O&W Railroad
The Oneida & Western Railroad (O&W Railroad) was a coal and timber railroad connecting Oneida and Jamestown that operated during the first half of the 20th century. The railroad was ultimately abandoned in 1954.
Precursor to Railroad
The Tennessee Coal & Lumber Company incorporated the Jamestown Railroad on October 29, 1912. The company, which was based in Glenmary, in southern Scott County, planned to build a railroad linking Glenmary and Jamestown by following a route roughly along present-day Nydeck Road and S.R. 52. On August 5, 1913, the charter was amended and the name was changed to the Oneida & Western Railroad Co., with plans to build a railroad from Oneida to Albany, Ky.
The O&W was owned by the Hagemeyer brothers who owned the mill at Glenmary — including Hall Hagemeyer and Bartlett Hagemeyer — along with O.H. Anderson, J.T. Anderson and W.C. Anderson.
Meanwhile, the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co., based in Stearns, Ky., owned a large tract of timberland in what is now the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area that was known as the “Big Survey.” The terrain was too rugged to remove the timber efficiently, and efforts to float the logs down the Big South Fork River to Kentucky did not work. So the Stearns Company began building the Kentucky & Tennessee Railroad in McCreary County, Ky., with plans to eventually extend it into Fentress County.
The Stearns company disputed the O&W Railroad, claiming that it was being built illegally because it had no charter. According to H. Clay Smith in Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, the Tennessee Supreme Court found that the Stearns company was technically correct. However, the legal action had made the O&W Railroad a corporate body.
Construction
Construction began on the O&W Railroad in November 1913, beginning in Oneida.
By June 1915, 10.2 miles of the railroad had been constructed to Bridge No. 6 near the Big South Fork River. By 1916, the line had been extended another five miles to Gernt, and then three more miles to Christian. Another 6.8 miles extended the line to Stockton and, in 1921, the line was extended five miles to East Jamestown, for a total of 30 miles. The railroad followed Pine Creek from Oneida to the Big South Fork River, then followed the river to North White Oak Creek, then followed North White Oak Creek to East Jamestown on top of the plateau.
The most difficult part of the railroad to build was a stretch through what was known as the “Big Cut,” between the Big South Fork River and Buck Ford, where crews cut through a 90-ft. rock wall. A steam shovel was used for grading the right of way, with horse and mule teams pulling pan scrapers, and hand cars used on the completed rails to bring in additional rails and tools.
Part of the railroad was constructed by Eagle Construction Company, but most of the work was done by O&W workers. The contractor’s name was A.M. Cook.
Urban legend has it that a cemetery off the north side of the O&W right-of-way was established for workers who died during the construction process. If such a cemetery exists, the graves are not marked.
Smith related a story in his book of a dispute between black workers and railroad bosses. According to Smith, the railroad foreman — J.H. Flynn — and a second man named Hyde entered a tent where black workers were gambling and opened fire on them. One of the men fired back, killing Hyde. He escaped to Oakdale, where he was killed by police. His body was returned to Oneida and buried on the farm of Carl Coleman.
Life was apparently hard for black workers on the railroad. Although slavery had long since ended in the U.S. by that time, Smith paints a picture of indentured servitude, saying that a Scott County lawman named Reason Marcum was employed as a foreman to “see that the Negroes did not try to run off.”
Life on the O&W
Stations on the O&W included:
• Mile 0: Oneida
• Mile 2: Verdun
• Mile 3: Reed’s Station
• Mile 6: Toomey
• Mile 13: Speck
• Mile 14: Potter
• Mile 16: Gernt
• Mile 17: Zenith
• Mile 19: Christian
• Mile 20: Briar Point
• Mile 21: Hagemeyer
• Mile 25: Stockton
• Mile 30: East Jamestown
A normal work day on the railroad was 10 hours. Waterboys earned 15 cents an hour and section hands earned 25 cents an hour.
The railroad hauled workers into the mining and timber camps in the remote terrain between Oneida and Jamestown, and hauled coal and logs out. The railroad also offered passenger service. Perhaps the most famous passenger on an O&W train was Pall Mall resident Alvin C. York, who caught the train at East Jamestown and road it to the Southern Railroad in Oneida as he reported to the U.S. Army during World War I. He would go on to become the most celebrated hero of the war. It took about three hours for a train to travel from Oneida to Jamestown. By the mid 1930s, a train would leave Oneida daily at 7 a.m., arriving in Jamestown at 10 a.m. A train would leave Jamestown at 11 a.m. and arrive in Oneida at 2:20 p.m. Trains did not roll on Sunday. Passengers would catch the train for excursions to the Big South Fork River, where they picnicked and swam.
Much of the timber transported out of the gorge was bound for the Tennessee Stave & Lumber Company’s mill at Verdun. The mill and the station at Verdun were located about where the “S” curve is currently located on Verdun Road; the road in that section follows a small section of the old O&W railroad grade.
