Open for travel: Justice, highway officials, dedicate King Coal Highway in Bluefield

Dec. 14—By GREG JORDAN

Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD — A steel and concrete span known for years in Mercer County as the bridge to nowhere became a bridge to somewhere Wednesday when a ribbon was cut and a long line of cars and trucks crossed the bridge for the first time.

Gov. Jim Justice, Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Transportation Jimmy Wriston, P.E. and other area officials celebrated the opening of a 3-mile section of the King Coal Highway stretching from Airport Road to John Nash Boulevard near the city of Bluefield. The project, costing around $68 million, is the first section of the highway to be funded through the $2.8 billion Roads to Prosperity program.

The King Coal Highway is a four-lane interstate corridor that will span approximately 95 miles long running through McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Wyoming, and Wayne counties, along or near currently existing U.S. Route 52 from U.S. 119 near Williamson to Interstate 77 in Bluefield. The project is intended to open West Virginia's southern coalfields to economic development.

A ribbon cutting ceremony was conducted on the Christine Elmore West Bridge, a span which was known for years in Mercer County as the bridge to nowhere. A surprise appearance by Santa Claus along with snow confetti added to the holiday occasion.

"This bridge to nowhere now goes somewhere. It's a short distance, but it's the beginning of an economic boost with a new, safe highway in southern West Virginia," said Randy Damron, events coordinator for the West Virginia Department of Transportation.

The new section of highway will carry traffic from Route 460 near John Nash Boulevard to Route 123 and toward the Mercer County Airport and communities like Brushfork and Bluewell.

"This is a great afternoon," Wriston told the audience at the bridge. "This is fantastic. This one means something. This was a tough one. We had to grind on this one, governor. This was tough. The Roads for Prosperity program saved the state. It completely turned around the Division of Highways."

Justice said the new section of highway and the bridge now takes motorists to destinations.

"This is no longer the bridge to nowhere; it is finally a bridge to economic prosperity," Justice said. "Every last one of us pulled the rope together to get this project across the finish line. This one has been in the works for so many years, and it took a team with the right vision to get it done. We all worked together to turn this into a reality, and it's another sign of progress in West Virginia. I have no doubt this is just the beginning."

Justice said after the ceremony that the bridge should have opened years earlier.

"It's the culmination in my opinion of a dream, but also a nightmare," Justice said after the ribbon cutting. "I mean, for crying out loud, to sit here for decades. It's ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous. And I hope you know from my standpoint, I'm the most impatient guy in town. And I wanted it to happen and we got it done some way, some how with a lot of great work, and a lot of great people were there. It should have been done a long, long time ago. It could have been done decades before my watch, but we got it done."

The King Coal Highway will eventually reach into McDowell County and Wyoming County, Justice said.

"It just keeps going on down," Justice said. "Multiple counties and everything. That's the whole secret to the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway. Really and truly, this is going to touch and bring so much goodness this way, it's unbelievable, but we've got to get it done. For crying out loud, we have got to put the level of priority on this to get it done. I beat the drums till I'm blue green. That's all there is to it and I'm going to continue to do exactly that. The planning and the engineering, all this stuff needs to continue because all of this stuff is really, really important."

Justice was asked about the progress of another project, the Grant Street Bridge in Bluefield. Work is currently underway to complete the bridge's pedestrian walkway. The governor said he did not have the bridge's opening date, but added it was an important project.

"Absolutely, that's another priority from my standpoint," Justice said. "We need it done."

The intersection of I-73/74, the King Coal Highway and Route 123 near the Mercer County Airport is now the Nelson Walker Intersection. The late Nelson Walker, president and executive director of the Greater Bluefield Chamber of Commerce — which later became the Chamber of Commerce of the Two Virginias — was an advocate of the King Coal Highway project.

"I know he's in heaven watching this," Phyllis Walker, Nelson Walker's wife, said as she held a Nelson Walker Intersection highway sign. "He worked so hard on this, so hard."

— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com

Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com