George Lafayette Carter

George Lafayette Carter (1857–1936) was an American entrepreneur known as "the empire builder of southwest Virginia." He played a central role, with northern financing, in the development of the railroad infrastructure needed to extract and capitalize on natural resources, most principally coal, from the southern Appalachian region during the late 19th and early 20th centuries which helped determine its current economic situation.

Biography

George Lafayette Carter was born to Walter Crockett Carter and Lucy Ann Jennings Carter on January 10, 1857, in Hillsville, Virginia. He was the first of nine children on the family farm. As a child, he read many great works including The Bible and Benjamin Franklin's autobiography.

Carter worked at the Hillsville General Store before pursuing a career of selling iron ore properties with the Wythe Lead and Zinc Company in Austinville, Virginia.

With the help of New York City financiers, he would also form the Clinchfield Coal Company, which owned 300,000 acres of land throughout southwest Virginia. Carter's most reputable creations would be that of the Carolina, Clinchfield, and Ohio Railway and the development of the town of Kingsport, Tennessee. The creation of the railroad would further develop and open up the southern Appalachian region. The museum closed when the building it was housed in was demolished. It was replaced with the Johnson City Railroad Experience in 2024.