Using two 10-pound hammers, one in each hand, he pounded the drill so fast and so hard that he drilled a 14-foot hole into the rock. He went up against the steam drill to prove that the black worker could drill a hole through the rock farther and faster than the drill could. The challenge was on, “man against machine.” John Henry was known as the strongest, the fastest, and the most powerful man working on the railroad. It was said that the steam drill could drill faster than any man. Later, the railroad company brought in a steam drill to speed up work on the tunnel. The “steel driver” swung the hammer as hard and as often as he could, pounding the drill into the rock.Īs the story goes, John Henry was hired as a steel driver for the railroad. The drill was held by a “shaker” who turned it slightly after each blow and gave it a shake to flip the rock dust out of the hole. Holes were then filled with powder and blasted in order to make the rock small enough to remove from the tunnel. Holes were drilled into the layers of rock using a hand drill and hammer. The process of building a tunnel in the 1870s was slow and difficult work. At nearly a mile and one quarter long, the Great Bend Tunnel is the longest on the C&O Railway. Rock falls were common and death was always a possibility. The workers cut through layers of red shale, which tended to disintegrate when exposed to air, making the tunnel a dangerous place to work. Over 800 men, many of them African American, cut a 6,450 foot-long tunnel through the mountain. In February of 1870, workers began drilling the Great Bend Tunnel where the Greenbrier River makes a seven-mile meander around Big Bend Mountain. The legend, as told through ballads and work songs, has kept the story of John Henry and the black railroad workers alive. He was a symbol for the black workers who gave their lives in these dangerous occupations. He symbolized the many African Americans whose sweat and hard work built and maintained the rails across West Virginia.

The Legend of John Henry is just that, a “legend,” and through the legend, John Henry became a symbol. They sweated in the hot summer sun and froze in the cold mountain winters as they worked to connect Tidewater Virginia with the Ohio River Valley.Īs the C&O Railway stretched westward along the Greenbrier River, The Legend of John Henry was born at Big Bend Mountain near Talcott, West Virginia. Workers used axe and adz to cut and shape hundreds of trees into ties, bridge timbers, and lumber for railcars. Railroad workers primarily used shovels, wheelbarrows, mules, and black powder to move millions of tons of rock and dirt to prepare the railroad bed. Jobs on the railroad were labor intensive and low paying, required long hours, and were at times dangerous. Many of these men were African Americans who migrated to West Virginia in search of jobs. In the early 1870s, construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway along the Greenbrier and New Rivers employed thousands of workers.

John henry railroad story