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Conditions Governing Access

No special access restriction applies.

Preferred Citation

[Description and date of item], [Box/folder number], Monongahela Railway Company Records, A&M 3125, West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown, West Virginia.

Biographical / Historical

The Monongahela Railroad was organized in December 1900, chiefly for moving coal in southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Its headquarters and base of operations was in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and it was a joint operation of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. In 1915, the Monongahela Railroad consolidated with the Buckhannon and Northern Railway to form the Monongahela Railway Company.

Scope and Contents

The Monongahela Railroad was organized in December 1900, chiefly for moving coal in southwestern Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Twenty-one boxes of letters and memos from the president's office, two boxes of account ledgers, and four boxes of engineering and architectural drawings document the operation of the railroad company from 1900 to 1945.

Twenty-one boxes (box numbers 4 ,5, 7-21, 23-25 and 27) contain bundled and loose letters and memos from the president's office from 1903 to 1945. These records chiefly pertain to the lease and purchase of property (deeds and claims, farms, titles and leases); employees (rates of pay, grievance files, wages and salaries, personal injury claims); improvements (track changes and additions, wire crossings, line crossings, drains, siding); equipment (inventory, purchases, materials and supplies, shipments); cars (freight and passenger); finances (expenditures, banking); and operations (general orders and notices related to train speed and track operations, points of interchange, hours of operation). Also includes documents related to operations along various stretches of track and related companies, including Scott's Run Railway Company and the Morgantown and Wheeling Railway Company.

Two boxes (boxes 6 and 22) of ledgers document miscellaneous financial practices from several companies. Accounting ledgers from the Morgantown Amusement Company include a check register and payroll account books, 1930s-1940s. Other books include electric and water company meter readings, 1914-1918, a surgeon's account book, 1917-1918, and dry goods sold in the early 1900s.

Four boxes (boxes 1-3 and 26) of engineering blueprints and drawings, circa 1913-1916, illustrate various aspects of building railroads. Topics include guards, timbering for tunnels, bids for branches, line posts, plans and profiles of river crossings, and bridges. Also included are drawings of a proposed theater and buildings in Morgantown, circa 1945.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Monongahela Railway Company