Contractors for the C&O Railway built the Great Bend Tunnel in Talcott, West Virginia in the early 1870s. The most notable figure involved in the tunnel’s construction was a former slave named John Henry.
Henry became a legend among working men as word spread about his defeat of a steam-powered drill in a contest of man-versus-machine to see which could drill blasting holes faster into the hard, red shale of the Big Bend Mountain. His victory is credited with saving the jobs of hundreds of men and boys working for the C & O contractors.
On July 13, 1996, the U. S. Postal Service unveiled a 32-cent John Henry stamp as part of a series honoring America’s folk heroes Casey at Bat, Pecos Bill and Paul Bunyan, along with John Henry.
Historians note that of the four American folk heroes as commemorated by the Postal Service, John Henry’s legend is the only one that can be traced back to an actual historical place, time frame, and event. But, does John Henry’s victory have any historical significance?
In his 1965 publication “John Henry: An American Legend,” Ezra Jack Keats portrays John Henry as the “personification of the medieval Everyman who struggles against insurmountable odds and wins.” In that regard, it is easy to imagine anyone that works by the strength of their back and the sweat of their brow seeing John Henry as one of them. However, it may be necessary to look back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain in the late 1700s to understand John Henry’s historical significance.
Two developments are seen as being central to the start of the Industrial Revolution. The first was James Watt’s patent of his version of a steam engine in 1769, along with James Hargreaves’s concept for a powered yarn-spinning machine, which he patented in 1770. The combination of these two developments spurred the growth of the textile industry and led to the rapid application of the new technology to other manufacturing processes as well.
As the new technology reached America, what has been called a second Industrial Revolution led to the need for coal to fuel steel production and to produce steam to power machinery. This, in turn, contributed to the C & O Railway’s expansion through the southern West Virginia coalfields and the need for the Great Bend Tunnel.
From an economic perspective, the discussion of the historical significance of John Henry’s victory over the steam drill is based on the relationship of labor costs to production. Great Bend contractors hoped that the new steam drill would be more efficient and require fewer men to build the tunnel than was needed using the old labor-intensive methods.
John Henry’s legend grew during the turbulent early years of the American labor movement. It has been said that laborers and union organizers related to the legend because they found in it something that resonated with their own plight. They felt that workers often sacrificed their bodies and risked their lives making their employers rich, yet when their employers found a piece of machinery that might be more efficient, they were ready to cast these workers aside.
While John Henry’s victory succeeded in saving his and his fellow workers’ job at the Great Bend Tunnel, it may have been the last victory of man versus machine as technology evolved. There lies his historical significance.
Rick Moorefield was appointed project director to lead the planning and development of the John Henry Park by the Summers County Commission in 2005.
