnson City in 1909.  Remember, the 7 was the largest narrow gauge engine in the United States when this picture was taken.

For the steam engines four crewmen are required: an engineer, fireman, conductor, and brakeman. The engineer, of course, operates the locomotive. The fireman maintains the fire in the locomotive. The conductor is responsible for the train and its passengers. The brakeman assists the conductor with throwing switches and collecting tickets.

Notice how everybody has equipment for their job.  Engineer Walter Allison has his long oilcan, Fireman Fred Helton has his coal scoop, Brakeman Ted Blaylock has his brake club; I am not sure who the next fellow is, but on the end Conductor George Q. Williams has his switch list in his hand.  I think this is a really cool shot.  There is another picture in this collection made nearly fifty years later when Walt Allison retired (seen here on Tour 9) with almost the same crew working the Johnson City yard.


 

Number 1 at Cranberry
Date: Around 1909

Here is Number 1 at Cranberry after they changed her to burn coal. Looks like the conductor next to the tank is Wilmer Blevins, but I know for sure the engineer in the cab is Arthur Allison. The story goes that Arthur was a red-headed, hot tempered Irishman who went to the Clinchfield (CC&O) early in its existence. He got mad and quit his job while on a locomotive at Johnson City and left his train stranded when he walked home. They had to send a yard engineer to his engine to get the train home to Erwin.

 

 

 

Doe River Gorge
Date: 1910

Unusual view of a bridge in Doe River Gorge as seen from the river. The photo has been water colored and it appears the bridge's diagonal braces as viewable on the right side of the photo are painted silver. From the Mike Hardin Collection.

 


 

Cranberry Furnace
Date: 1910

The Cranberry Furnace in Johnson City was the second Bessemer-type blast furnace to be constructed in Tennessee, possibly in the south. Processing the iron ore from the mines at Cranberry, North Carolina, a high grade of pig iron was produced. Numerous foundries and related iron and steel industries existed in Johnson City through much of the 20th Century. Read more about the Cranberry Furnace in this article provided by John Waite, author of the Blue Ridge Stemwinder. Postcard courtesy of Georgia Sluder.

Shown below is a Cranberry Furnace Stock Certificate courtesy of Mike Hardin.

 

Stock - Cranberry Furnace
Date: 1902


 

 

Number 1 at Cranberry
Date: Around 1909

Here is Number 1 at Cranberry after they changed her to burn coal. Looks like the conductor next to the tank is Wilmer Blevins, but I know for sure the engineer in the cab is Arthur Allison. The story goes that Arthur was a red-headed, hot tempered Irishman who went to the Clinchfield (CC&O) early in its existence. He got mad and quit his job while on a locomotive at Johnson City and left his train stranded when he walked home. They had to send a yard engineer to his engine to get the train home to Erwin.

 

 

Newland
Date: 1916

Another photo with engine 4 in Newland in 1916. Mr Crumley is on the left next to Jim Miller, with Jim Hardin second from the left, and all the way to the right is Chester Ford.

 

 

 

ET&WNC Stock
Date: 1880s
Ario Pardee, Sr.
1810-1892

Originally chartered by the Tennessee General Assembly in 1866, the ET&WNC Railroad was completed in 1882 with financing obtained by Pennsylvania industrialist Ario Pardee and his associates.

Ario Pardee was the king of the Pennsylvania coal barons. Born in Chatham, N.Y., on Nov. 19, 1810, Ariovistus Pardee grew up on a farm near Lebanon Springs, N.Y.. By the time of his death in 1892, he stood among Pennsylvania's millionaire elite, one of the founders and major contributors to Easton's Lafayette College.

‘‘Like other pioneers of American industrialization, Pardee, "the silent man,' as many called him, possessed both vision and organizational genius,’’ Donald L. Miller and Richard Sharpless wrote in ‘‘The Kingdom of Coal,’’ published in 1985. ‘‘He was a strong supporter of technical innovations, especially those which enhanced hard coal's value as a fuel.’’ Pardee's financial support and work on the ET&WNC was typical of his contribution to the railroad and mining industries.

Ario Pardee, Sr. died in 1892 and is buried in Hazelton, Pennsylvania. His son, Ario Pardee, Jr. was a noted Union Army commander during the Civil War and also heavily involved with the ET&WNC and the Cranberry Iron and Coal Company. The Pardees were contemporaries of Andrew Carnegie and other major Eastern industrialists and philanthropists, all of whom supported higher education. "Pardee Point" was the most noted scenic view along the Tennessee portion of the ET&WNC Railroad.







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Feel free to copy and use these photos.

BUT—AND I MEAN IT—
IF YOU PUBLISH THEM YOU BE SURE AND PUT
MR. CY CRUMLEY’S NAME ON IT!

Kenneth Riddle
Johnson City, Tennessee
November 2005