It might sound like a joke, but it’s true that a circus clown helped relocate the West Virginia capital from Wheeling to Charleston, its present location, in the late 1800s.
They say that finding a location for the seat of government had been a bit of a circus anyway, and the capital city had shifted back and forth between the two cities through the years, but it finally anchored in Charleston, and we have a clown to thank for that.
Here’s how it happened. Midway through the Civil War when West Virginia was created, Wheeling was its largest city and its new capital, though it was far from the new state’s geographic center, which was roughly 100 miles to the south near Sutton, West Virginia.
So, in 1877, the Legislature determined that a new capital should be considered. Charleston, Clarksburg, and Martinsburg all vied for the honor, though Martinsburg, in the eastern panhandle, like Wheeling, in the northern panhandle, was far from the center.
Clarksburg and Charleston, however, were both more centrally located, and they entered into what became a maddening competition.
To help rally enthusiasm for its cause, Charleston engaged civic leaders Romeo Freer and John Kenna, but the two were having little success. Only ten days remained before the vote, and they had not been able to attract audiences to their speeches. Then along came Lolo the Clown.
Kenna and Freer had walked into a bar when their luck changed, according to the authors of “West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State,” compiled in 1941 by writers for the Works Progress Association.
Kenna and Freer arrived in 
West Virginia Governor’s Mansion[/caption]
Too much government? As bad as politics in West Virginia might seem today, there was a time when the state had four governors.
In 1888, Nathan Goff, Jr., and Aretas Brooks Fleming campaigned for the governorship. Goff appeared to be the winner, but Fleming contested the vote, and both took the oath of office. All then things quickly began to devolve. Read the full story here.