name proposed by citizens of Norfolk in the pre-war efforts to secure rail service. Mahone was able to arrange for a portion of the State's proceeds of the AM&O sale to help found a school to prepare teachers to help educate black children and former slaves. The Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute near Petersburg was forerunner of Virginia State College, which expanded to become Virginia State University. A leader of the Readjuster Party, after leaving the railroad business, he became even more active in Virginia's politics and served as a Senator in the U.S. Congress from 1881 to 1887. What became of the former AM&O The new owners were E. W. Clark & Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which already owned a controlling interest in the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. The latter was expanding south from Hagerstown, Maryland, and seeking a potential connection. Under the common ownership, the link was established between Lynchburg and Salem on the old AM&O at the tiny community of Big Lick on the Roanoke River, which soon became the city of Roanoke and a major office and shops location of the N&W. It became known as the "Magic City." While Mahone's vision for the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad was western trade and the transportation business, the new owners were focused on their investments in the rich, largely untapped coal reserves of southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia. They knew older anthracite coal fields in northwestern New Jersey, southern New York, and northern Pennsylvania were playing out. Under their auspices, the former AM&O was greatly expanded as the N&W into the coal fields and beyond and became a system larger and far more wealthy than Mahone probably had ever dreamed. In the mid 20th century, N&W merged with long-time rival Virginian Railway in the Pocahontas coal region and grew even more in size and profitability by mergers with other rail carriers including Nickel Plate Road and Wabash in adjacent areas to form a system serving 14 states and a province of Canada between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River and Great Lakes with more than of trackage. 100 years later after its name was changed from AM&O, the N&W was combined with the Southern Railway, another profitable carrier, to form Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS) in 1982. Today, much of the former Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad remains in service for Norfolk Southern, a