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presents

The Roads and Rails of Mercer County, WV /

CR 25

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Highway	Names	Start	Terminus	Length (km)
CR 25 (current alignment)	Mercer Mall Rd., Old Princeton Rd., Grassy Branch Rd.	WV 123, Edison	US 52 (E. Cumberland Rd.), Bluefield	8
CR 25 (original alignment, south leg)	"	CR 19/33 (former WV 71), Green Valley	US 52 (E. Cumberland Rd.), Bluefield	10
CR 25 (original alignment, north leg)	Old Bluefield Rd.	US 19, Princeton	US 19 south of Princeton	4

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Overview

County Route 25 is a road in southwestern Mercer County. Its current configuration exists of three semi-discontinuous segments:

• A 4-km two-lane segment from Green Valley to Stony Gap, serving double-duty as a Mercer Mall access road;
• A 3-km single-lane segment from Stony Gap to Bluefield, signed as the Old Princeton Road;
• A 2-km two-lane segment grazing Bluefield's west edge, incorporating the onetime US 21 Bypass in the Grassy Branch valley.

History

The story of County Route 25 is the story of the Princeton-Bluefield Road of the early twentieth century, built in parallel to the Princeton-Bluefield Interurban line that began operation in 1916. Although streetcar service ended in 1947, the heritage of the route is evident through its level grading and through unwidened portions where the streetcar right-of-way is still visible.

Because of the significance of this road, it did time as a succession of highways before CR 25 was even commissioned. In West Virginia's original numbered road system of 1922, the entire Princeton-Bluefield Road was designated WV 4. The advent of the U.S. highway system caused WV 4 to be replaced by US 19 and US 21 between 1926 and 1933. Both U.S. highways were realigned onto new routing around 1933...the same time that the West Virginia secondary county highway system got off the ground. Ergo, this road became CR 25.

In its earliest configuration, CR 25 started on Princeton's outskirts and followed the trolleys south to Princeton Avenue in Bluefield. Surprisingly, however, this route was always bisected with a big chunk taken out from the middle of it! CR 25 terminated at the point south of Princeton where the Princeton-Bluefield Road crossed the new alignment of US 19, then resumed 5 kilometres southwest in Green Valley. The gap in between was plugged by a two-pronged fork of WV 71, which took priority over CR 25 to connect to other highways.

When US 19 and 21 were realigned in the early 1930s, a bypass of Bluefield was constructed through the Grassy Branch valley...but in the meantime, the state treated it as an extension of CR 25, separated from the south end of the Old Princeton-Bluefield Road by a 300-metre gap.

By the 1940s this had officially become US 21 Alt, shortening CR 25 by two kilometres. Other adjustments followed:

At some point (probably when the Mercer County Airport opened in 1954), the north end of CR 25 was pared back to its current terminus due to the Green Valley-Edison segment being redesignated as CR 37. It then became WV 123 in 1976.

In the mid-1970s, the WVDH eliminated the isolated north leg of CR 25 by renumbering it as CR 19/29.

In 1976, US 21 was truncated to Bluefield. This resulted in that highway's Grassy Branch bypass becoming a bypass without a purpose...so the state reincorporated the segment into CR 25!

One final adjustment happened around 1977. US 460 Corridor Q was completed through Stony Gap, building over CR 25 in the process...leaving the older road with an orphaned stub (CR 25/10) and a 400-metre gap.

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A glimpse of the Old Princeton-Bluefield Road in the days when streetcars still ruled the route. This postcard probably hails from the 1920s, before CR 25 was commissioned...but the scenes are the same. This photo was taken facing south at Stony Gap, near today's Mercer Mall entrance. The construction of US 460 Corridor Q in the 1970s obliterated most traces of this portion of the line.

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Fractional spur roads

Decades after the north leg of CR 25 was eliminated, a vestige of it lives on through one of the spur roads it intersected.

Road	Names	Start	Terminus	Length (km)	Notes
25/1	Brittany Dr.	Dead end; originally CR 19/29 (former CR 25) south of Princeton	CR 27/1 south of Princeton	insignificant	Original 1930s road with numbers assigned from north to south. West portion truncated by 1945.
25/2 (old)	(unknown name)	CR 19/29 (former CR 25) south of Princeton	CR 25/1 south of Princeton	2	Original 1930s road with numbers assigned from north to south. Truncated to less than 1 kilometre by 1945, leaving a stub that was later incorporated into CR 34/1.
25/2	Gateway Dr., Locust Grove Rd.	CR 25, Bluefield	US 52, Bluefield	insignificant
25/3	Bulltail Hollow Rd.	CR 25, Stony Gap	WV 123, Mercer County Airport (originally through to CR 23/1 north of Bluefield)	4	Original 1930s road with numbers assigned from north to south. West end truncated, and replaced by WV 123.
25/4	E. Wayne St.	Dead end; originally CR 25, Stony Gap	Wayne St., Bluefield	3	Original 1930s road with numbers assigned from north to south. East portion truncated after 1945, and obliterated by Corridor Q construction in 1970s.
25/5	Edgewood Dr.	CR 25, Bluefield	Media St., Bluefield	insignificant	Original 1930s road with numbers assigned from north to south. Probably ended at Mountain View Ave. originally, as this is where the city's limits were in the 1930s.
25/6	Sunrise Dr., Heatherwood Rd.	CR 25, Bluefield	CR 25/2, Bluefield	insignificant
25/7	Mapleview Rd.	CR 25, Maple View	dead end	insignificant
25/8	Morning Dove Rd.	CR 25, Maple View	dead end	insignificant
25/9	Stoney View Ave.	CR 25/8, Maple View	dead end	insignificant
25/10	Streetcar Rd.	CR 25, Stony Gap	dead end	insignificant	Former portion of CR 25 and streetcar right-of-way, truncated by Corridor Q.
25/11	Nutmeg Pl.	CR 25/3, Stony Gap	dead end	insignificant
25/12	Meadow St., Marellan Ave., Carey St.	CR 25, Bluefield	dead end	insignificant
25/13	Chapel Rd.	CR 25, Bluefield	CR 52/41, Bluefield	insignificant

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