Songs of the Archives – The Covington Improvement Company: Launching Covington’s Industrial Era

The year was 1890. Covington was a small county seat nestled in the Alleghany Highlands with a population of just eight hundred. Its economy was based on agriculture, small-scale milling, and tanning. These early businesses had about 10 to 15 employees each.

Remarkable changes occurred in the next few years, mostly due to a single organization.

The Covington Improvement Company was created by a distinguished group of local business leaders and visionaries. Respected attorney R. L. Parrish Sr. served as president, and Alleghany County Clerk J. J. Hobbs was secretary-treasurer. The board of directors included other prominent local figures such as A. A. McAllister, a successful merchant and miller; J. T. Fudge, an attorney and former Alleghany County treasurer; W. A. Rinehart, a railroad executive and industrial leader; John S. Ham, a prominent Covington resident; lumberman E. M. Nettleton; and businessman William M. McAllister of Warm Springs. Under the capable management of Frank Eakle, a grocery manager and investor from Staunton, this company became the prime force behind Covington’s industrial era.

The company’s ambitious first project, an iron blast furnace, was completed in 1891. Capitalizing on the county’s rich hematite deposits, particularly in the Potts Valley region, and with abundant local limestone for flux, the furnace, supplemented by a steam forge, rolling mill, and axle plant, produced and shaped about 110 tons of high-quality pig iron each day. An associated steam brick plant rolled out as many as 30,000 bricks daily. The raw materials were sourced from Alleghany County, keeping production costs low.

Contemporary reports from Staunton, Roanoke, and Richmond celebrated the furnace as an icon of progress, noting that it positioned Covington to compete with industrial centers in western Virginia and beyond. Although the Covington Improvement Company later sold the operation to the Low Moor Iron Company, the successful venture sent a clear signal to outside investors that Covington was now open for major industrial development.

Real estate development was another key pillar of the company’s strategy. It bought hundreds of acres of land near the town, creating residential and commercial lots that it marketed aggressively to newcomers drawn by the promise of jobs. These developments, referred to in contemporary accounts as the Covington Improvement Company’s Addition, helped transform a scattered collection of homes and businesses into a more organized and expanding urban center. Land sales were brisk, and the company’s efforts attracted capital and families from beyond the immediate region.

This real estate push was crucial in accommodating the growing workforce and supporting the new industrial boom.

The company also supported broader civic and commercial efforts. It helped fund the construction of the elegant Intermont Hotel, which opened in 1891 to welcome visitors and business travelers drawn by the town’s expansion. With its luxurious accommodations and a commanding view of the surrounding mountains, the Intermont stood as a tangible symbol of Covington’s rising status. It served as a gathering place for local leaders, railroad executives, and visiting capitalists, further cementing the Improvement Company’s role in the social and economic life of the community. News articles of the day highlighted how such institutions raised the town’s profile and fostered a sense of progress and optimism.

Complementary industries soon joined the boom, adding diversity to the local economy. The Covington Machine Company, also formed in 1891, was a major industrial operation that produced an array of iron, coal mining, and blast furnace equipment and soon employed 350 skilled machinists. The old Deford Tannery was revived and expanded in 1892. A major new plant, the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, opened in 1899.

These enterprises and others created demand for labor, housing, and supporting services, reinforcing the cycle of growth that the Improvement Company had begun. The railroads, encouraged by the expanding industrial base, improved access to markets and to further ore deposits in Potts Valley. This collaboration between rail development and industrial investment created a positive cycle that sustained progress for decades. At the center of this process was the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which moved thousands of carloads of freight each year, generating substantial revenue for the local economy.

Thousands of new residents came to work at the furnace and related industries. The population grew steadily, bringing new skills, capital, and cultural influences to the Alleghany Highlands. While the core community remained rooted in agriculture, the influx of workers, managers, and investors helped create a more dynamic and cosmopolitan town. Challenges inevitably went with rapid growth—cyclical commodity markets, housing pressures, the need for expanded schools and public services, and the strains of a changing population. Yet the industrial base provided resilience that carried the community forward through economic fluctuations, including the Great Depression.

Later decades would bring their own transformations, including the decline of some heavy industries and the rise of others, such as rayon production, but the foundational work conducted in the 1890s and early 1900s created a platform upon which later generations would build. In a special 1934 edition of the Covington Virginian, long-time resident C. D. Lam recalled with pride how his town had grown from a small village to a thriving community, complete with modern infrastructure, schools, and commercial enterprises.

The story of the Covington Improvement Company remains a classic example of local vision meeting opportunity at the right moment. In an era when many small towns in Appalachia struggled to keep pace with national industrialization, a determined group of investors and leaders identified Covington’s unique combination of natural resources—iron ore, timber, limestone, and its strategic location along key transportation routes—and helped engineer a period of rapid expansion that defined the community’s identity and prospects for generations. Newspapers of the day captured the optimism and momentum of those transformative years. Today, that legacy endures as the city’s industrial heritage.