Built in the 1850s, the V&T ran completely through southwestern
Virginia along a portion of the
Great Valley of Virginia. The railroad extended westward from
Lynchburg, through a gap in the
Blue Ridge Mountains near the town of Big Lick (the present-day
city of Roanoke); there, it turned southwestward and followed the Great Valley to
Bristol, a total distance of . After the Virginia government refused to fund its construction (in part because it could adversely affect the
James River Canal), the city of Lynchburg incorporated the railroad on March 24, 1848, as the
Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad.
John R. McDaniel, who had previously put together the Lynchburg Gas Light Company and who had pledged his fortune to get it built, was its first president. Construction of the road bed began in 1850, and on February 18, 1852, the railroad's first locomotive (the "Virginia") was tested when it steamed out of Lynchburg's
James River basin, climbing the nearby low mountains. Regular freight service was initiated not long afterwards. Construction of the railroad's entire length to Bristol was completed on October 1, 1856. The Virginia and Tennessee stimulated rapid economic growth in the counties through which it ran, and also changed their political alignment to more closely resemble that in Richmond and the Tidewater area, rather than of other Virginia counties in the Appalachian mountain region (much less those in the Ohio River watershed where slavery was much less common and that became
West Virginia during the Civil War).
Bristol, formerly a small town on the Tennessee border, became a communication and commercial hub. During the 1850-1860 decade, southwest Virginia's population increased, and the proportion of those living in slavery increased 15%. Thus, while northwestern Virginia elected almost all firm opponents of secession to the
Virginia Secession Convention of 1861, the
Abingdon Democrat editorialized for secession, only to be disappointed at the number of "wait-a-bit" delegates elected from surrounding counties. During the Civil War,
Robert L. Owen Sr., who had been one of the engineers surveying for the railroad and who had risen through the ranks, succeeded McDaniel as president. The railroad became a key supply, food and troop movement route for the
Confederate States Army, particularly from the capital of
Richmond to the interior at
Chattanooga, Tennessee. The V&T moved also key raw materials: copper from mines near
Cleveland, Tennessee, lead from mines near
Bristol, salt from
Saltville, Virginia and
saltpeter from caves throughout the region.
Union forces finally captured much of the railroad and destroyed tracks and rolling stock in late 1864, although service was periodically interrupted by a series of
cavalry raids earlier in the war. ==The Mahone years==