As logging in the New River Gorge expanded, timber operations became more efficient. J. R. Beaty and Company created Raleigh County’s first railroad, the Glade Creek and Raleigh Railroad, in 1895, building a 15-mile narrow-gauge route from the New River up Glade Creek gorge by switchbacks to the Grandview plateau, through a newly dug tunnel at Crow Ridge, and west to Raleigh near Beckley. As timber stands in one area were logged out, railroad routes shifted to reach other areas. The Crow Ridge tunnel route closed in 1904 when a new southeastern rail route was installed to access timber stands on upper Glade Creek, and although the tunnel was sealed soon afterward, trackage remained until the Crow sawmill closed in 1910. In 1921, the Glade Creek Coal and Lumber Company made a major investment by building a standard gauge rail line up Glade Creek nearly to White Oak Mountain, along with a sawmill at Hamlet and a 750-foot steel railroad bridge across the New River connecting Hamlet and Glade.