Appalachian Community Histories – Fleming, Wayne County: Coal, the Norfolk & Western, and the Twelvepole Railroad
Fleming, West Virginia, is easy to pass without realizing how closely its history is tied to one of the most ambitious periods of railroad and coal development in southern West Virginia. Tucked along Twelvepole Creek in Wayne County, the community emerged at almost the exact moment the Norfolk & Western Railroad pushed its Ohio Extension through the region in the early 1890s.
Unlike many Appalachian communities whose beginnings survive mostly through local memory, Fleming appears in records almost from the moment it took shape. An 1891 coal industry report described mining near the new community, Norfolk & Western records documented its station, court proceedings preserved the financial arrangements behind its coal operation, and postal records traced the brief period when Fleming maintained its own post office.
The community never became a major coal town. Its mine was relatively small, its railroad station disappeared early, and the Twelvepole route itself eventually lost importance to a newer line along the Big Sandy River. Yet the story of Fleming captures something larger about the industrial transformation of Appalachia. For a few decades, railroad tracks, coal leases, company stores, bridges, and postal service reshaped a rural creek valley. When the railroad finally departed in 1933, much of its route remained behind, transformed into roads that still carry travelers through the same narrow landscape.
Before the Railroad Came to Twelvepole Creek
Wayne County was created from Cabell County in 1842, but for much of the nineteenth century large portions of the county remained rural and comparatively isolated. Farming dominated the local economy, accompanied by mills, blacksmith shops, timber cutting, and the small stores necessary to serve scattered settlements.
The geography that made the region difficult to reach also made it attractive to industrial investors. Beneath the hills were coal seams, while the surrounding forests held valuable timber. What was missing was an economical way to move those resources to distant markets.
That began to change when the Norfolk & Western Railroad turned its attention toward the Ohio River.
After surveying possible routes during the late 1880s, the railroad selected a line that would follow the Tug Fork before crossing into the Twelvepole Creek watershed. The Ohio Extension was designed to connect the rapidly developing coalfields farther east with the Ohio River and western markets. Construction began in December 1890. By late 1891, trains were operating between Kenova and Dunlow, and the broader extension was opened to traffic the following year.
The route was difficult despite the railroad’s effort to follow relatively favorable grades. Twelvepole Creek twisted repeatedly through the mountains, forcing railroad engineers to construct numerous bridges and tunnels. According to the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s later historical study, the railroad crossed Twelvepole Creek approximately thirty-four times.
Along those tracks appeared new stations, settlements, mining operations, stores, and post offices. Fleming was one of them.
A New Community Called Fleming
Fleming was already tied to the railroad by 1891. The Norfolk & Western’s annual reporting for that year identified a station at the community, placing Fleming among the stops that emerged along the new Twelvepole corridor. The railroad did more than provide transportation. Its arrival effectively created the conditions in which a place like Fleming could develop at all.
Coal investors were already paying close attention.
A contemporary issue of The Coal Trade reviewing developments in 1891 described the enormous holdings of the Guyandotte Coal Land Association between the Guyandotte and Big Sandy rivers. The association controlled coal and timber lands extending through the basins of the East and West forks of Twelvepole Creek and had begun arranging leases near the new community of Fleming.
The report singled out a particular operation, describing “Mr. Toudy’s mine at Fleming” and identifying a roughly six-foot seam of splint coal. More importantly, it recorded a specific date that allows Fleming’s industrial history to be traced almost to its beginning.
On November 9, 1891, Henry J. Toudy began delivering coal from his Fleming mine to the Norfolk & Western for use by the railroad. According to the contemporary coal account preserved in the state historical investigation, Toudy gained the distinction of being the first operator in that section to have his mine prepared and coal delivered to the new railway.
That single shipment connected Fleming to the much larger industrial network spreading across southern West Virginia. Coal taken from a hillside above Twelvepole Creek could now enter railroad commerce, while the same railroad that consumed some of that coal carried resources, workers, equipment, mail, and passengers through the valley.
