Roads West

During the 1770s, Samuel Pepper established a ferry crossing nearby which opened a transportation route during the late colonial and early national periods linking the resources of the West with the population centers in the East. A century later, the Norfolk & Western Railroad designed a route through this part of the New River Valley, thereby providing access to the vast coalfields near Flat Top Mountain. In 1899, the Pepper's Ferry Bridge and Tunnel were completed to circumvent a bend in the New River. Now known as the Cowan Tunnel, it retains the original stone-faced portal on the west side.