Photographic Evidence
07/11/23 06:05 Filed in: Nelson County | Soapstone in Virginia
The beginning of this saga can be found here.
We got the ATV back on the trailer and got in the truck out of the howling wind. Jim mentioned we were parked beside the main office building of Phoenix Stone.

Phoenix Stone Company offices. Paymaster window to the right.
Jim pulled out a big binder of old photographs. Most were family pictures, but there were a few shots of the old soapstone operation and the railroad. I tried hard to commit the details to memory, scribbling notes about what Jim had told me and the subject matter in his photos.

Group photo takwn at the boiler house site that I photographed about 80 years later.
A week or so later I started getting emailed image files from Jim. He was scanning pages of his photo album and sending them to me.

Overall layout of the Standard mill and company town. All railroad grades shown were standard gauge.
The vast majority of soapstone photos were taken after the operation was shut down. The photos were used to illustrate a catalog of items to be auctioned.
None of the auction material mentioned the narrow gauge.
We got the ATV back on the trailer and got in the truck out of the howling wind. Jim mentioned we were parked beside the main office building of Phoenix Stone.

Phoenix Stone Company offices. Paymaster window to the right.
Jim pulled out a big binder of old photographs. Most were family pictures, but there were a few shots of the old soapstone operation and the railroad. I tried hard to commit the details to memory, scribbling notes about what Jim had told me and the subject matter in his photos.

Group photo takwn at the boiler house site that I photographed about 80 years later.
A week or so later I started getting emailed image files from Jim. He was scanning pages of his photo album and sending them to me.

Overall layout of the Standard mill and company town. All railroad grades shown were standard gauge.
The vast majority of soapstone photos were taken after the operation was shut down. The photos were used to illustrate a catalog of items to be auctioned.
None of the auction material mentioned the narrow gauge.