Henry J. Toudy and the Fleming Mine
Henry J. Toudy’s operation became the centerpiece of Fleming’s earliest industrial period.
The documentary record becomes especially strong in 1892. On February 18 of that year, Toudy entered into a lease covering approximately 1,500 acres of Wayne County land for mining and shipping coal. The agreement required royalties based on the amount and type of coal shipped and established an annual minimum rental of $3,000 after the railroad reached the leased property.
Only a few weeks later, on March 1, Toudy transferred his rights under the lease to the Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Company. These details survived because the agreement later became part of Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. Clark, a case decided by the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia in 1897.
The case offers an unusually detailed glimpse into the legal and financial structure behind a small Appalachian coal operation. Fleming was not simply a group of miners digging coal beside a railroad. Its development depended on land leases, royalty payments, corporate assignments, transportation access, investors, and the expectation that coal could be shipped profitably outside Wayne County.
By March 1892, the Fleming mine reportedly employed twenty-six men. Eph Moore served as mine boss, followed later by John Dilger in 1893 and 1894. The operation was capable of producing approximately 250 tons of coal per day. Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Company operated the Toudy mine through at least the middle of the 1890s.
A company store also operated at Fleming, reportedly under a man named Kraha. In a community developing around a railroad and mine, such a store would have served as more than a commercial convenience. It was part of the industrial settlement that had begun forming along the tracks.
Fleming therefore possessed several of the features associated with the developing Appalachian coal economy: a railroad station, a mine and tipple, a company operation, a store, and soon a post office.
The Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Company
The Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Company appears repeatedly in the documentary trail surrounding Fleming. Its takeover of Toudy’s lease placed the mine within a corporate structure at a time when investors were attempting to determine just how valuable the Twelvepole coal region might become.
Contemporary mining publications recorded Coaldale’s development during 1892. An April 1892 report in the Engineering and Mining Journal described the company as preparing a large tipple in Wayne County for shipping splint coal over the Norfolk & Western’s Kenova Division. The investment reflected considerable optimism about the new railroad corridor.
Yet optimism did not always translate into long-term profitability.
The later lawsuit involving Coaldale reveals disputes surrounding the lease, finances, and obligations associated with the operation. Such problems were common in the early development of Appalachian coalfields. Investors often committed capital before production levels, transportation costs, markets, and the long-term quality of a property were fully understood.
Fleming’s mine survived the first rush of railroad construction, but it never developed into one of southern West Virginia’s giant operations. The state historical study indicates that by 1907 the Toudy mine was being recorded as abandoned.
Its relatively short life helps explain why Fleming remained a small community rather than becoming a larger coal town.
Named for Robert Fleming
The community took its name from Robert Fleming, a Scottish financier whose career reached far beyond Wayne County.
Born in 1845, Fleming became known internationally for investment and financial work involving American railroads. He was a significant Norfolk & Western investor and served as a director of the railroad between 1886 and 1893, precisely the period when the company was pushing into the coal regions of southern West Virginia.
His connection to the Norfolk & Western made his name a fitting choice for a community developing along one of the railroad’s newest extensions.
Naming towns and stations for railroad officials, financiers, landowners, and industrial figures was common during the expansion of the Appalachian coalfields. The names preserved on maps frequently reveal the financial networks that existed behind the physical transformation of the mountains.
Fleming is one such example. The small Wayne County settlement carried the name of a Scottish financier because capital, railroads, land speculation, and coal development had brought distant financial interests into a narrow valley along Twelvepole Creek.
Fleming Station and the Post Office
The railroad station placed Fleming directly on the Norfolk & Western system, but its period of importance appears to have been brief.
Fleming had an N&W station by 1891. By 1903, however, the station apparently no longer appeared among the railroad points listed in contemporary records. Nearby Genoa already possessed a station a few miles to the north, while Radnor developed as a station roughly a mile south of Fleming.
Postal service followed a similar pattern.
