The History Project

After coal became king in West Virginia, out-of-state barons extracted the blood, sweat and tears of the miners, forcing them into indentured servitude with company towns, while leaving them to work under dangerous and sometimes fatal conditions. The travail of the miners and their families set the stage for coal's next chapter. 

West Virginia is synonymous with coal, but the mighty king of its industrial complex was once inconsequential.  The Industrial Revolution forever changed that and coal fueled America's rise to prosperity as the first mines were created by local people of influence.  

When radio ruled the airwaves, West Virginia had one of America's favorite shows.  "It's Wheeling Steel" was broadcast by the eponymous company from the Capitol Music Hall in The Nail City each week, first starting locally but landing on NBC. Talent from the mills and offices populated its content, making it popular in the 1930s and 40s.   

Lured to West Virginia by its nascent salt industry, the brine made it possible for the chemical industry to flourish. Though there were plants around the state, the industry mostly made their home in the Kanawha Valley, stretching from Belle to a town created just for chemical-making, Nitro. Highs and lows unique to the industry have altered production but it continues to thrive in the Mountain S...

A much-heralded writer, Breece D'J Pancake was destined to become one of America's great authors.  His work in The Atlantic Monthly magazine made him much sought after as he explored the lives of West Virginians. But fate had other plans and Pancake's small body of work from his short lifetime left the literary world pondering "What if?"  

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone were joined by other innovators of their day to explore America in what was their idea of roughing it as campers. They came to West Virginia twice and documented their love for its beauty while being hailed by locals as they swept through Mountain State communities with their own personal flair. 

Most politicians come and go without leaving an impression, while some either rise to great fame or fall to great infamy. Governor William C. Marland managed to achieve both in his four-year term from 1953 to 1957. He proposed a severance tax on coal while the industry was at its height in West Virginia's economy, which would set in motion a rebellion that changed the course of his career.

It is no surprise that a state as beautiful as West Virginia is celebrated in four different state songs with lyrics that sing about the mountainous beauty, warm friendships and sense of community that abound. Each song has a different story about how it became official, taking country roads through the West Virginia hills to arrive at a place that is home.

Of the 29 state turnpikes in the nation, West Virginia's was the 8th to be completed when it opened in 1954.  It had a honeymoon period before the Interstate system change everything, and Turnpike became inadequate and dangerous for drivers used to four-lane modern highways. But the wheels of change came to the Turnpike and today it completes the dream of connections to the Great Lakes and Florida...

At the turn of the 20th century, there were few paved roads in America, but the proliferation of the automobile demanded a highway system. Over the next forty years, roads were developed that connected cities and states through commercially named roads while the Pennsylvania Turnpike set in motion the desire for that new concept of a "superhighway."

The iron industry had already been a force in the Northern Panhandle when the Bessemer process brought steel into the fore.  There were steel mills in various towns around the state like Clarksburg, Huntington and Morgantown, but Wheeling and Weirton set the pace not only in the state but in steel production on the world stage. 

Anne Newport started life with all the disadvantages—poverty, loss of father, and no education. When she met the Revolutionary War's Major William Royal, he provided her the means to gain knowledge.  After he left her a widow, she used her newfound abilities to become a force to be reckoned with, setting the standard for all working American women before even the Suffragette movement. 

Among West Virginia's many industry, the manufacture of glass marbles is perhaps the most overlooked. Nonetheless, the Mountain State has been the center of marble making in North America for the past century. Unfortunately, marble makers have fallen on hard times and only one can remain to be king. 

Among West Virginia's many industry, the manufacture of glass marbles is perhaps the most overlooked. Nonetheless, the Mountain State has been the center of marble making in North America for the past century. Unfortunately, marble makers have fallen on hard times and only one can remain to be king. 

The dream of the colony of Vandalia was ended by the beginning of the Revolutionary War, but the dream of separating West Virginia from Virginia remained alive with the proposed state of Westsylvania, which would also have taken land from Pennsylvania and Maryland. Meanwhile, the official boundaries between the three existing states were in a state of disarray.

After the British gained control of the Ohio Valley, settlers moved into the region, however, skirmishes with the French, who lost the territory, and the Natives, who had legitimate authority over it, intimidated the new Virginians.  Hence, the idea of a 14th self-governing colony was hatched for the area from leaders in Philadelphia, and to win the approval of King III, they gave it a name that h...

While part of the colony of Virginia, modern day West Virginia was called TransAllegheny, a Latinized term meaning "over the Allegheny" mountains. It was allegedly Native reserve territory but that officially changed with the French & Indian War.  In this period, the idea of the region being its own self-governing entity was hatched.  VIDEO LINK:   https://youtu.be/jZyxKW0VihE

Few people were as active in as many different aspects of West Virginia's economy as Johnson Newlon Camden. Growing up in a prominent family, Camden started his path as a lawyer but then became a tycoon of many of the Gilded Age industries, reshaping the state which still bears landmarks with his name.

The Buffalo Mining Company in Logan County dealt with coal waste as other mines did, by dumping it into a nearby stream.  Over the years, it developed dams to hold in that waste but their poor design was no match for heavy rain, and when the dams ruptured the water and waste created one of West Virginia's most horrific human tragedies.  Watch the video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA6rtI...

Wheeling's Virginia Fox was the first West Virginian to make it big in Hollywood, becoming a star of silent films with the legendary Buster Keaton.  She stopped acting to have a family with Darryl F. Zanuck, who would become one of Hollywood's greatest movie moguls. Fox would preside over a dynasty of filmmakers, while pulling the strings few realized she controlled.   Watch the video here:  https...

Tobacco did not reign supreme over West Virginia's economy as it did its neighboring states, but it did play a vital role in shaping the industry. With products touted in movies like "Seven Days in May" and "The Green Mile," Mail Pouch barns by country roads of the East and Midwest, and even the invention of the word "stogie," the Mountain State's contribution to the tobacco industry remains seen...

At the turn of the 20th century, America's coal mining industry lacked proper oversight and legal protections for miners.  This resulted in many grave tragedies but none so great as the explosions that rocked the Fairmont Coal Company's No. 6 and No. 8 mines in Monongah, where European immigrants toiled alongside natural born citizens, and on December 6, 1907, lost their lives together.  

Just as Lewis & Clark trekked across the continent, so, too, did Colonial America have teams of explorers who charted the interior of a nation that existed mostly along the Atlantic Coast. Abraham Wood was a fur trader seeking to expand his trading post, so he was joined by Edward Bland to be the first team to explore Virginia's mountains and valleys.  Wood dispatched two more teams, and they were...