In the Mountains: traveling through time with Tweetsie Railroad
The iconic theme park has been a beloved summer destination for more than 60 years, but the park’s iconic train, and the railroad for which it gets its name, has a much longer historySince 1957, has been a beloved destination for families to enjoy a weekend of fun in the North Carolina mountains. Just down the mountain from Lees-91探花, situated between Boone and Blowing Rock, the wild-west theme park has become a staple of the High Country. The origins of the park, however, stretch back to the 1800s.
The theme park we know today as Tweetsie Railroad relies heavily on its iconic steam locomotives, namely the park’s original engine, locomotive 12. Before it was part of the park, locomotive 12 was part of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad (ET&WNC). The railroad was originally constructed in 1882 to connect Johnson City, Tennessee to Cranberry, North Carolina, and create easy passage to the iron ore mines that were located there. Before long other resources such as timber and even passengers began to be transported along the rail lines as well.
A history in steam
According to the , locomotive 12 was built in 1917, clocking the train in at more than 100 years of operation. Throughout those 100 years, the locomotive has remained virtually the same, still running on coal as it did in the early 20th century.
Locomotive 12 is registered with the , which notes that the only alteration that has been made to the train, besides routine maintenance, is the updated insignia, switching from that of ET&WNC to Tweetsie Railroad. The iconic name "Tweetsie" did not come about until later in No. 12's career and was not the first nickname given to the ET&WNC Railroad. Mallory Hope Ferrell tells the story in the introduction of her book, "Tweetsie Country: The East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad."
“In the 1880’s, the railroad was called ‘Stemwinder.’ Later the road was known as the ‘Eat Taters & Wear No Clothes,’ but it was the children who rode the swaying cars to numerous summer camps around Linville and Grandfather Mountain who gave the railroad a name that lasted…Tweetsie,” Ferrell writes. “The summer children could hear the shrill whistles of the tiny Baldwin ten wheelers as they chuffed up the gorge…making a ‘tweet’ sound.”
The railroad was revolutionary for this area of the country, not only for the economic benefits that came with the easier transport of goods, but also for the access it provided into and out of mountain communities that were previously isolated. In the summer of 1919, the first passenger train reached Boone carrying travelers from Tennessee. As the train pulled into town it felt like the future was arriving with it, and a crowd drew to witness the train and hear its signature tweet. Ferrell wrote of this historic day, quoting then-mayor of Banner Elk J. H. Shull who famously said, “I remember when the only way a person could get to Boone was to be born there.” Soon a train made the journey between Boone and Johnson City daily along the Tweetsie Railroad.
During the summer, trains often took passengers out along the ET&WNC Railroad for "excursions." These were sight-seeing expeditions that often involved picnicking, hiking, and other mountain activities.
Over time, however, rail lines fell into disrepair, revenues declined, and resources in the North Carolina mountains became tapped, causing the ET&WNC Railroad to fall out of use. The railroad's last train, locomotive 11, chugged down the track on its final journey from Elizabethton, Tennessee to Elk Park on October 19, 1950. Although this was the end of the line for the ET&WNC Railroad, it was not the end of Tweetsie, and the name and railroad were soon revived in a new package.
Tweetsie chugs on through time
In the decades that Tweetsie operated it became a staple of mountain life for many of the Appalachians who hopped on for a ride between towns or heard her signature tweet ring through the hills. Even after the railroad was shut down, the love for Tweetsie lived on, and within just two years locomotive 12 was purchased by two Virginian rail enthusiasts with dreams of reviving her.
Actors dressed as cowboys stake out along the route locomotive 12 took on its opening day, July 4, 1957. This ride came to be synonymous with Tweetsie as a theme park.
Over the next couple of years, the locomotive was restored and passed through multiple hands, but was eventually purchased by a Lenoir man who sought to return Tweetsie to her former glory by partially resurrecting the railroad. On May 24, 1956, a homecoming celebration was held in Hickory in honor of the locomotive’s return to the North Carolina mountains. One year later, locomotive 12 was hauled more than 1,500 feet up to its current home outside of Blowing Rock along Highway 321. Here, looped around its new home of Roundhouse Mountain, Tweetsie fired up once again on July 4, 1957.
Passengers young and old piled onto the train to experience the locomotive’s first trip back where it belonged. This very first ride was where the theme park’s cowboy tradition was born, with staged cowboy hold-ups planned along the route for passengers’ entertainment. Attendees can still experience a version of this original route today in the form of the park’s Wild West Train Adventure, where passengers climb aboard locomotive 12─or the park’s second locomotive, 190─for a three-mile action-packed train ride with cowboys and bandits along the route.
Today the park continues to honor the history of its primary locomotive and the railroad on which it initially steered by maintaining the train’s original character. Passengers who climb aboard locomotive 12 know that they are interacting with a true piece of Appalachian history, sitting in the same seats, and drinking up views of the same lush mountains that generations of North Carolinians did before them.
