Mullens, West Virginia

This is a starter series of pictures for Mullens. There will be more pictures soon. 

The temptation of being on the road in West Virginia is after a few hundred miles, you begin to ignore small cities, small towns, and long forgotten buildings. However, IF you do a little research, you will find out, thats a BAD idea. Mullens, West Virginia is that case in point. Mullens was chartered as a city in 1929. Before that, yes, it was called Mullins, named after A. J. Mullins who owned the land that Mullens now sits on. Mullens was, in its day, a major hub for train maintenance. In fact, a huge building called the Mullens Motor Barn resided there. The Motor Barn was in fact the repair shop for electric locomotives of the Virginian Railway. It was demolished in 2011 after frequent vandalism made it certain, it was bound for the dust pile. 

SO, there I was in 2009, and I drove my usual 300+ miles and arrived at Mullens. I BEGGED a line repairman to enter the shop and take photos. He saw nothing, and for that I say: Thank you. Its a beautiful city and the folks there were VERY helpful...As always, feel free to comment.

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I saw at first a small building marked receiving, NOT so much and then I looked up the road a bit

COVERED in windows, I could only imagine its size inside, and I had to know what would those windows look like from there.

One of the repair bays, I wanted to know what it was like in its day, the size, the scope, the echo...

Bay after bay of windows, I felt like I was almost in a cathedral

MURALS

Mullens has its murals like so many cities. Below we see a Virginian Railway train depicted. The artist knew what trains were to Mullens.

Local firestation showing its pride.

Like many murals, we see what Mullens was waaay back, in its day. The mural shows the year of 1918. The bank in the mural still stands and you will see it below:

 

NEON

ANY CITY, worth its salt, has to have neon, OLD or NEW I worry if I do not see neon, Mullens had that.