Archiving Wheeling

77 Articles

Ohio County Public Library, Wheeling, WV

Archiving Wheeling is a collaborative community project of the Ohio County Public Library, Wheeling, WV.

Contributor Posts

McColloch’s Leap and Other Wheeling Wayside Adventures

Archiving Wheeling September 1, 2021September 1, 2021 2 Comments 7268 Views

Archiving Wheeling - Featured Image: McColloch's Leap in Wheeling

— by Marcia Hartman

Note: This story originally appeared in the March 2021 edition, Volume 6 Issue 6 of The Crossroads magazine, part of The Journal and the Noble County Leader, www.journal-leader.com. Copyright Southeast Publications, Caldwell, Ohio. It is reprinted with permission.

Preview: We talk about taking a leap when someone tries a risky venture. Not many take a leap like Sam McColloch did in 1777! Just one of several adventures across the river in Wheeling.

McColloch’s Leap

Oil on canvas, artist unknown, probably a copy after a lithograph by Karl Bodmer and Jean Francois Millet, 1852. Courtesy of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming; Whitney Western Art Museum; Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. 10.77.

In 1777, Samuel McColloch (1752-1782) was a major in the local militia and commander of Fort Van Meter located about seven miles north of Wheeling near what is now Clinton, West Virginia — a few miles northeast of Oglebay Park. Samuel served in the militia alongside his brother John. In 1770, the McCollochs emigrated from land they owned on the South Potomac, near where Moorefield, West Virginia is today, and settled on Short Creek where Fort Van Meter was built. The family is thought to have been somewhat more educated than most other early settlers. McColloch served different positions in government during his life and was third in command of the nine militia companies in the Ohio County Militia. (Interestingly, one of the McCollochs’ sisters married Col. Ebenezer Zane, making her a sister-in-law to Betty Zane, who is credited with saving Fort Henry during a later Indian attack.) Read More

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Help Us Solve Wheeling History Mysteries!

Archiving Wheeling February 26, 2021March 30, 2021 1 Comment 6808 Views

Archiving Wheeling - Featured Image: Help Us Solve Wheeling History’s Mysteries

A Partnership Among Archiving Wheeling, Weelunk, and the Ohio County Public Library Archives

Do you recognize any of the people in these photos?

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These are just a few of many historic photos of Wheeling people, places, and things that need to be identified. Weelunk, Archiving Wheeling, and the Ohio County Public Library Archives have teamed up to reach out to Wheeling area residents or people who have lived in the Wheeling area at any time—we need your help identifying the individuals in these photos!

This is an ongoing crowdsourcing project to connect today’s Wheeling community to its historical resources and stories. The more we know about the people in these photos, the more we can uncover important and sometimes forgotten histories of Wheeling.

We Need Your Help

Check out the featured photos on Weelunk’s partner article, here. If you recognize someone, please submit your comment in the entry space below the specific photo on the Weelunk page. The more information you can give us, the more complete the historical record. Please help us by sharing this project far and wide on social media and directly with anyone you know from Wheeling—even if they don’t live here anymore.

Archiving Wheeling Local History Author

Haunted Ohio Valley History: A Halloween Horror Trilogy

Archiving Wheeling October 30, 2020October 30, 2020 3 Comments 15998 Views

by Laura Jackson Roberts, Christina Fisanick, and Seán Duffy with research by Erin Rothenbuehler

Introduction: History is Ghostful

The Ohio Valley is haunted. That’s an undeniable fact.

Like any place on the planet with a past chock full of human triumph and folly, greed and generosity, good and evil – the Ohio Valley is haunted by the ghosts of its own, by turns, bloody, joyful, corrupt, tragic, and hilarious lived human experience – its rich, much celebrated, sometimes regretted, and often downright scary, history.

“Real” ghosts? Ghouls? Spirits? Specters? Poltergeists? Phantoms? Yeah, those too…

Maybe. Perhaps. Kind of…

So, how about a trilogy of the latter for Halloween fun? Fact or fiction? History or lore? You be the judges. But be warned: these reasonably true tales of terror are not for the faint of heart.

Turn on some lights, and read on…
Read More

Archiving Wheeling Local History Researcher WALS Foundation

Walter P. Reuther Remembered 50 Years After His Death

Archiving Wheeling May 9, 2020May 25, 2022 2 Comments 5753 Views

By Jeffrey W. Mason

In a quote that looks like it could have been lifted from the speech of any number of Democratic candidates running to unseat President Donald J. Trump in 2020, Reuther in 1967 argued that, “Profit sharing in the form of stock distributions to workers would help to democratize the ownership of America’s vast corporate wealth which is today appallingly undemocratic and unhealthy.”