Fleming received its own post office in 1892, the year after the first documented coal shipments and during the rapid development of the mine. The office remained in operation until 1901. Radnor’s post office began that same year, suggesting that postal activity in the immediate area may simply have shifted south as settlement and mining patterns changed.
These dates help define Fleming’s most active period. Between approximately 1891 and the opening years of the twentieth century, the community had a railroad station, active coal mining, commercial activity, and its own postal identity.
Then the economic geography of the Norfolk & Western began to change.
The Big Sandy Line Changes Everything
The original Twelvepole route had been constructed partly because it offered the Norfolk & Western a practical way to reach the Ohio River while opening new territory for coal and timber development.
It worked, but it was far from ideal.
The winding creek valley required repeated curves, bridges, and tunnels. As coal traffic from the Pocahontas region increased, the railroad needed a route better suited to heavy freight.
The answer was the Big Sandy Low Grade Line.
Completed in 1904, the approximately fifty-nine-mile route between Naugatuck and Kenova offered a better alignment for major railroad traffic. Passenger trains and heavy westbound freight, particularly loaded coal trains, increasingly used the Big Sandy route. The older Twelvepole Line was reduced largely to local service, eastbound empty coal cars, and auxiliary use when problems disrupted the main route.
For communities such as Fleming, the consequences were considerable. Their creation had depended upon being located beside a major railroad corridor. Once the main flow of traffic moved elsewhere, the economic advantages of that location weakened.
The timing is striking. Fleming’s post office closed in 1901. Its railroad station had apparently disappeared from listings by 1903. The Big Sandy Low Grade Line opened in 1904. By 1907, the Toudy mine was recorded as abandoned.
The industrial community that had emerged so rapidly after 1891 was already losing many of the institutions that had defined its first decade.
The 1911 Railroad Bridges
The Twelvepole Line did not immediately disappear.
Despite its reduced importance, the Norfolk & Western continued maintaining and improving the route. Around 1911, the railroad replaced a number of older bridges with stronger steel structures. Fleming received two of these girder bridges, constructed by the Virginia Bridge and Iron Company of Roanoke, Virginia.
One surviving Fleming deck girder bridge stretches approximately 146 feet and rests on stone abutments originally constructed around 1891 for an earlier railroad bridge. A stone pier was added when the steel structure was installed in 1911.
A second Fleming through girder bridge was also constructed in 1911. The surviving structures are remarkable because they preserve several layers of transportation history at the same location. Stonework beneath the later steel bridges reaches back toward the original railroad construction period, while the steel superstructures represent the modernization of the line two decades later.
Today, automobiles rather than locomotives cross these former railroad structures.
That transformation came after the final collapse of the Twelvepole route as an active railroad.
The Last Train Through Fleming
By the early 1930s, the Norfolk & Western had little reason to maintain the full Twelvepole Line.
The Big Sandy route had already absorbed most important traffic, and improvements there further reduced the older line’s usefulness. During the Great Depression, operating a lightly used railroad through difficult terrain became even harder to justify.
In 1933, the Interstate Commerce Commission approved the Norfolk & Western’s request to abandon roughly fifty-four miles of the Twelvepole route between Lenore and Wayne. Contemporary reporting explained that the available and expected traffic could not justify continued operation and that the railroad faced substantial losses if service continued. State officials, county governments, and local districts opposed the abandonment, showing how much communities along the route still depended upon the transportation corridor that had created many of them four decades earlier.
The final day of operation was September 1, 1933.
During October and November, workers removed the tracks. The sound that had announced the industrial arrival of the Norfolk & Western in the early 1890s disappeared from much of the Twelvepole valley.
For Fleming, the railroad era had lasted only about forty-two years.
From Railroad Tracks to Mountain Roads
Abandonment did not erase the railroad from the landscape.
The former grade offered something extremely valuable to road builders. Railroad engineers had already carved a relatively level path through difficult mountain terrain, crossed creeks, built tunnels, and established bridges.
Rather than abandon all of that infrastructure, West Virginia gradually adapted sections of the route for automobile traffic.
