Thanks to legendary Wheeling collector and history enthusiast, Thad Podratsky, with some additional help from our friend Peg Brennan, the Ohio County Public Library has been able to assemble a fascinating and visually stunning array of Wheeling themed cigar boxes and tobacciana for its April archives display. Read More
Tonight, March 20th, 2015, the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra begins the second half of its 85th season with a “Famous Fifths” concert, featuring the monumental music of Beethoven and Sibelius.
“The smallest city in America to support a symphony of this size and caliber,” Wheeling’s Symphony Orchestra is both a gem and cultural asset to our community. The Wheeling Symphony is renowned not only for the astounding quality of the their concerts, but also for securing such noted names in the orchestral world as Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma as guests to perform for Wheeling’s eager musical ears.
In honor of all that the Symphony brings to the City of Wheeling, the Ohio County Public Library would like to recognize the gifts the Symphony has given back to the City over the years. Read More
Heavy snow and rain in March 1936 triggered the worst flood in Wheeling’s history. The river crested at a record 55.2 feet on March 19th, and floodwater inundated the Island, much of South and Centre Wheeling and even the downtown streets as afar east as Chapline. The Suspension Bridge and Steel Bridge were closed, and the Market Auditorium was converted to a refuge shelter and makeshift hospital. Utilities were shut down, supplies cut off, and disease threatened. More than 20,000 people were driven from their homes and 16 people lost their lives. Read More
The Wheeling National heritage Area Corporation (Wheeling Heritage) and the Ohio County Public Library have been heritage partners for more than two decades, and the local community has benefited many times from this alliance. Now Wheeling Heritage has provided the funding to allow the library to make a significant addition to its collection of rare books dealing with the early history of the Wheeling and the Upper Ohio Valley region. This new development well represents the kind of community partnership Archiving Wheeling was founded to promote. Read More
– written by guest contributor, Margaret Brennan
Sometimes things in life are just a matter of serendipity. That happened recently when a friend called who was going to tour the Stifel-Kossuth property at 807 Main Street. He asked if I would like to come along.
The Ohio County Public Library launched the Wheeling Memory Project as a contribution to the ongoing community effort to record oral histories from Wheeling’s residents. The project will focus on stories of life in Wheeling’s diverse neighborhoods. Read More
Our recent German Days post led to two interesting developments that help illustrate why we launched Archiving Wheeling in the first place. Read More
Why are there so many real photo postcards (RPPC’s) postmarked 1906 or 1907?
The credit is due to George Eastman of Kodak fame, who acquired the rights to produce photo paper with a pre-printed postcard back and in 1903 developed an inexpensive folding camera that produced postcard sized negatives. A few years later, in 1907, he introduced the “real photo postcard” service allowing amateur photographers to turn any photograph into a postcard, inexpensively. The RPPC’s popularity exploded and people everywhere used them to chronicle events and small town scenes that might otherwise have been lost to history, having been largely ignored by professional photographers. RPPC’s depicting various Wheeling subjects frequently appear on eBay and other online auction sites.
Two examples — one from 1906 and one from 1908 — provide some interesting information about “German Wheeling.”
“Looking forward to the succession of ages, and even of years, it is beyond the foresight of human intellect to say what innumerable happy results would flow from the erection of a bridge over the Ohio at Wheeling on a permanent and useful plan, both to the Government of the Union, and to the People of this vast, enterprising, and happy republic.” – Charles Mercer, U.S. Congressman from Virginia, Committee on Roads and Canals, January 19, 1837.
When people think about Wheeling and its history, most will visualize the familiar towers of our beloved Suspension Bridge.
Spanning the Ohio River since 1849, the old bridge is iconic – its familiar shape gracing logos and trademarks developed by local businesses and institutions, including the logo of the Ohio County Public Library. It has become the favored symbol of our town, and arguably its most recognizable structure.
But had designer Charles Ellet Jr.’s earliest concept been used, the bridge would look radically different – far more Gothic in design. Read More
My father, William N. Hogan Sr., was a cadet and then an instructor in the Air Service, which was part of the Signal Corps in the U.S. Army during the First World War. What follows is what I recall him telling me about his experiences when I was young.
When his group arrived at the place of flying instruction, there were not enough planes to take them all up at one time. While he waited his turn to be wrung out to determine if he really wanted to fly, one of the planes came straight down and crashed in front of them.
