David Sibray

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — One hundred seventy-five years ago this week, a boy was born along the Kanawha River in Putnam County who would become a bestselling author, a nationally known economic crusader, a presidential candidate, and, eventually, the architect of an extraordinary concrete monument intended to explain to people in the distant future why American … Read more

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Fifty-eight years ago this week, one of the most extraordinary political corruption cases in West Virginia history began in a federal courtroom in Charleston, where a former governor and five other men stood accused in a conspiracy involving state contracts, secret payments and money moving through corporations hundreds of miles away. The … Read more

HINTON, W.Va. — In the darkness of Aug. 10, 1862, about 150 Union soldiers moved through the mountains of southern West Virginia toward an isolated industrial complex along the New River, carrying orders from an Ohio officer who would eventually become president of the United States. Their objective was the Mercer Saltworks, a salt-producing operation … Read more

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — By the final days of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln faced one of the most unusual decisions of his presidency. The Civil War had entered its second winter, Confederate armies still occupied much of the South, and the Union’s future remained uncertain. Yet waiting on Lincoln’s desk was legislation unlike anything any previous … Read more