Sports wagering will remain offline at two West Virginia casinos at the start of the NCAA Tournament.
West Virginia Lottery Director John Myers says in a news release a contractual dispute that caused a shutdown of the sports books earlier this month continues at Delaware North’s Mardi Gras Casino in Nitro and the Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack.
Myers says negotiations are ongoing between the company’s management services provider and a technology vendor.
He says while the lottery is closely monitoring the situation, “it is now apparent that wagering will not resume at these locations in time for the early rounds of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.”
On January 17, 1918, the U.S. War Department hired a New York engineering firm to build a nitrocellulose plant along the Kanawha-Putnam county border. The DuPont Company had previously chosen the site to manufacture munitions for World War I.
However, there were political objections to one company receiving such a large contract, so DuPont abandoned its plans, and the federal government picked up the task.
Within 11 months, workers—including a young Clark Gable—had built the town of Nitro, containing a large munitions plant, a civic center, a hospital and worker houses, which were segregated by race and nationality.
In November 1918, just as Nitro was nearing completion, World War I ended. The munitions plant had been in partial operation for only a week. The army inventoried and sold off the plant to the Charleston Industrial Group, which marketed the facilities to chemical companies. In 1937, one of these companies, American Viscose, built the largest staple rayon plant in the world at Nitro. Over the years, Nitro was home to at least 17 different chemical companies, including Ohio Apex Chemical, Monsanto, and Fike Chemical.
West Virginia cities are considering ordinances targeting property owners for repeated illegal incidents on their premises.
Local news outlets report similar proposals in Huntington and Nitro follow the model of a Martinsburg drug house ordinance that went into effect in May and has since produced several busts.
The Herald-Dispatch reports the Huntington City Council Public Safety Committee voted Monday to send the ordinance to the full City Council with a favorable recommendation. The law would see the declaration of properties where two or more illegal incidents occur within a year as public nuisances, resulting in the eviction of tenants involved in the illegal activities and possible fines for the property owners.
WSAZ-TV reports that Nitro Mayor Dave Casebolt says a similar ordinance might go into effect this month.
Officials say an explosion at a recycling facility in West Virginia has burned an employee.
The Charleston Gazette-Mail reports that state fire marshal Shawn Alderman says the worker was treated for burns at a local hospital after the incident at Cashin Recyclables in Nitro. Alderman says it happened shortly after 10:30 a.m. Wednesday when the worker used a hand-held rotary saw to scrap an oxygen cylinder.
Alderman says a “burst fire” occurred when the worker cut into the tank. Alderman says certain precautions are needed ahead of time when a rotary saw is used to cut oxygen cylinders.
U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman Leni Uddyback-Fortson says investigators were looking into the incident.
According to the Gazette-Mail, Cashin Recyclables managers were in a meeting and unavailable for comment.
“There’s another generation [of blues players] coming up… if the flames are stoked well and kept alive. “
From West Virginia Public Broadcasting and A Change of Tune, this is 30 Days of #WVmusic, the interview series celebrating the folks who make the West Virginia music scene wild and wonderful.
And today’s interview is with a gravelly-bluesy singer-songwriter who has dipped a foot in the musical waters of Nashville and Nitro, West Virginia. This… is Tony Harrah.
I wanted to be a musician since I was little, back when Kroger’s used to sell VHS and albums when you’d walk right through the door in Teays Valley. I went in there and Prince’s Purple Rain stared me right in the face in the mid-‘80s. And that’s when I realized… that’s what I wanted to do.
So at one point in grade school, I crafted this whole rock star outfit complete with guitar with rubber band strings. When all the kids were getting ready at their desks, I went back and got dressed up and came out, and they all laughed at me. But I thought they were laughing with me.
I took piano lessons when I was a kid. By the time I was a teenager, I got a guitar and did angry youth banging out of Nirvana covers [laughing]. I wanted to start my first blues band when I was 19, but I didn’t see at the time how short-sided that was. You really don’t have much to be blue about when you’re 19, not really anything anyone can sink their teeth into. That didn’t really go anywhere.
Credit Marybeth Hannah
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Tony Harrah performing at the Boulevard Tavern in Charleston, WV.
On playing the blues:
My biggest influence is probably Muddy Waters. I found him when I was 16, and I was really taken by that. I got really into James Cotton, and I found out he was the harmonica player on Muddy’s last record. It wasn’t until I really got older that I started seeking out Lightnin’ Hopkins and some of the blues folks that aren’t as popular as the “name your top five” favorites.
I found Tom Waits in my early twenties. At the time, I wasn’t interested in him. I was never a singer, and I never sang. But when I began singing, I was like, “Man, I’ve got a gravelly voice. I think I’ve got soul, I guess.” I figured if Tom Waits has that same range, I could get by with it, so he became a big influence. He has no fear to do anything.
Credit Jon Rickman
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Tony Harrah
Blues music is kind of like country to the effect that I really like that its simple, and it tells a really good story. I wanted to get back into blues and stay there, but the problem with that is I’m not a really good guitar player. When you play blues, you’re either the guitar virtuoso that sings, or you’ve got a backing band, so I do a lot of stuff on slide guitar or resonator. When I play Americana, the guitar playing isn’t much of an issue. But it’s all a version of the blues, whether its country, Americana or whatever.
I was reading a book called Why It Hurts So Good about the history of the blues. The blues was once very popular in the South, predominantly black music. But it’s flip-flopped, and they were showing the statistics: now it’s like 90% white and 89% over the age of 50. So there is some concern that there’s a dying out of it, but when I was at the Memphis International Showcase this past year, you wouldn’t believe how many young kids were there. Some of it was, “Oh, that’s cool,” and some of it was, “Wow. This is really good,” and some of it blew us away.
Credit Jon Rickman
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Tony Harrah
On moving down to Nashville for some time before returning to West Virginia:
We were playing a lot in Huntington in the mid-2000’s. We did well there, but around the time American Minor had moved from West Virginia, it gave me the idea that if you want to do something, you’ve got to leave here. So in 2004, we thought about it and packed up and moved down there. We got a house and all lived in the house together. We played some down there. You think it’s the land of milk and money, but there’s a lot of people down there looking for the same opportunities as you are. It taught me a lot about the music industry, and it taught me I didn’t know anything about it when I moved there.
It’s not always bad being a big fish in a small pond. I realized that you need a reason to move there, and at the time social media hadn’t arrived and being able to record on your own wasn’t affordable. By the time I left, I thought, “I don’t need to be here.” Networking as a young artist, you think your music will stand for itself. Having a great record will fail without the right publicity. Getting to know the right people is where you get your ins-and-outs.
Music featured in this #WVmusic chat:
Tony Harrah and the Putnam Prohibition- “Port of Call”
Tony Harrah and the Putnam Prohibition- “Hard Times”
Tony Harrah and the Putnam Prohibition- “Simple Times”
Support for 30 Days of #WVmusic is provided by Kin Ship Goods, proud supporter of DIY music and the arts. Locally shipped worldwide at kinshipgoods.com.
The city of Nitro has unveiled a park in honor of local military veterans.
Media outlets report the town dedicated the Living Memorial Park in celebration of its centennial Saturday. The park includes a statue of a World War I soldier, a fountain, a patriotic mural and more than 300 engraved pavers honoring veterans.
Three people were added to the city’s Wall of Fame: country music singer Kathy Mattea, retired major league baseball umpire Larry Barnett, and the late major league baseball player Lew Burdette.
Nitro was founded during World War I when a federal ammunitions plant was built to supply explosives for use in the war.
