Cape Charles Thrives
Some Idea Of A Prospering Eastern Shore Town.
RAILROAD MAKING IT GROW
$150,000 Spent in New Homes In Two Years -- Potatoes Its Chief Source of Profit.
[Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.]
Cape Charles [City], Va., May 1. -- With an expenditure of $150,000 in the past two years for homes alone, an idea of the growth of this section can best be gained. This money was spent in this town. The landowners, too, put up some $50,000 for improvements along the water-front. Now the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad is spending thousands to establish its chief shops here.
The Eastern Shore of Virginia has long been known as a garden. It raises potatoes, white and sweet, for the nation. The co-operate exchange of this section has shipped to points so far away that a lone farmer would never think of trying to reach, and consequently fine prices have prevailed. Cape Charles, as the headquarters of the railroad that carries this produce, has naturally benefited.
Its Trade Board Lively.
The Cape Charles Board of Trade was organized about two years ago for the purpose of giving intelligent discussion and deliberation to any measure, proposition or project affecting in any manner the welfare and progress of the community. This organization holds regular meetings in their own assembly rooms, where topics of timely interest are discussed and
Up to about two years ago the town made slow progress in the way of building, although its growth was steady. Before that time the L. E. Mumford Bank, the Farmers and Merchants' Bank and the Parsons block were erected with the ice and lumber company's plant.
Since that time extensive improvements have taken place. The reclaiming of a portion of the town and land adjacent has caused an impetus in building operation, and the opening of new streets, with sewerage and water mains. The officials have been abreast of the improvements in the building line and have graded and drained a number of new streets. With this the property owners have laid new pavements and made other improvements to the fronts of their properties. Suspicious At First, But --
Person having investments in Cape Charles until recently looked with suspicion upon the movements of the Pennsylvania Railroad, fearing that at any moment it would change its plans for the future and abandon Cape Charles as a terminus and locate farther down the peninsula, but the vast improvements being made at this point by the Pennsylvania soon expelled that opinion.
To the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad the town of Cape Charles owes its origination. Twenty-six years ago this line excited but little favor among the Pennsylvania officers. The struggle to bring Norfolk and Philadelphia closer together in a transportation sense had been a prolonged and a losing venture. Even as far back as 1825 passengers were carried down the Delaware river by boat to Dover, and then by tally-ho post coaches to Seaford, Del, on the Nanticoke river -- 46 miles overland -- where steamer was again taken to Norfolk. The Delaware Railroad, now the principal artery of travel on the Peninsula, was designed to carry out the old project of connecting Dover and Seaford by rail.
Many factors brought the scheme to an unpropitious end. Later the Delaware Railroad was connected with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Wilmington, and there was a through rail connection established to Seaford, where steamers took passengers and freight to Norfolk. This again was a failure. Yet later the Eastern Shore Railroad was built from Delmar to Crisfield, where a line of steamers, known as the Anna Messie Line, sought to meet the demand for a thorough connection to Norfolk. It, too, suffered an inglorious death.
It now came to be the opinion of many that the only purpose of railroads on the peninsula should be to serve the local needs. For this purpose a branch line of nine miles was built from the Eastern Shore Railroad at King's Creek to Pocomoke City. This branch was the original New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad Company, and it was destined to become the mother, eventually to turn the Eastern Shore road to Crisfield into a feeder.
Formed Idea in 1883.
Such as in 1883 was the uninviting nucleus of the proposed railroad to Norfolk. It seemed that the possibilities of the region were thoroughly developed. It was the purpose to extend the line 65 miles further south to Cape Charles, the narrow peninsula was covered with a dense forest, underneath which was a sandy soil, which did not promise much freight tonnage. At Cape Charles trains were not to be unloaded, but the cars were to be pushed on barges and ferried across the Chesapeake to Norfolk -- something then unheard of in either railroad or water transportation.
But the harbor at Cape Charles was very shallow and the proposed plan of carrying loaded freight cars on a barge across 36 miles of water, often very stormy, was regarded as visionary.
Cassatt The Pioneer.
But the late A. J. Cassatt, then president of the Pennsylvania system, foresaw the time when the peninsula forest should be cut down and the land become a wonderful producer of fruits and vegetables. He determined to spend his own money building a harbor at Cape Charles, in case he could not induce the United States Government to do it. A channel 1,000 by 6000 feet was accordingly dredged by the company so as to afford 12 feet of water at low tide.
Then Mr. Cassatt declared that the way to get cars across the Chesapeake Bay in barges was to carry them. So successful has this plan proved that the same principle has been adopted at numerous other places, notably on the Great Lakes. At the start the barges were designed to handle only 18 cars; whereas at the present time the company owns 15 large steel car floats, most of which have a capacity of 30 cars, which amount to a full train of fast freight for each barge. An idea of how this barge traffic has developed in recent years may be observed in the fact that while in 1900 the company moved 578,000 tons of freight by barge and handled 37,000 loaded and 10,000 empty cars over its ferries, in 1907 the number of tons of freight moved in this way amounted to 105,000 loaded and 33,000 empty.
Though Mr. Cassatt might overcome the physical difficulties which present themselves, there was yet another difficulty which, to the practical railroad man, seemed even more serious. All the railroads which then entered Norfolk were accustomed to transit to Northern points by steamship. The railroads themselves owned a large interest in these boat lines, so that the traffic agreements between the rail and water lines seemed almost impossible to break through, especially as the boat service was very well developed and the rates low.
200 Carloads A Day Rushed.
Thus it has come to pass that during the spring and summer the Norfolk and Southern Railroad, for example, delivered to the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk line about 200 carloads of perishable products each day. Perishable products contribute about 14 per cent, of the revenue of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk. In 1900 the company shipped only 141,266 barrels of potatoes, while in 1907 the figure amounted to 2,064,778 barrels, in 1900 the company handled 14,511 cars of perishable products, while in 1907 the number was 20,601. A large proportion of the land from Delmar to Cape Charles, and an almost indefinite acreage along the line of the railroad south of Norfolk is still available for trucking purposes.