Category Archives: Contributor Posts

Archives of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston Ohio County Public Library Archives

Parading Past to Present

Seán Duffy December 25, 2015November 16, 2023 2 Comments 9106 Views

Featured Image: Wheeling Christmas Parade

Q: When Was Wheeling’s First Christmas Parade?

Relax kids! Giant balloon Santa being pulled by clowns is not at all creepy. 1940 Wheeling Christmas Parade. Eddie Martin Collection, Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

We thought this question, posed on Archiving Wheeling’s Facebook page, would be a difficult one to answer. But, thanks to a series of historic parade photographs from the Eddie Martin Collection at the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston Archives, the mystery is solved.

The parade Martin photographed took place on Friday, November 22, 1940, before an estimated crowd of 100,000 people lined up along Main and Market.

But, although it had to be among the quirkiest, the 1940 version was, by no means, Wheeling’s first parade.

Ohio County Public Library Archives

Rocking Christmas Eve

Seán Duffy December 24, 2015December 24, 2022 5 Comments 12417 Views

Rosbys Rock and the Arrival of the B&O Railroad

The big rock is still there…

…way out in Marshall County, off a winding country road that follows a creek called Big Grave. It’s still there. 163 years later.
Read More

Ohio County Public Library Archives

Placing the Keystone Over the Place of the Skull

Seán Duffy December 17, 2015December 24, 2015 Leave a Comment 7418 Views

Featured Image: Main Street Stone Arch Bridge, Wheeling, WV

Wheeling’s Main Street Stone Arch Bridge: Hidden in Plain Sight

To appreciate Wheeling’s architectural gems, one is typically advised to look up. This is generally good advice, but in some cases, one must look down, and under, and around — trees, shrubs, cables, street signs, utility poles and concrete abutments. Such is the case with the somewhat under-appreciated Main Street Stone Arch Bridge.

As a river town, Wheeling has been home to its share of interesting bridges, including famous ones, like our cherished marvel of engineering suspended over the Ohio and our durable little double stone arch in Elm Grove, the oldest bridge in the state.

But there is a third significant, yet less celebrated bridge in Wheeling — one that serves stoically and inconspicuously, despite spanning what is arguably the most myth-infused site in our myth-saturated town.

And today is an important day for the bridge in question. One hundred twenty-four years ago today, at 18 minutes past 2 in the afternoon of December 17, 1891, the keystone for Wheeling’s new stone bridge on Main Street was lowered into place.

Ohio County Public Library Archives

Fire & Ice

Seán Duffy December 9, 2015December 24, 2015 4 Comments 11818 Views

Wheeling’s House & Herrmann Department Store Burns to the Ground After a Winter Storm

An early depiction of the House & Herrmann Department Store.

Ninety-eight years ago today, on December 9, 1917, a natural gas explosion triggered one of the most destructive fires in Wheeling’s history. On a quiet Sunday evening, the six-story House & Herrmann department store on the southwest corner of Market and 14th Streets, an anchor in one of Wheeling’s busiest commercial hubs, caught fire. Despite bitter cold and icy conditions that hampered firefighting efforts, the blaze was intense enough to damage some of the surrounding structures. By the next morning, the retail giant, succumbing to a peculiar alliance of fire and ice, had been reduced to a smoldering, icicle-strewn ruin.

Ohio County Public Library Archives

Memories in Hand

Ohio County Public Library Archives November 2, 2015February 22, 2017 Leave a Comment 4077 Views

Honoring Our Veterans

Participate in the Memories in Hand: Veterans Project

Are you a U.S. military veteran from the Wheeling/Ohio Valley area? Do you have a relative or close friend who served?

Just bring your favorite photo of your veteran.

If so, we invite you to participate in a new project of the Ohio County Public Library Archives called, “Memories in Hand,” a part of our ongoing Wheeling Memory Project. Read More

Ohio County Public Library Archives

Iron Mummies Haunt These Hills

Erin Rothenbuehler October 31, 2015October 31, 2015 Leave a Comment 17515 Views

Featured Image: Fisk's Metallic Burial Cases

Fisk Metallic Burial Cases and the Old Catholic Cemetery

It is, perhaps, one of the most popular photographs in the W.C. Brown Collection — especially this time of year, when ghouls and goblins are rumored to roam freely on the eve of All Saints Day.

