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presents

The Roads and Rails of Mercer County, WV /

CR 37 and WV 123

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Highway	Names	Start	Terminus	Length (km)
WV 123	Airport Rd.	Tazewell County, Virginia state line west of Brush Fork	US 19 and US 460 south of Princeton, near Green Valley	16
CR 37	"	US 52, Brush Fork	US 460 south of Princeton, near Green Valley	12

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Overview

WV 123 is an east-west highway running parallel to US 19 on the north face of Stony Ridge. The highway was commissioned as a connecting link for the Mercer County Airport, located near its halfway point due north of Bluefield, and is known as Airport Road. Its present western terminus is on the Virginia state line, where it morphs into SR 643.

History

WV 123 was originally classified as a county highway, and designated CR 37. The construction of the road happened happened in tandem with construction of the Mercer County Airport, with both opening in 1954.

Airport Road was built on a newly-constructed course and alignment between US 52 in Brush Fork and the Middle Fork of Brush Creek west of Edison. The road's eastern leg made use of pre-existing infrastructure; specifically a segment of CR 36 between Middle Fork and Edison and a portion of CR 25 (itself a former alignment of US 19 and 21) between Edison and US 19 in Green Valley.

In 1976 the highway was extended west of US 52, absorbing the southwestern leg of CR 23 from Brush Fork to the Virginia border, and "promoted" to primary status as WV 123.

WV 123 experienced two more adjustments before the 1970s drew to a close: An approximately 2 km section was relocated due to flooding by the Kee Dam Reservoir, and the northeast end was turned to meet US 460's new course on Corridor Q. The route has been unchanged ever since.

Etymology

The "123" number was a homage to CR 23, which it replaced west of its intersection with US 52.

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Points of interest

All photos by the author, 2013:

A: The Mercer County Airport lends its name to Airport Road and to the Airport Square Shopping Centre, which stands at a crossroads north of Bluefield where there once was a drive-in theatre. The North Carolina-based Roses chain opened a discount store here in the early '80s...which now stands abandoned. No loss: Roses had its assets snapped up in the 1990s by fascist bankroller and climate denialist Art Pope, who's been wreaking havoc on humanity ever since.

B: Just downstream from the airport lies the site of WV 123's only realignment: The Kee Dam, also known as Brush Creek Structure No. 19a, built between 1974 and 1976 to supplement Bluefield's (privatized) drinking water supply. The resulting reservoir flooded the site of the original road, forcing WVDH to relocate a section of the highway to higher terrain. A short stub of the original road (CR 123/7) survives as an access road to the dam itself.

C: An illegible sign for a bowling alley and roller rink stands on Route 123. This place had a sickly look when I passed by in 2013, and I assumed it was closed and abandoned...until I pulled up the address on Google in this midst of researching this feature, promptly finding that a) it was still open for business, and b) the owner had painted the word "TR*MP" across the back wall of the bowling lanes, twice over, for white supremacists and rabid homophobes to gaze at with wholehearted approval.

D: And speaking of "closed and abandoned," here's Route 123's most famous bygone ruin. The Blue Prince Cinema opened in 1976, complementing the adjacent Blue Prince Plaza (discussed on the US 19 page) and hastening the demise of Bluefield's last two downtown theatres by decade's end. For a brief time around 1980, this was the only first-run indoor cinema in the county: If you wanted to see The Empire Strikes Back, this two-screen shoebox was where you had to go.

The Blue Prince Cinema closed by the early 2000s, its own demise being hastened by a co-owned multiplex at the nearby Mercer Mall and the area's coal-induced, seven-decade-long socioeconomic decline. The building stood deteriorating for over a decade and then some, and was demolished in 2015.

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Fractional spur roads

Perhaps not surprisingly, the only numbered spur that CR 37 spawned was the entrance to the airport itself.

Road	Names	Start	Terminus	Length (km)	Notes
37/1	Markell Dr.	WV 123, Mercer County Airport	dead end	insignificant	Access road for the Mercer County Airport.

Road	Names	Start	Terminus	Length (km)	Notes
123/1	Evangelism Rd.	WV 123	dead end	2
123/2	Victory Rd.	WV 123	WV 123	insignificant
123/3	Nichols Rd.	WV 123	dead end	insignificant
123/4	Sherman Oaks Rd.	WV 123	dead end	insignificant
123/5	(unknown)
123/6	(unknown)
123/7	Charnell Way	WV 123	dead end	insignificant	Former alignment of WV 123, partially flooded by the construction of the Kee Dam.
123/8	Duff Hollow Rd.	WV 123	dead end	insignificant

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