Contemporary reporting in 1933 discussed negotiations involving the railroad right-of-way, while former stations along the route were reportedly sold to residents interested in converting the buildings into houses or stores. The State Road Commission formally acquired much of the former Twelvepole right-of-way from the railroad in 1939.
Sections eventually became parts of state and county roads. Through Fleming, portions of County Route 52/56 follow the former railroad alignment, allowing modern travelers to move through the valley along essentially the same corridor that Norfolk & Western trains once used.
The Fleming bridges completed the transformation. Steel structures designed to carry locomotives and coal cars became road bridges carrying automobiles.
In that sense, the railroad never completely left Fleming.
Its tracks vanished, but its path remained.
What Remains of Fleming’s Railroad Past
Modern Fleming bears little resemblance to an ambitious new coal settlement of 1891, yet pieces of that history remain unusually visible.
The surviving railroad bridges are the most obvious evidence. Their steel girders, stone abutments, and narrow approaches preserve the scale of the former Norfolk & Western route. The West Virginia Department of Transportation has recognized the significance of the corridor because of its connection to both railroad development and the later transformation of railroad infrastructure into public roads.
The broader landscape preserves the story as well.
Fleming sits among a chain of Wayne County communities that developed or grew beside the Twelvepole Line, including Dunlow, Ferguson, Radnor, Genoa, Echo, and Wayne. Similar communities extended eastward into Mingo County. Stations and post offices once linked these places to a railroad system stretching far beyond the mountains.
Some flourished longer than others. Some lost their mines. Some lost their depots. Some became little more than names along a road.
Fleming survived.
A Small Place in a Much Larger Story
Fleming never became another Williamson, Matewan, Gary, or Welch. Its mine did not grow into a massive industrial complex, and its railroad station lasted only a short time.
That is precisely what makes the community worth studying.
Most of Appalachian industrial history occurred not only in famous company towns and major mining centers, but in hundreds of smaller settlements where railroads briefly altered the direction of local life. Fleming provides an unusually well-documented example.
In 1891, coal was being taken from Henry J. Toudy’s mine and delivered to the newly arrived Norfolk & Western. Within a year, a major mining lease had been signed, the Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Company was involved, workers were underground, and Fleming had its own post office. A company store served the settlement, trains stopped nearby, and coal moved out of the valley.
Then transportation patterns shifted.
The Big Sandy Low Grade Line redirected the railroad’s major traffic. Fleming’s station disappeared. The post office closed. The mine was eventually abandoned. Even the entire Twelvepole railroad route was finally judged unnecessary.
Yet the infrastructure proved harder to erase than the industry itself.
The railroad grade became a road. Railroad bridges became automobile bridges. Communities born beside the tracks remained scattered through the hollows and creek valleys.
More than a century after Toudy’s first documented coal shipment, Fleming still occupies the corridor that created it. The locomotives are gone, but the road through the community continues to cross Twelvepole Creek on structures built for the Norfolk & Western, reminders of a brief period when investors, coal operators, railroad engineers, and miners believed this quiet Wayne County valley might become part of West Virginia’s next great coalfield.
Fleming never became the industrial center they imagined.
But the railroad left its mark anyway.
