[7] Princeton had been burned a couple of weeks earlier on May 1 under the command of Captain Walter Jenifer, CSA to prevent the Union army from acquiring their supplies.

According to local history, many of the residents of Princeton torched their own homes and moved on from the area.

The Robert McNutt house is the only structure that remains in Princeton which, ironically, served as headquarters for the Union army at one time.

[9] In Southern West Virginia, in the late 19th century, coal mining and transportation by the emerging technology of the railroads combined to form a new industry.

Princeton's location was east of the primary coalfields, and most of the coal mining and railroad activity was initially elsewhere.

In 1896, engineer William Nelson Page developed the Loup Creek and Deepwater Railway, a logging railroad connecting a small sawmill on the old Loup Creek Estate at Robson with the C&O railroad's main line at Deepwater on the Kanawha River.

In 1898, it was rechartered as the Deepwater Railway, with modest plans to extend to nearby coal mines at Glen Jean.

In 1902, William Page enlisted the support of millionaire industrialist Henry H. Rogers as a silent partner to finance the expansion of the Deepwater Railway much further, about 80 miles through Mullens to reach a N&W railroad branch line at Matoaka to open up new territory with untapped deposits of high volatile bituminous coal.

This was later revealed to be caused by collusion by the leaders of the big railroads, notably Alexander Cassatt, William Kissam Vanderbilt, and Frederick J. Kimball, who sought to control shipping rates and coal prices, and prevent any newcomers from entry.

In their experience, building costly enterprises such as railroads customarily meant raising large sums of money through public stock offerings and bonds.

From Roanoke, the new line ran almost due east, missing major cities and towns, to reach Suffolk.

Thus, the leaders of the big railroads finally learned the source of William Nelson Page's deep pockets.

Victoria, a new town created in Lunenburg County, Virginia, became the Division Headquarters east of Roanoke.

Using more modern techniques than had been available to the older major railroads during the 19th century, and the Rogers fortune to build to the highest standards and acquire the finest equipment and rolling stock, it was widely considered an engineering marvel of the times when completed all the way from Deepwater to reach a port near Norfolk, Virginia on Hampton Roads in 1909, a distance of about 360 miles (580 km).Princeton was designated to be the headquarters of the New River Division, extending from Roanoke westward.

The changes from steam to diesel-electric motive power and the mergers and consolidations resulted in elimination of many shops and jobs, aggravated by a reduction in coal mining activity in West Virginia.

However, despite the community's loss, a new replica of the VGN's two-story Princeton Passenger Station and Offices had been recently built, the largest such effort in the entire state.

A modern structure functionally, while appearing like the original built 100 about years earlier, the new Princeton Station Museum should last for future generations.

[13] The cultural hub the Chuck Mathena Center, which opened in July 2008, contains a 1,000-seat theater and meeting rooms for civic groups and events.

[14] Other cultural endeavors include the RiffRaff Arts Collective,[15] the remodeled Princeton Public Library and a Railroad Museum.