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presents

The Roads and Rails of Mercer County, WV /

WV 4 and US 19

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Highway	Start	Terminus	Length (km)
US 19	Raleigh County line near Flat Top	Tazewell County, Virginia state line, Bluefield	58 (62 for pre-1930s alignment)

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Overview

US Route 19 is an original United States numbered road from the AASHO's 11 November 1926 interstate numbering plan. Like the vast majority of U.S. numbered highways, Route 19 has a lengthy trajectory that cuts across several states. Its northern terminus is in Erie, Pennsylvania, a hop, skip, and jump from the Lake Ontario shore. Its south end is in Memphis, Florida, just south of Tampa. Needless to say, it's a route that's popular with Canadian snowbirds.

West Virginia's state highway system preceded the AASHO's U.S. highway system by four years, and the future course of US 19 was briefly, fleetingly signed in the 1920s as WV 4. Until the latter highway was truncated north of Wytheville, Virginia in 1974, US 19 followed a concurrency with US 21 for the vast majority of its distance in Mercer County.

Given that US 19 has existed as a highway for more than 90 years and is paralleled by Interstates for much of its distance, it's almost incredible how stable its routing has been! From the Raleigh County line south to Princeton, its alignment has basically been unchanged (barring minor straightenings) since the day it was commissioned. The stretch between Princeton and Bluefield is another story, however. Its course has changed three times: Once in the 1930s to straighten the course of the highway and move it off of an interurban trolley right-of-way, once in 1977 when its concurrency with US 460 was expanded to a four-lane divided arrangement as Appalachian Development Corridor Q, and once more in 1997 when a notoriously treacherous curve on Corridor Q was bypassed by a rock cut.

The original 1920s course of WV 4 and US 19 is now numbered variously as CR 19/29, CR 19/33, WV 123, or CR 25 and signed as variations of "Old Bluefield Road," "Old Princeton Road," and "Old Bluefield-Princeton Road" for much of its distance. Meanwhile, the bypassed portions of the 1930s alignment that replaced it are now CR 19/49, CR 19/54, CR 19/33, and WV 112.

Prehistory

The majority of West Virginia's original 1922 highway system was routed atop pre-existing infrastructure, and WV 4 was no exception. Most of the roads making up its alignment north of Princeton were already in place by 1887. South of Princeton, things were more scattered: Some segments of the future 4 and 19 were in place by 1895, but they were not connected into a coherent road until the interurban rail line opened astride it in 1916. The 1930s realignment consisted overwhelmingly of new construction, although some portions immediately south of Princeton were again built up over pre-existing roads.

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Points of interest

All photos by the author, 2013 (except as otherwise noted):

A: US 19's course in northern Mercer County is an extremely twisting course that runs parallel to the West Virginia Turnpike. Near the final crossover at Camp Creek itself, a brief segment of old highway presents itself as a parallel side road. US 19's routing has changed so little over the years that this is the only section of old alignment north of Princeton that tangibly exists! (USGS, 1968)

B: Eighteen kilometres of twists and turns south of Camp Creek, US 19 passes by its intersection with WV 10...and with it, the area's creepiest ruin. The Lake Shawnee Amusement Park opened in 1926, closed in the 1960s, briefly reopened in the 1980s, and has basically been in stasis for the last thirty years. Its location has a fair amount of local infamy as the place where the first white settlers in the vicinity met a grisly demise in the eighteenth century. The park is also reportedly atop an indigenous burial ground, which hardly reduces the heebie-jeebie factors.

C: After finishing its winding course through the Bluestone River Valley, US 19 climbs the grade of Black Oak Mountain north of Princeton and approaches the city on Honaker Avenue. It circles the Mercer County Courthouse, touching WV 20 in the process. (Photo by the author, 2000.)

D: South of Princeton's courthouse, Route 19 passes by the site of the bygone mid-century Princeton Airport (still alluded to in a side street named "Airport Drive"), and also passes this ancient Dairy Queen (since remodelled, alas). This is the point where 19's pre- and post-1930s alignments diverge. (Photo by the author, 2008.)

E: US 19's post-1930s alignment takes a straight tack southwest out of Princeton where it merges with US 460 via Appalachian Development Highway Corridor Q. When the intersection with Q was completed in the late 1970s, a bit of US 19 ended up getting cut off in the process, leaving a short stub of old road dubbed Expert Circle (CR 19/49). Here is that stub, looking back in the direction of Princeton. A guard rail bisects the road in the distance, separating old stub from still-extant highway.