On 12 July 1888, one of Virginia's largest train disasters occurred here when Virginia Midland Railroad's Train 52, the Piedmont Airline, crossed the 44-foot-high, 487-foot-long trestle known as the Fat Nancy and the structure collapsed. The trestle was named for a local African American woman who served as a trestle watcher and reported problems. Nine passengers were killed, including two Confederate veterans, and more than two dozen were injured. Also killed was civil engineer Cornelius G. Cox, who had earlier designed the current culvert and earthen fill to replace the unstable trestle. Former Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, another passenger, survived.
