Arthur established a new company town— named Middlesboro after Middlesbrough, England— in the Yellow Creek Valley, and built furnaces to convert the ore into pig iron, and coke ovens to convert the mined coal into coke. Arthur then formed the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap, and Louisville Railroad to build a spur line to Middlesboro which would transport the pig iron and coke out of the valley. To house the workers needed to build a railroad tunnel through a mountainside near the Gap, Arthur set up a work camp at Cumberland Gap, Tennessee in early 1888. The railroad's inaugural train ran on August 23, 1889, with several prominent Knoxvillians on board, among them Knox County judge George Andrews, Sheriff Andrew Reeder, attorney William F. Yardley, and businessmen Peter Kern, W. W. Woodruff, and Frank Hockenjos. Just outside Knoxville, however, the train derailed, killing six, including Andrews, Reeder, and Hockenjos, and injuring several others, including Arthur, Kern, and Woodruff.