Some of the largest camps along the railroad were East Laurel and Zenith. It was at Zenith that Oneida resident Hubert Baldwin — the eventual owner of West Coal Co. — got his start in the coal industry. He moved his wife and daughter out of Zenith after violence erupted there in the 1930s.
A total of 12 locomotives were used to pull trains on the O&W. The oldest was built in 1899.
The O&W Railroad was headquartered in the brick building in Oneida that is now owned by Highland Veterinary Hospital. The depot was across the street, where the former First National Bank — now owned by Mountain People’s Health Councils — is now located.
In addition to trains, the O&W was traveled by a “mail bus,” which was a Chevrolet truck equipped with railroad wheels. It carried mail and some passengers over the rails.
More expansion
On June 9, 1930, the O&W Railroad applied for a permit to extend the line another seven miles from East Jamestown to Jamestown. The Tennessee Lumber & Coal Company, which owned the railroad at that time, argued that the extension would allow more rich timberlands to be reached.
The extension into Jamestown opened on December 10, 1930. A.M. Cook again served as the contractor. Hall Hagemeyer was president of the railroad at that time. George Jackson was superintendent and Carl Coleman was auditor.
Violence on the railroad
In addition to the incident involving black workers during construction of the O&W, some of the most violent times on the railroad occurred in the 1920s and 1930s. The cause of the violence was labor unrest. In the 1930s, gunmen would shoot at workers walking along the railway with rifles from vantage points at the top of the bluffs that lined the tracks. A man named Casper “Cap” Woods, who was the store manager for the Webb Hammock Mine, was ambushed and killed near Armathwaite. No one was ever charged in connection with his murder, but union organizers were suspected.
Among the workers who were shot at by riflemen were John Parnell, the father of Oneida resident Bromma Pemberton. Pemberton told the FNB Chronicle in the 1990s that Parnell’s family begged him not to go to zenith but he went anyway, along with his son, Bill Parnell, and Taft Fairchild. The three men were not injured by gunmen.
Decline of the railroad
The rise of the automobile spelled the end of passenger service on the O&W Railroad. Later, the timber and mines played out, and the railroad further declined. The last train ran on March 4, 1954. The crew included engineer Audney Acres, conductor Willie Massey, fireman George Parnell, and brakeman Harrison Terry.
One of the longest-tenured employees of the railroad was Willie Douglas, who worked for the O&W for 36 years as a waterboy, fireman, brakeman and engineer. He fired the first engine that ran on the railroad, and also fired the last engine that ran in 1954.
The railroad was declining by the start of World War II in the early 1940s. However, the Tennessee Valley Authority announced the planned construction of a dam on Wolf Creek. Crown-Healy, a Chicago-based firm, won the bid to build the dam and purchased the O&W Railroad to haul materials to the construction site. However, the Wolf Creek project was suspended during World War II, and Crown-Healy did not win the renewed bid in 1946.
Crown-Healy proposed to abandon the O&W after losing the TVA bid in 1946, but the railroad was purchased by Jewell Ridge Coal Company. It intended to further develop coal resources along the railbed. That did not happen, and abandonment was filed for again in 1953.
The abandonment of the railroad was opposed in court, and the case was heard in Crossville. However, a judge ruled that the O&W charter could be ended. The steel rails were pulled for scrap and the engines were sold.
The railroad’s headquarters building was sold to Plateau Electric Cooperative for office space. The railroad right-of-way from Oneida to Verdun was sold to Carl Coleman, who in turn sold some of the land to Jellico Grocery Company. The right-of-way from Verdun to the Scott/Fentress County line was given to Scott County for use as a public road, and the right-of-way from the Scott/Fentress County line to Jamestown was given to Fentress County for use as a public road.
The O&W Today
Scott County developed its section of the railroad grade as a road, which today is known as O&W Road. It is a paved road to the end of the Oneida city limits, and a two-lane gravel road from the city limits to its intersection with Toomey Road. Beyond Toomey Road, it is a one-lane gravel road to the O&W Bridge over the Big South Fork River. The final segment, from the O&W Bridge to the county line at North White Oak Creek, is a dirt road.
Fentress County did not develop its portion of the railbed. It was used by four-wheel-drive vehicles for years, until traffic was finally stopped by the National Park Service in the early 2000s. The NPS proposed to close the entirety of the road from the O&W Bridge to the western boundary of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. However, Scott County Government successfully petitioned the park service to leave the segment of road from the bridge to the county line at North White Oak Creek open to vehicular traffic.
From the North White Oak Creek crossing — which is not bridged — to the BSF boundary, the old railbed is a multiuse trail used primarily by horseback riders. It is also open to hikers and mountain bikers.
Only two of the original bridges remain. The O&W Bridge and a bridge over Pine Creek near where it empties into the Big South Fork were constructed in 1915 and are the oldest bridges in Scott County today. A third original bridge will be replaced in 2025. It was condemned by the TN Dept. of Transportation in 2024 and the O&W Road was closed as a result. The condemned bridge is located just west of O&W Road’s intersection with Toomey Road, outside the Big South Fork NRRA.