Williamson took its name from Wallace J. Williamson, whose family owned extensive undeveloped land along Tug Fork in what was then southwestern Logan County, West Virginia. In 1888, after a Norfolk and Western Railway survey crew visited the area, Wallace Williamson organized the Williamson Mining and Manufacturing Company. Knowing the railroad’s main line would pass through the area, he subdivided family land around a planned depot near the West Virginia-Kentucky state line. In 1892 the town of Williamson was surveyed, and lots were laid out and sold at auction. The railroad arrived that same year, bringing almost immediate prosperity, and by 1894 four daily passenger trains served the town’s new frame depot. In 1895 part of western Logan County became Mingo County, and Williamson, with barely 100 inhabitants, was selected as the county seat largely because of the influence of the Norfolk and Western. By 1900 the railroad had made Williamson a divisional hub and built extensive rail yards there to serve the booming coal industry of southwestern West Virginia. The yards eventually rivaled Bluefield in importance and grew larger than all but the company’s main yards at Roanoke, Virginia. Williamson was incorporated as a city in 1905, and its population and economy expanded with development of the local coal fields, growing from 27 residents in 1893 to an estimated 10,000 people around 1925. The East Williamson Rail Yard became one of the largest coal marshalling yards in the world, with more than a billion dollars worth of coal passing through since the late 1800s, while heavy freight traffic continued daily; in 1907 Railroad Gazette reported about 1,500 cars a day, or 750 in each direction. Williamson’s repair yards, engine service buildings, and machine shops have kept engines and cars operating for the Norfolk and Western and Norfolk Southern Corporation for more than 100 years. A prominent feature is the Williamson Roundhouse and turntable, one of the few operating roundhouses left in the U.S., built to accommodate up to 25 locomotives and still used to service freight cars.