By Greg Jordan, Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD, W.Va. – Fifty years ago this Friday, around 500 people braved frigid temperatures to celebrate the opening of an engineering marvel that cuts through a mountain and makes travel easier between the two Virginias and across the eastern United States.
The mile-long East River Mountain Tunnel on Interstate 77 opened on Dec. 20, 1974 after five years, four months and 13 days of work. The total project cost, including design, right-of-way acquisition, construction of the tunnels, portal buildings, electrical systems and ventilation systems was $37 million.
The East River Mountain Tunnel was the latest marvel of highway engineering linking Virginia and West Virginia.
Two years earlier and 20 miles south of the East River Mountain Tunnel, the openings of 11.4 miles of I-77 between Wytheville, Va. and Bland, Va. and the Big Walker Mountain Tunnel were celebrated on June 29, 1972.
“Each I-77 mountain tunnel took about five years to construct and were some of the largest highway construction contracts awarded by the state in the late 1960s,” said VDOT Bristol District Engineer Tabitha Crowder, P.E. “The opening of East River Mountain Tunnel cut the drive between the West Virginia state line and Wytheville by half.”
