BLUEFIELD, W.Va. – In August of 1969 the groundbreaking ceremony was held for the East River Tunnel which would change traveling in the area forever because the only way to cross the mountain before that was on the curvy and treacherous Rt. 52.
In December of 1974 the tunnel officially opened but Mercer County Commission President Bill Archer says his first trip over East River Mountain was one he will never forget. In his new truck, he set ahead over the mountain with another man’s trailer and a mission to get to his destination.
“The hands on my tractor and on the gentleman’s trailer did not match. He had two smaller, so I could not hook up your air brakes for the trailer. I hauled steel, so it wasn’t like a typically heavy steel load that I had, but there was no way I could hook up air to the trailer brakes. So, coming up over the mountain and then dropping back down and coming into to Wytheville and that, to start heading West that way was really, really, really a challenge,” said Archer.
At one point in his life, he traveled the road with trucks but later he became very familiar with the tunnel.
“ From that point on, I was totally aware of where the East River Mountain Tunnel was, and you know, there were so many experiences I had through the years with that as a newspaper guy,” continued Archer.
The West Virginia side of the tunnel is named after the late H. Edward Steele who had a large hand dealing with the tunnel.
“ Steele was among the first people that were on the Lakes to Florida Highway Association back in the 1920s, and that road is what they were seeking to do,” said Archer.
Archer says that before the tunnel was constructed it took truck drivers approximately two hours to get over the mountain, but now it takes less than two minutes to get through it.
Archer also says he remembers driving through the tunnel for the first time.
“ I remember going through that and I said, ‘Oh, that’s amazing.’ You know, because you could drive full speed down through there, pretty much 55 mile an hour all the way through there, and it connected the development of the interstate highway which was really a great benefit to everybody who drove trucks back in those days,” said Archer.
The East River Tunnel paved the way to a safer and more convenient route for those hitting the road in the two Virginias.
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