Sources & Further Reading
Saward, Frederick E., and Sydney A. Hale. The Coal Trade: The Year Book of the Coal and Coke Industry. Vol. 19. New York, 1892. Especially useful for the contemporary account of Henry J. Toudy’s mine at Fleming and the November 9, 1891 coal shipment. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Coal_Trade.html?id=cGI9AAAAYAAJ
Edwards, William Seymour. Coals and Cokes in West Virginia: A Hand-Book on the Coals and Cokes of the Great Kanawha, New River, Flat Top, and Adjacent Coal Districts in West Virginia. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1892. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Coals_and_cokes_in_West_Virginia%3B_a_hand-book_on_the_coals_and_cokes_of_the_Great_Kanawha%2C_New_River%2C_Flat_Top%2C_and_adjacent_coal_districts_in_West_Virginia_%28IA_coalscokesinwest00edwarich%29.pdf
“Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Company.” Engineering and Mining Journal 53, no. 14, April 2, 1892. Contemporary report on the company’s Wayne County tipple and coal-shipping operation. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/The_Engineering_and_Mining_Journal_1892-04-02-_Vol_53_Iss_14_%28IA_sim_engineering-and-mining-journal_1892-04-02_53_14%29.pdf
Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. Clark, 43 W. Va. 84, 27 S.E. 294. Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, 1897. https://openjurist.org/43/wva/84/coaldale-mining-manufacturing-co-v-clark
Toudy v. Norfolk & Western Railroad Co., 38 W. Va. 694, 18 S.E. 896. Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, 1894. https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/toudy-v-norfolk-w-894231472
Norfolk & Western Railroad Company. Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Directors of the Norfolk & Western Railroad Company for the Year Ending December 31, 1891. Philadelphia: Norfolk & Western Railroad Company, 1892. Cited in the West Virginia Department of Transportation documentation for Fleming station and the Ohio Extension. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Miller, J. Map of the Twelve-pole and Part of the Guyandot Basins Showing the Location of the Coal, Oil, Gas, Iron, and Timber Lands of the Guyandot Coal Land Association, in Wayne, Cabell, Lincoln, and Logan Counties, West Virginia. Map, 1892. Abel Propst Sinnett Collection, MA166-12, West Virginia State Archives. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/collections/manuscripts/ms2002-050maps.html
Miller, J. J. Survey map of 6,300 acres between the two forks of Twelve Pole River, Wayne County, West Virginia. 1893. MA167-11, West Virginia State Archives. https://archive.wvculture.org/history/collections/manuscripts/ms2002-050maps.html
West Virginia Commissioner of Labor. Report of the Commissioner of Labor of West Virginia, 1895–1896. Charleston, WV, 1896. Useful for contemporary documentation of the Coaldale Mining & Manufacturing operation at Fleming. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
The Mine, Quarry and Metallurgical Record of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Chicago: Mine and Quarry News Bureau, 1897. Used in state historic research concerning coal operations in the Fleming, Radnor, and Genoa area. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Gannett, S. S., and D. H. Baldwin. Results of Spirit Leveling in West Virginia, 1896–1908, Inclusive. United States Geological Survey Bulletin 399. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
White, Israel Charles. Levels Above Tide, True Meridians, Report on Coal. Morgantown: West Virginia Geological Survey, 1903. Useful for railroad stations and transportation geography along the Twelvepole corridor. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Krebs, C. E., and D. D. Teets Jr. West Virginia Geological Survey: Cabell, Wayne and Lincoln Counties. Morgantown: West Virginia Geological Survey, 1913. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Norfolk & Western Railway. “Masonry Plan of Bridge No. 989, 30th Crossing of Twelve Pole River, M.P. 530 + 2004′.” Engineering drawing, January 10, 1911. Cited in the West Virginia Department of Transportation Fleming Deck Girder Bridge documentation. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
West Virginia University, West Virginia & Regional History Center. Coal Trade Journal, 1888–1904. A&M 4293. Morgantown, WV. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/6359
West Virginia University, West Virginia & Regional History Center. West Virginia Postmasters Appointment Records, 1857–1971. A&M 3026. Morgantown, WV. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/1217
West Virginia University, West Virginia & Regional History Center. West Virginia Postmarks, ca. 1888–1913. A&M 0036. Morgantown, WV. https://archives.lib.wvu.edu/repositories/2/resources/2367
Toudy, H. J. Letter to the West Virginia Commissioner of Railroads, August 20, 1892. Item 686, Aretas Brooks Fleming Papers, West Virginia State Archives, Charleston. https://archive.wvculture.org/hiStory/collections/ar/ar1729.html
