The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway mainline was Thurmond's main street and the core of the town's identity. As one of the busiest centers of activity in this coal commerce region, Thurmond was the only place in a seventy-three-mile stretch where locomotives could refuel with coal and refill water, and it also served as a major center for steam engine service and repair. In the early 1900s, this railroad community bustled with activity, and the tall downtown buildings, railroad commissary, water tank footers, coaling station, multiple lines of track, and remaining structural walls and homes reflect those prosperous years when everything had a connection to the railroad. The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, with ten thousand miles of track, was the lifeblood of this gorge and the eastern U.S. at a time when the nation's growth drove demand for coal and coke for steel production, and the high-quality bituminous coal and coke of the New River Gorge was shipped to industrial centers worldwide. More than forty percent of Thurmond's workers were employed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, and one resident later recalled, "The railroad was life, our means of bread and butter."