Thurmond feels like a ghost town where the trains forgot to stop coming: a row of brick storefronts facing the tracks, a restored 1904 depot, the New River sliding past, and then a CSX freight train rumbling through close enough to feel. You reach it down seven miles of narrow road from Glen Jean and over a one-lane bridge that cars share with the railroad. The depot is a free National Park Service visitor center at 254 River Crest Road, open weekends from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM through October 25, 2026, before it closes for the winter on October 31.
Ghost town is the look, not the fact. Thurmond is still incorporated, with a mayor and a council that meets on the second Tuesday of the month, though the town's own site says the Park Service owns about 80 percent of it and the Charleston Gazette-Mail counted six residents in August 2026. Amtrak's Cardinal still stops here on flag, so you can arrive the old-fashioned way.
What to see in Thurmond
Start inside the depot, which the Chesapeake & Ohio built in 1904 and the Park Service restored in 1995. The exhibits and period furnishings bring back what the Park Service calls "a classic boomtown." In the first two decades of the 1900s this tiny place took in "the largest revenue on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway," saw fifteen passenger trains a day and moved somewhere between 75,000 and 95,000 passengers a year through the depot. By 1910, the National Register nomination adds, Thurmond produced $4.8 million of freight revenue for the C&O, almost 20 percent of the railroad's total. Hard to picture now, which is half the fun of standing on the platform.
Then walk Commercial Row, the brick buildings lined up along the tracks, including the old bank. The Park Service keeps them up but has no plans to open them as exhibits, so you're looking at facades and windows. The 1922 coaling tower still looms over the yard (CSX owns it); the engine house burned in 1993. From Memorial Day to Labor Day a ranger leads a Thurmond Walk daily at 11:00 AM. In fall you're on your own, and the quiet suits the place.
Two more claims to fame: Jon Dragan founded Wildwater Expeditions Unlimited here in 1968, called by the e-WV encyclopedia the first West Virginia-based whitewater rafting company, and John Sayles filmed much of Matewan in town, a movie added to the National Film Registry in 2023. River people know Thurmond for another reason: USGS gauge 03185400 sits here, and it's the number the river conditions page reads for Lower New levels.
Know before you go: tracks, access and trails
Walking the street, browsing the depot and photographing the buildings are all free. The one hard rule is the railroad: the CSX main line beside the depot is active, so stay off the tracks and skip the pose-on-the-rails photo. The depot has a ramp and an elevator but no automatic doors, per the park's accessibility page.
Leave the cooler of beer at home if you're headed to Dun Glen across the river, where park rules ban alcohol in the developed area. Hunting is off limits in the Thurmond zone of the park. And if you were hoping to hike from town, both local trails are out for now.
| Trail | Status |
|---|---|
| Rend Trail (Thurmond to Minden) | Closed from both ends through December 2027 for an $11.8 million rebuild that began August 3, 2026 |
| Church Loop Trail | Temporarily closed by downed trees |
How to get to Thurmond
Take U.S. 19 south from Fayetteville to the Glen Jean exit, then follow WV 25 about seven miles down into the gorge, roughly 17 miles and a little over half an hour in all. The road is narrow and twisting and parking in town is limited, so the Park Service advises against RVs and trailers. The grand finale is the one-lane deck on the railroad bridge, where, as WV Explorer puts it, "Cars and trains both must share the bridge." Look both ways, then look again. Small RVs can park at the Southside/Dun Glen lot across the river and walk over.
Or arrive the way everyone did in 1910, by train. The Cardinal makes a flag stop at Thurmond on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, at 9:56 AM eastbound and 7:39 PM westbound in Amtrak's current Cardinal timetable. Check with Amtrak about fares and boarding before you plan around it. The getting here guide covers the Cardinal's other stops at Prince and Hinton.
The August 15 and 16 floods closed several park roads, but the road to Thurmond stayed passable: WOAY reported on August 18 that it was "currently passable."
When is the Thurmond depot open?
The depot runs on a summer schedule and shuts for the winter. Here are the 2026 dates.
| Period | Depot visitor center |
|---|---|
| Memorial Day to Labor Day 2026 | Daily, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM |
| September 12 to October 25, 2026 | Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM |
| October 31, 2026 to May 26, 2027 | Closed |
The town itself never closes. Drive down on a weekday in October or on a cold January afternoon and you can still walk the street and watch the trains; you just won't get inside the depot. Its direct line is 304-465-8550, and if nobody picks up, try park headquarters at 304-465-0508.
Is Thurmond being demolished?
Some of it may be, and soon. In a letter dated July 15, 2026, Acting Superintendent Eric G. LaPrice said demolition of 12 park-owned structures was "tentatively" set to begin in November 2026, Lootpress reported. News reports have given different totals: MetroNews said about 20 buildings in August, and the Gazette-Mail counted 17 park-wide, 14 of them in Thurmond or at Dun Glen. The Park Service points to deterioration, safety, vandalism and the cost of keeping buildings it doesn't need, WV StateWire reported.
The depot, Commercial Row and the coaling tower aren't on any published demolition list. The houses are what's at stake. According to WV Explorer, the Park Service decided to keep the Marilyn Brown House, the Thurmond Ice House and the Dun Glen Ark, while the Tom Kelly House and two smaller Dun Glen structures survive only if someone leases them.
People are working on other endings. On August 31 the Park Service announced it would offer historic and non-historic park structures for lease, and on September 12 WV Explorer described a proposed New River Gorge Artisan Corridor, led by New River Gorge Historical Society president Jennings Berry, with Thurmond among its first three communities. "We don't want Thurmond to become a collection of photographs showing people what used to stand there," Berry told the magazine. The full timeline is in the Thurmond demolition fight.
If you've been meaning to see Thurmond as it stands today, go this fall. The depot is open weekends through October 25, and November is the Park Service's own date.
Make a day of it, and where to stay nearby
Thurmond was one of dozens of railroad and coal settlements strung along the river, and the coal towns of the gorge tells the rest of that story. Since commercial rafting on the New got its start right here, the guide to rafting the New makes a fitting next stop.
There's no hotel in Thurmond, though WV Explorer reports that private owners rent some of the historic houses as short-term stays. Oak Hill and Fayetteville have the nearest range of rooms, and the map here compares places to stay around Thurmond for your dates.
