Both the Caperton and the pair of Mon River Trails on either side of Morgantown follow a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad, which primarily carried coal, coke, sand and limestone between the mines of Fairmont and the industrial city of Pittsburgh.

The railroad used to wind through the canyon as part of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s California-Oregon line, which was marketed in the early 1900s as “The Road to a Thousand Wonders.”