After several failed efforts to connect the B&O route through North Central West Virginia, the Morgantown and Kingwood Railroad began construction in July 1899 under local resident George Sturgiss and was sold to Senator Stephen B. Elkins in 1902. The line reached Masontown by 1902, Bretz by 1903, Kingwood by 1906, and entered Rowlesburg by 1907. It provided passenger service between Morgantown and Rowlesburg, but its main purpose was carrying coal, coke, limestone, lumber, and sand to industrial centers and linking local stations to connections on the larger B&O system. Its trains carried travelers, departing military units, and raw materials used both locally and across the B&O network, including sand for Morgantown glass plants, stone for area buildings, lumber from area sawmills, coke for Baltimore steel mills and shipyards, manufactured goods from factories such as the Sterling Faucet company in Sabraton, and cement from the Alpha Cement plant in Manheim used as far away as the Panama Canal. Although the railroad visibly helped develop local industry and tied communities to the wider world, it depended on outside demand. Sold to the B&O in 1919, parts of the line survived into the eras of the Chessie System and CSX before abandonment. After the 1960's, its importance declined as local industry weakened and railroads concentrated on main line runs; by the 1970's the line was cut between Reedsville and Kingwood, the western section from Morgantown was removed by the early 1990's, and the eastern section continued to carry freight until the early 2000's, when the last two coal mines on the line closed and CSX abandoned the section beginning in Rowlesburg. From the age of steam and telegraph to modern diesel locomotives and telecommunications, the line helped spark the local economy, connect its communities to the larger world, and shape the memories of those who worked on it and lived along it.