“Earnings Increased by New Low Grade Line.” Bluefield Daily Telegraph, December 9, 1904, 1. Useful for the development of the Big Sandy Low Grade Line and the decline in importance of the older Twelvepole route. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
“To Abandon Line to Mingo County.” Charleston Daily Mail, August 11, 1933, 15. Contemporary coverage of the abandonment of the Norfolk & Western Twelvepole route. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
“Road Commission Negotiations For Rail Land Advance.” Huntington Advertiser, September 1, 1933, 5. Contemporary reporting from the final day of operation on the abandoned section of the Twelvepole Line. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Norfolk & Western Railway Company. Norfolk & Western Ry. Abandonment. 193 I.C.C. 363. Interstate Commerce Commission, 1933. Federal regulatory proceeding covering the abandonment of approximately 53.8 miles of railroad in Wayne and Mingo Counties. https://openjurist.org/487/f2d/646/reed-v-w-meserve-w
West Virginia Public Service Commission. Twenty-First Annual Report of the Public Service Commission of West Virginia, July 1, 1933–June 30, 1934. Charleston, WV, 1934. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
West Virginia State Road Commission. Map of Wayne County, Primary and Secondary Highways. Charleston: West Virginia State Road Commission, 1933. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
West Virginia State Road Commission. Transportation Map, Wayne County, West Virginia. Charleston: West Virginia State Road Commission, 1937. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
West Virginia State Road Commission. Annual Report for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1939. Charleston: West Virginia State Road Commission, 1939. Important for the state’s acquisition of the former Twelvepole railroad right-of-way. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
United States Geological Survey. Wayne, West Virginia Quadrangle. 15-minute series. Washington, DC: U.S. Geological Survey, 1941. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Bakic, Tracy D. West Virginia Historic Property Form: Fleming Deck Girder Bridge Repair. Charleston: West Virginia Department of Transportation, Division of Highways, 2013, revised 2014. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
West Virginia Department of Transportation. State Level Historic Documentation: Fleming Deck Girder Bridge. Charleston: West Virginia Division of Highways, 2015. https://www.highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/slhd.pdf
Bakic, Tracy D. Fleming Thru Girder Bridge Repair. Charleston: West Virginia Department of Transportation, Division of Highways, 2013. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingThruGirder/docs/hpi.pdf
Dickinson, Kay Stamper, and Jack L. Dickinson. Last Train to Dunlow: History from the Hollows of Wayne County, West Virginia and the Coming of the N & W Railroad, 1870–1940. 2005. https://books.google.com/books/about/Last_Train_to_Dunlow.html?id=RlyrvgEACAAJ
Bailey, Rebecca J. “Matewan Before the Massacre: Politics, Coal, and the Roots of Conflict in Mingo County, 1793–1920.” PhD diss., West Virginia University, 2001. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/7148/
Bailey, Rebecca J. Matewan Before the Massacre: Politics, Coal, and the Roots of Conflict in a West Virginia Mining Community. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2008. https://wvupress.com/9781933202280/matewan-before-the-massacre/ West Virginia University Press
National Park Service and West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office. Dunlow Norfolk & Western Railway Depot, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. 2022. https://wvculture.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Dunlow-Depot-with-Pictures-Reduced.pdf
Federal Highway Administration. Through the Coal Fields: The Development of the Norfolk & Western Railway Through Southwestern Virginia and Southern West Virginia, Including a Survey of Historic Tunnels and Bridges Along the Radford and Pocahontas Divisions. Washington, DC: Federal Highway Administration, 2010. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Massey, Tim R. “Wayne County.” e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. West Virginia Humanities Council. https://www.wvencyclopedia.org/entries/897
Smith, W. N. “Fleming, Robert (1845–1933).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Background source for the Scottish financier and Norfolk & Western director for whom Fleming was named. https://highwaysthroughhistory.com/Content/bridges/FlemingDeck/docs/hpi.pdf
Casto, James E. Wayne County. Images of America. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2015. https://wvreads.overdrive.com/media/2597303
Author Note: This article traces how Fleming grew from the arrival of the Norfolk & Western Railway, coal mining, and investment along Twelvepole Creek. Its surviving railroad bridges and former rail corridor still preserve pieces of the industrial landscape that shaped this small Wayne County community.