Bob Powell, Author at West Virginia Public Broadcasting

February 16, 1917: State Legislature Establishes 'Colored' Tuberculosis Hospital

On February 16, 1917, the West Virginia Legislature established what was then known as the West Virginia State Colored Tuberculosis Sanitarium at Denmar. It opened at a time when the state’s public institutions were segregated by race. The Pocahontas County facility treated African American patients who suffered from TB. It was part of a movement by black legislators to build more facilities for African Americans. Prior to that, African Americans with TB had to be sent to a facility in Virginia.

Denmar’s high elevation was chosen specifically to help patients with breathing problems. Previously, Denmar had been a lumber town. The town’s old boarding house was adapted into the main hospital and administration building. Company houses became living quarters for the patients and employees. And the former mill and railroad shop were used by the hospital’s farm and dairy.

A modern facility was opened on the site in 1939. By the 1950s, tuberculosis was beginning to disappear. So, in 1957, Denmar was converted into a state hospital for the chronically ill. In 1990, it was closed and then reopened again in 1993 as the Denmar Correctional Center.

February 15, 1950: Author Fannie Kemble Johnson Dies

Author Fanny Kemble Johnson died in Charleston on February 15, 1950, at age 81.

Born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in 1868, she moved to West Virginia in her late 20s and began her writing career. She and her husband, Vincent Costello, moved from Charleston to Wheeling in 1907, and back to Charleston in 1917.

She was known for her short stories, which were featured in such diverse publications as Ella Mae Turner’s 1923 compilation Stories and Verse of West Virginia, in the pulp magazine Weird Tales, and in some of the leading literary magazines of the 20^th century, including Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and Century.

Her story “The Strange Looking Man” was included in a collection of best short stories from 1917, and her work “They Both Needed It” was featured in a best stories collection of 1918. In 2000, “The Strange Looking Man” was also included in the Oxford University Press’s anthology Women’s Writing on the First World War.

Her one and only novel, Beloved Son, was published in 1916. It’s set in the Natural Bridge area of Virginia, where Fanny Kemble Johnson was raised.

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February 7, 1913: The Bull Moose Express Used to Attack Striking Miners

On February 7, 1913, striking miners from the Holly Grove tent encampment in Kanawha County fired on a coal company-owned ambulance and attacked a store at nearby Mucklow.

Their actions triggered one of the most notorious incidents of the bloody Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike.

That night, Kanawha County Sheriff Bonner Hill, Paint Creek coal operator Quinn Morton, and a number of deputies, mine guards, and Chesapeake & Ohio Railway police boarded an armored train to exact their revenge on the miners’ tent colony at Holly Grove. Coal operators had equipped the train, known as the Bull Moose Special, with iron plate and machine guns.

As the train approached Holly Grove in the darkness, machine guns and rifles were fired into the tents of the sleeping miners and their families. Several people were wounded, and one striker, Cesco Estep, was killed while trying to escort his son and pregnant wife to safety. The enraged strikers retaliated by attacking the mine guards’ camp at Mucklow two days later.

The Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike, which ended several months later, is the deadliest strike in West Virginia history.

January 4, 1897: West Virginia Institute of Technology Founded

The first classes at Montgomery Preparatory School in Fayette County began on January 4, 1897. It was established due to the lack of high schools in the area. Previously, most students in that region had to end their formal educations after eighth grade, or even earlier.

By World War I, there was less need for a preparatory school since many high schools had been recently established. In 1917, an attempt at converting it to a vocational school failed.

In 1921, the school became a junior college, known as New River State, and grew rapidly. In 1941, it was renamed the West Virginia Institute of Technology—or West Virginia Tech. In the decades following World War II, Tech became one of the most respected engineering schools in the eastern United States, with many graduates moving into the West Virginia coal and chemical industries.

Enrollment declined in the late 20^th century as southern West Virginia lost population. The school merged with WVU in 1996 and became a division of the university in 2007. In 2015, the decision was made to relocate the WVU Institute of Technology to Beckley.

November 21, 1810: US Senator Allen Taylor Caperton Born

Allen Taylor Caperton was born on November 21, 1810, on his family’s estate in Monroe County. During the 1840s and 1850s, he served as a Whig in the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate.

As the Civil War approached, Caperton was personally opposed to secession. However, in April 1861, he served as a delegate to the Virginia secession convention and voted with the majority to join the Confederacy.

From 1863 until the end of the war two years later, he represented Virginia in the Confederate Senate. He was one of only three Virginians to serve in the Confederate Senate during the Civil War.

In 1875, the West Virginia Legislature elected Caperton, now a Democrat, to be a United States senator. In doing so, Caperton set two precedents. He became the first ex-Confederate elected to the U.S. Senate. He also was the first and only former Confederate senator to serve in the U.S. Senate after the war. His time in the senate, though, was brief—less than 17 months.

He died in July 1876 at the age of 65 and was buried in his hometown of Union.

July 28, 1860: Wheeling Suspension Bridge Reopens to Public

The Wheeling Suspension Bridge over the Ohio River reopened to the public on July 28, 1860. The bridge had originally opened to much fanfare in 1849. At the time, it was the longest clear span in the world and helped usher in an era of great American bridge building.

Most significantly for the northern panhandle, the bridge boosted Wheeling’s economic fortunes. Three major transportation routes converged in Wheeling. In addition to the heavily traveled Ohio River and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the bridge now extended the National Road westward into Ohio.

In 1854—five years after it opened—the bridge’s deck was destroyed in a violent windstorm. Within a few months, one lane was back in service. The bridge was rebuilt and strengthened in time for the 1860 reopening. Its appearance today, except for the deck, substantially dates to the 1860 rebuild.

The Wheeling Suspension Bridge still serves local traffic and has been designated a national landmark by both the National Park Service and the American Society of Civil Engineers. The stunning span attracts local history buffs as well as historians and engineers from around the world.