Tag: Clarksburg

December 11, 1905: Filmmaker Pare Lorentz Born

Filmmaker “Pare” Lorentz was born in Clarksburg on December 11, 1905. After attending West Virginia Wesleyan College for a year, he transferred to West Virginia University, where he wrote stories for West Virginia Moonshine magazine. At the age of 20, he moved to New York City and began writing for some of the nation’s most popular magazines.

In 1933, Lorentz conceived, edited, and published a pictorial review of Franklin Roosevelt’s first year as president. Two years later, the government contracted with Lorentz to make a film about FDR’s New Deal. The Plow That Broke the Fields was a pioneering film that helped change how documentaries were made. In 1937, he made another film for the administration. The River showed in emotional terms how the New Deal was addressing environmental problems.

During World War II, Lorentz made hundreds of training films for pilots who were flying previously uncharted routes around the world. Pare Lorentz, who is remembered as “FDR’s filmmaker,” died in 1992 at the age of 86. Five years later, the International Documentary Association created the Pare Lorentz Award to honor the best documentary film of the year.

Police: City Councilman Wounded In Apparent Carjacking

A West Virginia city councilman was shot and his wife and mother-in-law were briefly taken hostage in an apparent carjacking, authorities said.

Clarksburg Councilman Jim Malfregeot was on his porch and the women were in a car Sunday night when the suspect appeared, Clarksburg Police Chief Mark Kiddy told The Exponent Telegram.

Malfregeot was hospitalized and the women were released a short time later on U.S. 19 North between Clarksburg and Shinnston, Kiddy said.

“She told me that she was able to talk him into releasing them on 19,” Kiddy said of Malfregeot’s wife.

Kiddy said the suspect, Antonio DeJesus, 32, was arrested without incident at a gas station by Bridgeport Police and the Harrison County Sheriff’s Department. The suspect was on supervised release in a Northern District of West Virginia drug trafficking case and didn’t attend a supervised release revocation hearing this month, Kiddy said.

Malfregeot was in guarded condition after surgery, Kiddy said. He has served on the council for eight years, including a term as vice-mayor.

June 11, 1884: Riverside Iron Works Make Steel Using Bessemer Converter

On June 11, 1884, the state’s first Bessemer converter went into operation at the Riverside Iron Works in Wheeling. The Bessemer process made steel even stronger by introducing more air and removing more impurities from iron.

The Bessemer process was just one factor in the rise of West Virginia’s steel industry. A tariff enacted by Congress in 1890 made American tin makers more competitive with the British. It occurred just as the demand for canned foods was growing. The cans were made of thin-rolled steel coated with tin.

The steel industry in the Northern Panhandle got a boost when Ernest Weir moved his sheet and tin plate company from Clarksburg to what is now Weirton in 1909.

Weirton Steel would eventually become the largest employer in West Virginia and the largest tin-plate factory in the nation. The incorporation of Wheeling Steel in 1920 made the Northern Panhandle a steel hub.

Although the state’s steel industry continued to grow through the post-World War II years, foreign competition began taking its toll in the 1960s. Employment levels in the steel industry have now dropped to historic lows.

June 9, 1926: Politician C. Donald Robertson Born

Politician C. Donald Robertson was born in Clarksburg on June 9, 1926.

He served Harrison County in the West Virginia House of Delegates for four years beginning in the late 1950s.

He was elected attorney general in 1960 and again in 1964. In 1968, he ran for governor but lost in the Democratic primary to James Sprouse, who would go on to lose to Arch Moore in the general election.

After his defeat, Robertson left public office. In 1971, he, his brother Dana Robertson, and former state Federal Housing Administration Director James F. Haught were indicted on federal charges of taking kickbacks on low-income housing assistance. C. Donald Robertson pleaded guilty to conspiracy and one count of using interstate communication facilities for racketeering. He was sentenced to five years in federal prison and fined $15,000.

It’s believed that Robertson was one of many individuals who helped federal investigators with their probe into former Governor Wally Barron’s administration. That investigation led to criminal indictments of Barron and three other state officials for bid-rigging state contracts and taking kickbacks.

C. Donald Robertson died in Charleston in 1996 at age 69.

May 25, 1903: Philanthropist Bernard McDonough Jr. Born in Texas

Industrialist and philanthropist Bernard McDonough Jr. was born in Texas on May 25, 1903. His Irish immigrant grandfather had previously settled the family in Clarksburg and later in Belpre, Ohio, near Parkersburg. Young Bernard and his sisters returned to their grandmother in Belpre after the death of their mother.

By 1929, McDonough was building gas stations in the Parkersburg area. He expanded his operations during World War II, constructing railroads and entering the marine barge industry.

In the 1950s, McDonough began acquiring other businesses, including Kanawha Sand & Gravel and the O. Ames Company, a Parkersburg tool manufacturer where he’d once worked as a young man for 15 cents an hour. In the 1970s, the McDonough Company reached its peak as a Fortune 500 company, with major operations in footwear, hand tools, and building materials.

As his businesses succeeded, McDonough turned to philanthropy. He made major gifts to Georgetown University and Wheeling College (now Wheeling Jesuit University), among others. Bernard McDonough Jr. died in 1985 at age 82. The Bernard P. McDonough Foundation remains one of the largest private foundations in West Virginia.

April 13, 1873: Attorney and Presidential Candidate John W. Davis Born in Clarksburg

Attorney and presidential candidate John W. Davis was born in Clarksburg on April 13, 1873. The Democrat launched his political career in the West Virginia House of Delegates in 1899, and was elected to Congress in 1911. He resigned shortly into his second term to become U.S. solicitor general and later served as President Woodrow Wilson’s ambassador to England.

In 1924, Democrats nominated Davis for president on their convention’s 103rd ballot. But, in the general election, he was trounced by President Calvin Coolidge in a Republican landslide. Not only did Davis lose his home state of West Virginia, he failed to carry even his native Clarksburg. However, he remains the only West Virginian ever nominated as a presidential candidate by a major party.

Davis managed a white-shoe law practice in New York until his death in 1955 at age 81. He argued 141 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court but is best remembered for his last one. In 1952, he fought to continue racial segregation in South Carolina. This was one of four cases that were rolled into the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case.

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