Cheat River, Baltimore & Ohio Railroad
Not on view
This early industrial landscape shows a Baltimore & Ohio locomotive pulling six cars and crossing the Cheat River in West Virginia. Chartered on February 27, 1827, the B&O was America's first common railroad carrier. The railroad crossed the Cheat River at the little town of Rowlesburg, West Virginia, and climbed the steep grade westbound through the Allegheny Mountains in northern West Virginia and western Maryland. The photograph could easily serve as an illustration for the classic motivational children's story The Little Engine That Could (1930).