The Virginia Blue Ridge Railway was formed in 1914 to haul American Chestnut timber for local lumber companies. This 16-mile short-line railroad was intended to connect with larger rail systems of national reach. By the 1920s, it had fallen on hard times because World War I, the Chestnut blight, and the Great Depression greatly reduced available freight. In the early 1930s, mining and ore processing plants in the Piney River area began using it to haul titanium dioxide, aplite, and other products. Beginning in 1944, American Cyanamid Company was its largest customer for 20 years. The railway began to decline in the 1970s when American Cyanamid closed its local plant. A general loss of freight customers led it to stop functioning in 1981, and its tracks were abandoned in 1984, ending its 70-year history as the longest continuously running profitable short-line railroad in the United States.