The city’s next mayor was M.G. Nichols. Known to one and all as Capt. Nichols, he was wharf master at the C&O’s Huntington river landing.
As wharf master, Nichols supervised the busy landing where passengers and freight were regularly transferred between the C&O and the steamboats that plied the Ohio River at that time. Seeking a good spot for that daily flow of people and cargo between the railroad and the river is what brought Collis P. Huntington to the banks of the Ohio and the attractive tract of riverbank farmland he picked out as the site of his new town.
The election of the C&O’s wharf master as mayor reflected the important role the railroad played in the daily affairs of the young city.
Nichols died in 1899.
