RAIL Memorial Project sheds new light on dark history of the Swannanoa Gap
Swannanoa Valley Museum’s History Café explores the tragic tale behind the WNC railroad
Fred McCormick
The Valley Echo
August 17, 2022
RAIL Memorial Project steering committee member and WNC Historical Association Executive Director Anne Chesky Smith discusses the use of incarcerated laborers, Aug. 15, at the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center’s History Café. Photo by Fred McCormick
The breathtaking view from the top of the Swannanoa Gap, facing east across the border shared by Buncombe and McDowell Counties, belies the tragic history that is buried nearby. While the rumble of train engines echoing off the mountainsides serve as a reminder of a tremendous engineering feat, the bodies of hundreds of incarcerated laborers forced to bear the physical sacrifices of progress are entombed in obscurity.
The Railroad and Incarcerated Laborers (RAIL) Memorial Project, featured, Aug. 15, in the latest installment of the Swannanoa Valley Museum & History Center’s History Café, continues to shed new light on those who paid the ultimate price while shaping the future of Western North Carolina. The nonprofit organization, founded in 2020 by UNC Asheville Professor of History Dan Pierce and Marion mayor and longtime WNC Railroad historian, Steve Little, seeks to honor the more than 3,000 inmates who endured brutal conditions in the stockades that once dotted the now-tranquil landscape.
Conquering the 1,100-foot climb from Old Fort to Ridgecrest emerged as an ambitious priority for the Mountain Division of the Western North Carolina Railroad in the years before the Civil War. The project, which would connect the piedmont and coastal plains regions to the isolated mountain communities above, represented a significant opportunity for economic development within the state.
“Until 1879, there was no railroad into the mountains,” RAIL Project steering committee member and WNC Historical Association Executive Director Anne Chesky Smith said, opening her presentation in the education room of the Black Mountain Public Library. “In the late 1700s, the Buncombe Turnpike and other roads went in, but you could only travel these roads by stagecoach, horseback or on foot. It made getting people and supplies in and out of the mountains very difficult.”
A devastating drought in 1840 resulted in widespread crop failures that left the WNC region without adequate resources, prompting the state legislature to designate funding for the westward expansion of the railroad. Construction of the line advanced to Morganton by 1860, but was halted as increasing conflicts between the states escalated into war.
The decade that followed resulted in major setbacks for the planned WNC railroad, which was among the key pieces of infrastructure destroyed by Union raids throughout the region in the final months of the Civil War. As the nation entered an era of Reconstruction, railroad access to the mountains of N.C. was again delayed when George W. Stepson and Milton S. Littlefield took over the project.
“(Stepson) basically embezzled all of the money by selling $4 million worth of fake bonds, leaving the railroad bankrupt again,” Chesky Smith said. “They did eventually find and charge him, but he was never convicted. He was a man who was wealthy, white and well-connected, and only some of the funds were recovered. This is true irony when we think about what happened right after this.”
With pressure mounting around the massive project, which required blasting through mountains to create seven tunnels connecting a series of loops and switchbacks capable of overcoming nearly 800 vertical feet along seven-and-a-half miles of track, former Confederate Major James W. Wilson was named chief engineer in 1877.
“He got together with Zebulon Vance, the state’s Civil War governor who was again governor during Reconstruction, and they came up with a plan to save money the railroad didn’t have,” Chesky Smith said. “Instead of hiring workers, they decided to send convicts from the penitentiary into the mountains to construct the railroad up the Old Fort grade.”
The assignment was “incredibly dangerous” for inmates, who were often convicted of minor offenses in the state’s more densely populated eastern counties, she added. Some of the prisoners were as young as 14 years old.
The former site of a stockade near the western portal of the Swannanoa Tunnel, pictured in this image from the 1870s, is among the areas believed to contain the unmarked graves of incarcerated laborers who constructed the railroad. Photo courtesy of Buncombe County Special Collections, Pack Memorial Public Library
“What you see when you look at the penitentiary reports is that people were dying in accidents,” Chesky Smith said. “But, by and large, most men died from malnutrition, exposure to the elements and from living in such close quarters that disease spread very rapidly. I believe those statistics are underreported.”
Wilson and Vance became key figures in the historical narrative of the treacherous venture, while the identities of the prisoners, roughly 98% of whom were African American, remained largely unknown. The bodies of many of the estimated 300 workers who died in the process are buried near the tracks.
The RAIL Project, which raised funds to build and install a stone monument near Andrew’s Geyser in Old Fort last year, was created to uncover the true story behind the construction of the railroad, while recognizing the prisoners who built it.
The RAIL Memorial Project dedicated a stone marker honoring the incarcerated laborers who built the railroad through the Swannanoa Gap near Andrew’s Geyser last October. Photo by Fred McCormick
“We know there are many graves along the tracks,” Chesky Smith said. “Because the tracks are so long, and oral history, which is the best information we have as to the potential location of these sites, we have been using cadaver dogs to search for them.”
The organization partnered with Western Carolina University geologist Blair Tormey and human remains detection (HRD) dog handler Paul Martin in February to explore possible mass grave sites. The group focused on areas around Andrew’s Geyser, which sits near the former location of the Round Knob Stockade. Another search on private property west of the Swannanoa Tunnel revealed promising results.
“It’s actually on Ridgecrest’s property, and they very generously allowed us to search there,” Chesky Smith said. “The dogs did indicate on a spot in that site, which was probably near the stockade. We can now go in with ground-penetrating radar and hopefully see what’s under there.”
The organization has no plans to disturb possible graves, she added.
Using ground-penetrating radar, crews search private property in Ridgecrest, which has been identified as a possible mass grave by the RAIL Memorial Project. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to recognizing the incarcerated laborers who built the railroad through the Swannanoa Gap. Photo courtesy of RAIL Memorial Project/Dan Pierce
“There does seem to be some kind of trench in that site, but it’s a little inconclusive as to what it is,” Chesky Smith continued. “But the existence of that trench, along with the dog indicating and along with oral history, tells us that there could be a mass grave there.”
The RAIL Project is currently raising funds to erect a grave marker nearby, and plans to install informational wayside panels in the area. To date, the organization has identified the names of around 300 incarcerated laborers who worked on the railroad.
While the story behind what is now regarded as a modern engineering and construction marvel is a traumatic one, uncovering the lesser-known historical details of the project provides an opportunity for a societal reckoning, according to Chesky Smith.
“There is a real contrast between these inmates, who were packed into boxcars and shipped here, and the wealthy white men like George Vanderbilt and E.W. Grove who came in on private train cars up the same grade,” she said. “The railroad is such an important part of our history, and without it, WNC would not be what it is today.”
For more information on the Railroad and Incarcerated Laborers (RAIL) Memorial Project, visit the railproject.org. Additional details about local efforts to recognize the inmates who brought the railroad to WNC can be found in The Valley Echo’s feature story — “The price of progress in the Swannanoa Gap” — originally published, Feb. 9, 2021.