THIS WEEK IN WV HISTORY: August 9–15

Presented by the WV Humanities Council,

Charleston WV – The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.

Aug. 9, 1916: A storm front from the northwest dumped nearly six inches of rain in less than five hours on the headwaters of Cabin Creek in eastern Kanawha County; 71 people died, and 900 homes were destroyed in the flood.

Aug. 9, 1927: Matthew Reese was born in Huntington. During the 1960 presidential Democratic primary, he helped organize all 55 counties and recruited thousands of campaign volunteers for John F. Kennedy. JFK’s victory forged Reese’s national political consulting career, working on more than 450 campaigns.

Aug. 9, 1954: Don Chafin died in Huntington. As sheriff of Logan County, Chafin was a bitter foe of union organizers and, with financial support from coal companies, used his many deputies to keep labor organizers out of the county. He most notably led the anti-union forces at the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain.

Aug. 10, 1913: Sam Shaw was the beloved third-generation editor of the Moundsville Daily Echo from 1951 until his death in 1995. His letters home during World War II earned him the Ernie Pyle Award. He was also a tinkerer, long-distance runner, hiker, musician, photographer, linguist and bird watcher. 

Aug. 10, 1920: General Frank Kendall “Pete” Everest Jr. was born in Fairmont. Everest was a military aviator and a pioneer in U.S. rocket plane flying. In 1956, he flew the X-2 at Mach 3, exceeding 1,900 miles per hour and breaking the record of Chuck Yeager, his rival and close contemporary.

Aug. 11, 1844: Emanuel Willis Wilson was born at Harpers Ferry. He served as the seventh governor of West Virginia from 1885 to 1890.

Aug. 11, 1910: Funeral director Elizabeth Harden Gilmore was born in Charleston. In 1958, she was an original organizer of West Virginia’s first Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chapter and, on her 48^th birthday, began leading demonstrations that desegregated Charleston businesses.

Aug. 11, 1914: U.S. Ambassador Joseph S. Farland was born in Clarksburg. He helped facilitate U.S. Secretary of State’s Henry Kissinger’s secret 1971 trip to China as a prelude to President Richard Nixon’s historic visit.

Aug. 11, 1941: Musician John Ellison was born near Montgomery, Fayette County. While performing with his band, the Soul Brothers Six, he wrote the classic song “Some Kind of Wonderful.”

Aug. 11, 1974: Singer Landau Eugene Murphy Jr. was born in Logan. In 2011, he won the nationally televised America’s Got Talent competition, performing standards. His win offered him a chance to perform at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. 

Aug. 11, 1994: The Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge became the 500th refuge in the National Wildlife Refuge system. It is one of the largest and most diverse freshwater wetland areas in central and southern Appalachia.

Aug. 12, 1937: Author Walter Dean Myers was born in Martinsburg. In January 2012, Myers was named the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress.

Aug. 12, 1946: WCFC radio of Beckley became the first in the state to transmit FM signals.

Aug. 12, 1997: The Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel strike ended when 79 percent of the workers approved a new contract. The 10-month walkout was the longest steel manufacturing strike on record when it concluded.

Aug. 13, 1900: Railroad mogul and founder of Huntington, Collis Potter Huntington, died. Raised in poverty, Huntington went west when gold was discovered in California. There he became rich, not from mining but by selling supplies to miners.

Aug. 13, 2018: The House of Delegates adopted articles of impeachment against all sitting justices of the state Supreme Court of Appeals.

Aug. 14, 1894: Entertainer Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia “Bricktop” Smith was born at Alderson. She performed in Paris in the 1920s and opened her own clubs, the Music Box and Bricktop’s, a favorite hangout of songwriter Cole Porter.

Aug. 14, 1914: Five burglars robbed the Glen Alum Coal Company payroll in Mingo County. In the chase that followed, eight men—including all the robbers—were killed. All but $20 of the stolen blood-stained $7,000 was recovered.

Aug. 14, 1941: Singer Connie Smith was born in Indiana but was raised in Summers County. She became the first female country artist to have a number one record for eight weeks. Dolly Parton once said, “There are only three great singers: Connie Smith, Barbra Streisand, and Linda Ronstadt. The rest of us are just pretending.”

Aug. 14, 1943: Astronaut Jon Andrew McBride was born in Charleston. McBride became an astronaut in 1979 and piloted the space shuttle Challenger on an eight-day mission in 1984.

Aug. 15, 1867: The cornerstone was laid for the Fairmont Branch Normal School (now Fairmont State University).

Aug. 15, 1906: The Niagara Movement began a five-day meeting at Storer College in Harpers Ferry. The organization was founded the previous year by a group of Black intellectuals, including W. E. B. Du Bois. It soon evolved into the NAACP.

e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia is a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council.  For more information contact the West Virginia Humanities Council, 1310 Kanawha Blvd. E., Charleston, WV 25301; (304) 346-8500; or visit e-WV at www.wvencyclopedia.org.