Monticello and Port Jervis Railroad

The Monticello and Port Jervis Railroad was built in 1869 and 1870. The 22-mile long line opened on January 9, 1871. It followed the path of the Neversink River upstream to Roses Point, at which point it climbed the Catskills to Monticello. After a brakeman sued the railroad for injuries in 1886, the line was auctioned to George Lea. George Lea, a Frenchborn Englishman, was a successful Port Jervis businessman. In 1856, he had run the first full page ad in a newspaper to promote a show he was producing. Lea ran the opera house in Port Jervis and a drug store. In 1884, Lea had run a very successful $1 Port Jervis to New York City excursion on the railroad. Despite all his business successes, Lea sold the railroad just two days later to Henry R. Low who had plans to connect the New York Orange and Western with a Fallsburg-Monticello Line. Instead a much longer route was built from Huguenot along the valley to Summitville. In 1902 the railroad was renamed the Port Jervis, Monticello and Summitville and became part of the NYO & W the following year. A cutoff was built to shorten the line between Summitville and Monticello and the new junction was named Valley Junction. The line saw increased traffic during the summer months for New Yorkers travelling to the Catskills, but by 1930 passenger service was ended on the section between Port Jervis and Valley Junction and on the rest of the line by 1935, due to increased bus competition.