jim pastorius posted:Bamberg is very German - Bavaria where I was stationed. Just like Berlin in Pa.
It was spelled Bemberg, with no 'a'. The depot was named that because that was the first mill there. The one that was later known as North American Rayon came a little bit later but both were very big plants that ran around the clock during the war. The two rayon mills in Elizabethton were mostly owned by German concerns during the war. Before long, as they did during WW1, people started wondering if the name sounded "Too German" for the depot, so it became "Port Rayon" until the war was over. Passenger service on the ET&WNC ended for good after the war was over and the wave of activity at the plants crested. They both went into a long, slow decline. Bemberg was a gutted shell of a plant even when I was a kid. North American hung on to the 90s. Both have been bulldozed over long ago and I think only a couple of small outbuildings from either exist today. You can drive through Elizabethton today and never know where they were if you had never been there before. The town lost most of its heavy industry and even the RR pulled up their tracks a few years ago.
FYI, North American bought a Porter 0-6-0 fireless to use at the plant, which served the plant until the early 90s. It was saved and is on display across town today, coupled to one of the two surviving ET&WNC boxcars:
