R R SMALLTIME
I once knew an old lady who used to proudly display a stock certificate in a railroad that never ran because it was never built .
Her father had owned the piece of paper in the fall of 1916. I remember that date because I came into being the same year and share the years with that little railroad that never got on the ground.
It was an interesting undertaking. It had the interest of a great many residents of the area but it seems to have been short-lived. It was named The “Radford, Willis and Southern Railroad:” It was to run from Radford, Virginia all the way to Willis, a total of, perhaps twenty-some miles. The word “Southern” was used because Th founders envisioned a time when it would be extended into the Carolinas. .
We can only guess at how the tiny railroad boom ended. Th half dozen men who set out to build the RW&S^Railway apparently had to face up to the financial realities of their time, but the lady who held the worthless bond and associated clippings form the Bradford “Record and Advance: cherished the dream they had set forth. She saw they as being the vanguard
of the hosts of great railroad men who were to expand their dreams to help make our nation the leading industrial; and commercial force the world had ever known.
Long before I became qualified by year to be an old person, I too became a collector of valuable papers. Just because something does not appear to have intrinsic value does not mean it cannot contain wealth as well. .Just because an item does not appear to have intrinsic value does not mean it cannot hold a treasury of memories and aspirations of these persons who ventured beyond the ordinary bounds of their time
A.L.M. March 22, 2004 [c338wds]
