I grew up listening to my parents discuss the Great Depression. Everything but poverty seemed scarce during the years of 1929 – 1939, yet they felt fortunate to live in Mendota as food was plentiful due to the river as a source of grinding meal and small family farms with gardens and livestock. It was during that time that Mendota’s bank closed, the silica mining stopped (I blogged about the silica mining operation in March, 1916. It has a few pictures which you can see here.) and Mendota’s future as an academic spotlight along with future industrial potential changed. It was also near that time passenger rail ceased in Mendota– but not without a fight.

From the Bristol Herald Courier on May 10, 1938:

Council Adopts Resolution Asking Continuance of Passenger Service

Calling the operation of passenger trains on the Bristol-St. Charles line a “public necessity” the town council of Mendota has adopted resolutions protesting against the proposal of the Southern Railway Company to discontinue all passenger train service between Bristol and St. Charles.

The railway’s application to be allowed to discontinue service on that line is now in the hands of the Virginia Corporation Commission which will hold a hearing on the application May 17.

Saying the discontinuance of passenger train service would be “very detrimental to the Mendota section, as well as to the railway itself,” the town council called attention to the “worse than bad” roads in that section and asserted, “It is believed that the greatest potential tonnage of freight along the entire Southern system is located in the Mendota section.”

Only 15 Families In Mendota Have Cars

“Few people residing between Mendota and Benhams own automobiles, because of the poor condition of the roads,” the council declared, adding that out of 60 families living in the corporate limits of Mendota, only 15 have automobiles.

Commenting more specifically on the inadequacy of highway travel facilities in the Mendota section, this council said in its resolutions:

“At present between Hilton and Benhams, along said railway line, a distance of 17 miles, there’s no bus service whatsoever except that a bus comes to Mendota once a week. Between Hilton and Mendota, a distance of 10 miles, there are eleven grade railway crossings, which fact indicates the kind and dangerous nature of the highway if such it can be called. Between Mendota and Phillips, a distance of 3 miles, there is an impassable river, with no highway bridge on a direct line, making the distance by bus, if it could be traveled at all, about 20 miles. Between Phillips and Leonards (Wolf Run post office), a distance of 2 miles, there is no direct road, the distance as a bus would travel if al all, being at least 12 miles.”

The council observed also that the present train schedules give a “highly efficient mail service specially from the East-New York, Washington, Richmond etc.” which would not be available if the train service were discontinued.

Saying the proposal to abolish all passenger train service on the line “could not have originated except with railway officials far away, strangers to local conditions,” the council declared the railway officials ask the state Corporation Commission to set its seal of approval upon a proposition that is destructive of their own interest as well as that of the public.

The railway’s proposal would retard the future development of natural resources in the Mendota section, the council complained, saying:

“For example, the Mendota section has enough high grade glass sand to supply all the glass factories in the United States, and all the potteries in the United States with flint, for centuries to come, including refractory material for furnaces and kilns. “

“Mendota is only four miles from producing natural gas wells, with apparently an immense natural gas field to the north and northwest. With soda ash at Saltville and a high grade limestone close by, it is said that there is no place in the world in which the main glass making materials occur so close together. It is believed that the greatest potential tonnage of freight along the entire Southern System is located in the Mendota section.”

Copies of the resolutions were sent to the state Corporation Commission, to Governor Price, the State Senator C. J. Harkrader and to Delegates W. N. Neff and Donald T. Saint.