Return to George W. and Constance M. Hilton Book Awards
 Ed Wolfe, 2012 winner |
Ed Wolfe, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received the 2012 George M. and Constance W. Hilton Book Award for Southern Railway Appalachia Division, HEW Enterprises, Pittsburgh, 2010.The book covers the division (Bristol, Virginia/Tennessee to St. Charles, Virginia via Appalachia and Mountain City, Tennessee via Elizabethton) from initial construction plans in the 1850s until the end of the division in 1985. The 2012 book winner is a member of an emerging subgenre of railroad history, the substantially researched treatment of a single operating division of a railroad, frequently of three or four hundred pages, covering both railroad and regional history simultaneously. The consensus of the Awards Committee is that Wolfe’s coverage is outstanding, Louis A. Marre, professor emeritus at the University of Dayton, wrote in the awards citation.Marre praised the map collection. “There are dozens of maps of specific segments of the division, closely integrated with the relevant text, and done as topographic maps, indispensable for any railroad built in rugged terrain,” he said. “The number and quality of the maps in this book deserve a separate award from a cartographic society.” The cover painting is by Ron Flanary, who is among the photographers represented in the book. Wolfe did the typograhy and layout.Wolfe was born and raised in Appalachia, Virginia. He attended Virginia Tech earning a B.S. in Geology in 1972 and an M.S. in Mineralogy in 1976. He has been employed by Harbison-Walker Refractories/ANH Refractories at its West Mifflin Technical Center in suburban Pittsburgh for 37 years.The announcement appeared in Railroad History, Spring-Summer 2013. |