Changing Landscapes

The Dick and Willie, like other rail lines, made it possible for subsistence farmers in Appalachia to earn much-needed cash by selling chestnuts to buyers in cities throughout the East. In the early twentieth century, newspapers often showed train cars overflowing with chestnuts rolling into major cities, where they were sold fresh or roasted for the Thanksgiving and Christmas season. By 1950, however, the American chestnut forests of the Appalachian highlands had succumbed to an Asian fungus, Cryphonectria parasitica. This chestnut blight killed more than three billion American chestnut trees and remains a reminder that stopping invasive species is vital to native landscapes.

Martinsville, Virginia · United States