One of the most notable labor leaders, human rights advocates (and participant in Civil Rights-era protests including the March on Selma in 1965), peace activists (and opponent of the Vietnam War), and anti-nuclear spokesmen of the 20th century was silenced when Walter Philip Reuther, the charismatic and forceful president of the United Auto Workers, along with his wife and a number of friends and colleagues, perished in a tragic plane crash near Pellston, Michigan, 260 miles northwest of Detroit around 9:30 p.m. on May 9, 1970 as the party was enroute to the union’s recreation and educational center at Black Lake, just 25 miles from where the accident happened. Read More

Archiving Wheeling Ohio County Public Library Archives

A Crash of Coincidences

Archiving Wheeling March 31, 2020April 1, 2020 2 Comments 6219 Views

-Written by Seán P. Duffy with research by Erin Rothenbuehler

Notre Dame and Wheeling Linked by Tragedy

Eighty-nine years ago today, on March 31, 1931, a Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10 commercial wood-frame airplane crashed in a remote cow pasture near Bazaar, Kansas. All eight people on board, including six passengers and two pilots, were killed.

The tragedy included a series of coincidences that forever united the fates of two very different men.

One was legendary Notre Dame football coach, Knute Rockne, who was killed on his way to Hollywood to participate in the production of the film The Spirit of Notre Dame.

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And the other was the humble son of a “truck gardener” from Wheeling, West Virginia.

Archiving Wheeling Ohio County Public Library Archives WALS Foundation

Breaking the “Grippe” – Wheeling During the 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic

Archiving Wheeling March 20, 2020March 25, 2020 11 Comments 17653 Views

-Written and researched by Seán P. Duffy and Erin Rothenbuehler

Schools were closed. So were restaurants, amusement parks, theatres, movie houses, and even the public library. Hotels sat empty. Meetings, parties, and society events were canceled. Sporting events postponed. People were told to stay in their homes. Even church services were canceled.

Sound familiar?

We’ve been here before, more than a century ago, when the “Spanish Influenza,” aka the “Spanish Flu,” aka the “Grippe,” struck Wheeling and the rest of the planet in the fall of 1918. Read More

Archiving Wheeling Ohio County Public Library Archives WALS Foundation

From Camp Lee to the Great War: February 25, 1919 – Charles Riggle

Archiving Wheeling February 25, 2019February 27, 2019 Leave a Comment 3907 Views

From Camp Lee to the Great War: The Letters of Lester Scott and Charles Riggle: Podcast Episode 63

“That telegram you about the Less must of been correct for he got hurt about the 20 of Oct. He surly is not living or he would write to you & Minnie…”

In his twenty-first letter home since leaving for Camp Lee, and his sixth letter home from France, dated February 25, 1919, PFC Charles “Dutch” Riggle, a WWI soldier from Wheeling, WV, tells his brother James “Abe” Riggle that they are having a good bit of rain in France. He’s read that his division will finally sail for home in May. He’s glad because he hopes the sea will be less rough in a few months. The trip will be smoother with less chance of seasickness. It took 14 days to get to France. Dutch thinks the return trip will be faster. Dutch has finally been informed about the telegram announcing the death of Lester Scott, but he still hasn’t been able to find out anything from the Army.

Elsewhere on the same day, future professional baseball hall of famer Monte Irvin, one of the best players to make the switch from the Negro Leagues to the Major Leagues after Jackie Robinson, was born.

Charles “Dutch” Riggle was drafted into the US Army in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, Virginia, where so many Wheeling draftees and volunteers—including his sister-in-law Minnie Riggle’s brother, Lester Scott—were trained. Dutch Riggle was a Private First Class in Battery F of the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, in France. Riggle was a farm boy with little formal education who grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He spelled many of his words phonetically. His letters have been transcribed exactly as they were written. This is his twenty-first letter home, dated 100 years ago today, February 25, 1919.

Archiving Wheeling Ohio County Public Library Archives WALS Foundation

From Camp Lee to the Great War: January 26, 1919 – Charles Riggle

Archiving Wheeling January 26, 2019February 27, 2019 Leave a Comment 2023 Views

From Camp Lee to the Great War: The Letters of Lester Scott and Charles Riggle: Podcast Episode 62

“I am getting all the wine I want over here. It is cheap here. 60 cent a quart. It wont hardly make a fellow light-headed but it is good-tasting. The whiskey is no good here. I never drink a drop of it…..”

