My research into the history of the Wopsononock Resort and Railroad began with a visit to the original Altoona Mirror publishing offices on Green Avenue in downtown Altoona in the late 1970s. While there, I met the Mirror’s head librarian, Esther Barnes, who told me that Mirror photographer James (Jim) Shafer had a special interest in Wopsy history and kindly shared his telephone number.

Although I never met Jim Shafer in person, I spoke with him by phone several times. In either 1980 or 1981, Jim left me a copy of a railroad history booklet titled The Alley Popper, written by Richard D. Adams and published in 1980. Mr. Adams was both a railroad historian and an ordained Presbyterian minister. His booklet contained numerous facts about the Wopsononock Railroad, along with photographs I had never seen before—several of which came from the Smithsonian Institution’s extensive railroad collections.

At this point, I no longer recall how I obtained Rev. Adams’s contact information, but we exchanged several letters through the mail, long before the days of Google and email. In one of his letters, Rev. Adams provided me with the address and negative numbers for photographs of the Wopsononock Railroad taken locally in 1913 by Charles B. Chaney, Jr.

Sometime in the early 1980s, I purchased a few of the Chaney Wopsy Railroad black-and-white 8×10 prints directly from the Smithsonian Institution.