“1896 — These iron coffins, resembling Egyptian mummy cases were found in the old Catholic cemetery near the old Reyman brewery. As Wheeling was an iron city, it is likely that they were made here. They were used in England and Germany during the 19th century.”
-W.C. Brown

Standing sentinel, high on a high hill, a mummified iron casket keeps watch over a fallen friend in the abandoned cemetery. Propped stiffly against empty burial vault walls, all that remains of what was once entombed inside is an empty black face that peers eerily out towards East Wheeling. Read More

Ohio County Public Library Archives

A Presidential Whistle-Stop

Seán Duffy October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 Leave a Comment 8238 Views

Featured Image: Truman's Whistle-Stop in Wheeling

Harry S. Truman Visits Wheeling on October 23, 1952

Can you imagine more than 3,500 cheering people crammed into the intersection of 17th and Eoff Streets in East Wheeling?

Harry S. Truman's Whistle-Stop speech at 17th and Eoff on October 23, 1952 and how the same corner looks today. — UPI photo of Harry S. Truman’s Whistle-Stop speech at 17th and Eoff on October 23, 1952, and how the same corner looks today. Ohio County Public Library Archives.

That’s how many showed up 63 years ago today on the morning of October 23, 1952, when President Harry S. Truman rolled into town on his special 15-car campaign train, arriving at the Baltimore and Ohio Passenger station during a Whistle-Stop campaign, stumping for Gov. Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee to replace Truman as president. Read More

Ohio County Public Library Archives West Virginia Northern Community College Alumni Association

Forever Young

Seán Duffy October 13, 2015October 20, 2015 5 Comments 13702 Views

Featured Image: JJ Young, Train Photographer

J.J. Young, Railroad Photographer

“WHOOWOOOOOOOOO…WHOWOO…WHOWOO…WHOWOO! A hoot whistle cuts through the hazy shimmering heat of a steamy Ohio River Valley mid-July morning in Wheeling, West Virginia. Hey! Listen. A Humper’s just whistled out the th’ flag. He’s gonna take water at Bridgeport. Let’s go get ’em! (a ‘Humper’ is local slang for a B&O lake coal train working ‘over the hump’ from Wheeling to Holloway, Ohio). You grab camera and film and take off running. Down 14th Street, up Eoff Street, cut thru the Yellow Cab’s back lot, up Chapline Street past the post office, over 10th Street and across Market, attacking auto and pedestrian traffic like a Kamikaze trainee.” -J.J. Young

Ohio County Public Library Archives

When Hollywood Came to Moundsville

Seán Duffy September 3, 2015September 4, 2015 8 Comments 12215 Views

“Kid Kirk” and the Making of Fools’ Parade

Jeff Kirk, Kurt Russell's stand in for Fools' Parade. — Jeff Kirk, Kurt Russell’s stand in for Fools’ Parade.“

In the opening scenes of the 1971 motion picture Fools’ Parade (based on the Davis Grubb novel of the same name), as the stars of the film leave Moundsville prison and climb into a car with the credits still rolling, a young man dressed in overalls can be seen peering at the coming attractions in front of the Strand Theatre. He turns around and looks at the car as it stops at a stop sign.

That young man is 18-year-old Jeff Kirk of Martins Ferry, Ohio. His family once owned and operated Kirk’s Art Studio on Market Street in Wheeling. How did young Jeff end up appearing, even briefly, in a major Hollywood motion picture? It was all about a vintage car.

Ohio County Public Library Archives

A Timeless Curiosity

Seán Duffy July 13, 2015October 16, 2019 14 Comments 16686 Views

Wheeling’s Distinctive Table Rock

Glennova Development 1902 Glennova (named after Glenn's Run) was a real estate development in present-day Warwood, promoted by W. E. Stone, J.A. Miller, W.H. Frank, M.J. McFadden, L.E. Sands and H.C. Ogden (a who's who of Wheeling business!) in 1902. This appeared in the Aug. 1, 1902 Wheeling Intelligencer. — Glennova (named for Glenn’s Run) was a real estate development in present-day Warwood, promoted by W. E. Stone and H.C. Ogden, among others. This appeared in the Aug. 1, 1902 Wheeling Intelligencer.

If you’ve ever driven Cherry Hill Road to Tablerock Lane near Glenn’s Run, you’ve driven fairly closely by it*, probably without even realizing it. Personally, I’ve lived in Wheeling for nearly half a century, and I’ve driven that route hundreds of times, but had never actually seen it until just the other day.

Yet in the old days, when Wheeling’s hills were bereft of trees, the Table Rock was, no doubt, quite a stand-out feature on the rolling hills above Glennova (now part of Warwood).