In his twentieth letter home since leaving for Camp Lee, and his fifth letter home from France, dated January 26, 1919, PFC Charles “Dutch” Riggle, a WWI soldier from Wheeling, WV, tells his brother James “Abe” Riggle that, despite being homesick, he is well and hearty and feeling fine. They are stuck in France taking care of 107 horses and mules. Dutch wants to get back to farming by spring. He is getting all the cheap wine he wants but the French whiskey is no good. He still hasn’t heard anything about Les [the family back home received a death notice by telegram dated January 8]. He’s heard a rumor that Les died, and another rumor from Tib Meriner that Les was back at Camp Lee. He’s not sure when he’ll get to leave for home.

Charles “Dutch” Riggle was drafted into the US Army in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, Virginia, where so many Wheeling draftees and volunteers—including his sister-in-law Minnie Riggle’s brother, Lester Scott—were trained. Dutch Riggle was a Private First Class in Battery F of the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, in France. Riggle was a farm boy with little formal education who grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He spelled many of his words phonetically. His letters have been transcribed exactly as they were written. This is his twentieth letter home, dated 100 years ago today, January 26, 1919.

Archiving Wheeling Ohio County Public Library Archives

Stone & Thomas: The Host of Christmas Past

Archiving Wheeling December 25, 2018December 25, 2018 4 Comments 6834 Views

The Stone & Thomas sponsored Christmas Train, Parade, and Open House of 1958.

This time of year, it is the Ghost of Christmas Past who visits Ebenezer Scrooge, accompanying him on a trip down memory lane in the Dickens classic, “A Christmas Carol.” A story we are all familiar with, the ethereal being takes the miserly businessman on a journey to earlier times, offering him glimpses of, well, Christmases past.

This Christmas, we offer you glimpses of a Wheeling Christmas sixty years past, courtesy Stone & Thomas, our Host of Christmas Past. This nostalgic look back at our past comes not through a ghostly encounter, but via a recent addition to the Ohio County Public Library Archives, a scrapbook put together by Joe A. Funk. Funk was, for many years, the director of public relations and advertising for Stone & Thomas Department Store and is credited with directing the first Stone & Thomas sponsored Christmas parade in Wheeling. This particular scrapbook documents the 1958 Stone & Thomas Santa Claus Train, Christmas Parade, and Open House held Saturday, November 22, 1958.

Itinerary for the day’s Christmas-themed events, November 22, 1958

Archiving Wheeling Ohio County Public Library Archives WALS Foundation

From Camp Lee to the Great War: December 16, 1918 – Charles Riggle

Archiving Wheeling December 16, 2018January 22, 2019 Leave a Comment 2147 Views

From Camp Lee to the Great War: The Letters of Lester Scott and Charles Riggle: Podcast Episode 61

“I think the war is over for good don’t you? For I think them Germans won’t want another war very soon the way they got beat in this one….”

In his nineteenth letter home since leaving for Camp Lee, and his fourth letter home from France, dated December 16, 1918, PFC Charles “Dutch” Riggle, a WWI soldier from Wheeling, WV, tells his brother James “Abe” Riggle that he’s been worried about his family back home about because of that “disease raging” [a reference to the 1918 influenza or “Spanish Flu” pandemic, fueled in part by troop movements during the war, that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide]. He wants to know if they’ve heard anything about his brother-in-law Les Scott [who had actually died on October 29, but neither Dutch nor his family would learn of this until January]. He knows Les was taken to the hospital and heard once that he might have died, but Dutch hopes his friend is somehow still alive. He’d seen Les about a week before he was injured but couldn’t talk because the German shelling was too intense. He’s not sure when they’ll get to come home, but hopes maybe sometime in the winter. He can’t talk about his experiences on the front until he gets home, except to say he was in the fight for 50 straight days and nights.

Elsewhere on the same day, German forces continued to withdraw from places like Finland, Kiev, and Estonia, and a “spectacular procession” and “stunning” woman suffrage protest was held in Washinton, D.C. on the anniversary of the 1773 Boston Tea Party.

Charles “Dutch” Riggle was drafted into the US Army in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, Virginia, where so many Wheeling draftees and volunteers—including his sister-in-law Minnie Riggle’s brother, Lester Scott—were trained. Dutch Riggle was a Private First Class in Battery F of the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, in France. Riggle was a farm boy with little formal education who grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. He spelled many of his words phonetically. His letters have been transcribed exactly as they were written. This is his nineteenth letter home, dated 100 years ago today, December 16, 1918.