History / Prehistory

Editor’s note: The following historical account by the late historian Nathan Goff Carter contains graphic descriptions of injuries and death. DUNBAR, W.Va. — On the morning of July 4, 1891, a passenger train departed Charleston for Columbus, carrying families, railroad employees, and excursionists bound for Independence Day celebrations. About eight miles into the journey, engineer Pat … Read more

LOGAN, W.Va. — In the early 1850s, a remarkable stranger appeared in the rugged Guyandotte River country of what was then western Virginia. He was a lawyer and physician from Philadelphia. But those occupations hardly explained him. He had edited newspapers and magazines and written poetry, fiction, and plays. He had been part of New … Read more

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. — In the 1890s, an unusual vessel began traveling the Ohio River, stopping at towns in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. It had no engine or rudder and was steered by enormous oars. When it reached a community, evangelists climbed onto the roof and sang to draw residents to religious services inside. Known … Read more

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — The Greenbrier is entering another chapter in its remarkable history after Friday’s completion of a $500 million joint venture that gives a New York investment firm a controlling interest in the historic West Virginia resort. Kennedy Lewis Investment Management will hold a 51% controlling interest in The Greenbrier, while the … Read more

POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — On Aug. 18, 1749, French soldiers stopped at the mouth of the Kanawha River in present-day Point Pleasant and buried a lead plate beneath an elm tree—a declaration of ownership in a territorial struggle that, within five years, would draw a young George Washington into combat and help ignite a war … Read more

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

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Most Americans know there is a Virginia and a West Virginia, but far fewer know why. The answer is not simply that the Civil War divided the nation. It also divided Virginia, producing the only permanent change to the map of the United States during the conflict. Before the war began in … Read more