Roundhouse and Shops - Martinsburg
by Susan Rissi Tregoning
Title
Roundhouse and Shops - Martinsburg
Artist
Susan Rissi Tregoning
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The B&O Railroad Shops and Roundhouse in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
This roundhouse is the oldest remaining domed roundhouse in the United States and possibly the world. It is a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and the complex is also on the National Historic Landmark register.
The roundhouse, constructed in 1866, was added when the shop complex was rebuilt after Stonewall Jackson's troops burned the original shops during the Civil War.
These buildings were considered masterpieces in railroad architecture and structural engineering, but the brick roundhouse was especially significant. Designed by Albert Fink, a renowned 19th-century civil engineer and railroad economist, a cast iron internal framework supports this completely circular, domed structure and is considered an early ancestor to the steel framing system used in today's skyscrapers. This iron skeleton allows more than 20,000 square feet of open floor space. That is enough room for a central 50-foot turntable and 16 locomotive bays. Unfortunately, it was abandoned by CSX Railroad in the late 1980s and sat empty for many years before the complex was sold to a non-profit and restored.
The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 occurred in the Martinsburg B&O Shops and is considered one of American history's most violent and widespread labor uprisings. The strike lasted for days, and strikers were killed when federal troops broke up the action. This event initiated the first national labor strike.
Copyright 2020 Susan Rissi Tregoning
Uploaded
August 29th, 2020
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