Monument Man

Ohio County Public Library August 9, 2016August 16, 2016 Leave a Comment 3585 Views

Ed Bearss Visits Wheeling

Civil War expert and legendary battlefield guide Ed Bearss made his third visit to Wheeling on Saturday August 6 for a fundraiser in support of moving the Soldiers and Sailors Monument from Wheeling Park back downtown to stand beside West Virginia Independence Hall. A battle wounded WWII US Marine veteran, Mr. Bearss took a moment to visit the monument on a tour of Wheeling sites. He later attended a fundraiser dinner, then spoke at the Hall. The events were organized and hosted by the West Virginia Independence Hall Foundation with financial support from Wheeling Heritage. Those interested in making a donation may contact Wheeling Heritage at 304-232-3087.

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Archiving Wheeling

To the Defenders of the Union

Seán Duffy August 5, 2016August 25, 2016 2 Comments 5061 Views

Featured Image: Soldiers' & Sailors' Monument of Wheeling

The Case for Moving Wheeling’s Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument

“So may the future days
Come nobly to our State:
When, prosperous and great,
Her citizens shall praise
Those who gave life and all to consecrate
Their land to liberty;
And bade their watchword be
These words in granite here,
To freemen ever dear,
Montani Semper Liberi.”
-From Soldiers’ Monument Poem by William Leighton

In case you haven’t heard, a campaign has been launched to move the Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument from Wheeling Park to the empty lot beside West Virginia Independence Hall. Read More

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

Old Grave Yard Square

Seán Duffy August 2, 2016August 4, 2016 12 Comments 13089 Views

Featured Image: Hempfield Yard Lot, Wheeling, W. Va.

A Brief History of the Hempfield Yard Lot

If we’ve learned anything from watching movies, surely we’ve learned that no good can come from unearthing duly interred bodies from sacred ground and moving them (or not) for the sake of development. You don’t build things over an old graveyard. You. Just. Do. Not.

But the fact is, the ground on which the Ohio County Public Library now stands was deeded to the town of Wheeling from Noah and Mary Zane in 1816 for use as “a burying ground.” And, as a burying ground, it was most certainly used.

Uncategorized

All Aboard the Freedom Train

Seán Duffy July 4, 2016September 16, 2018 4 Comments 9034 Views

The Freedom Train Brings the Spirit of 1776 to Wheeling

“Here comes the Freedom Train
You better hurry down
Just like a Paul Revere
It’s comin’ into your hometown
Inside the freedom train
You’ll find a precious freight
Those words of liberty
The documents that made us great…”
–from The Freedom Train (1948) by Irving Berlin

Freedom Train postcard, OCPL Archives.

On September 14, 1948, a glossy white, seven-car train with bold, red, white and blue striping and a golden eagle on its Alco PA-1 diesel-electric locomotive, pulled into Wheeling’s Pennsylvania Railroad depot at the Wharf, just above what is now Heritage Port, for a twelve hour visit. On board the were “127 of the nation’s most priceless historical documents,” including Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence with corrections, Washington’s copy of the original printed draft of the Constitution, a manuscript copy of the Gettysburg Address held by Abraham Lincoln, and Francis Scott Key’s handwritten copy of The Star Spangled Banner, among many others.

Oglebay Institute Ohio County Public Library Archives

Music in the Air: Wheeling’s 1906 Saengerfest Revisited

Seán Duffy May 25, 2016June 2, 2016 5 Comments 8165 Views

Saengerfest Wheeling 1906 Featured Image 600

Germantown

Evidence of German Wheeling can still be found when you look up.

The Wheeling of one hundred ten years ago was a robust German town, with a German language newspaper, mandatory German language classes in many schools, and German language services in many churches.

It was also home to numerous German choral singing societies, including the Arion, Harmonie, Maennerchor, Beethoven, Germania, Liedertafel, Mozart, Concordia, Liederkranz, and Teutonia. The Turner (or Turnverein) Society emphasized gymnastics and operated Turner’s Hall. The singers were mostly male, accompanied, when needed, by female singers from the women’s auxiliaries. The societies often had their own musicians.
Read More

Local History Author

The Wheeling Renaissance, Part 2

Allen Dieterich-Ward April 22, 2016 1 Comment 5311 Views

The Fort Henry Mall: “Bold and Exciting” or “Reckless Schemes”

Postcard of the new Wheeling Post Office at 2501 Chapline. OCPL Archives Postcard Collection. — The new Post Office at 2501 Chapline Street. – OCPL Archives Postcard Collection.

After the heroic efforts required to fund the Center Wheeling urban renewal project, local leaders struggled to actually find industrial tenants after the area was demolished in the early 1960s. The Urban Renewal Authority (URA) eventually settled for a new post office and a trucking company – not exactly the catalyst for economic growth proponents had envisioned.

Over the next few years, however, URA officials had more success with a project assisting the expansion of the nearby Ohio Valley Medical Center, which in subsequent decades would become a mainstay of the regional economy. At the same time, the city’s public-private partnership turned its attention to a more controversial subject: the construction of a proposed “Northern Gateway” and civic center in the central business district. The increasingly decrepit Market Auditorium had long been a target of the Wheeling Conference on Community Development, the group of local businessmen who looked to the Pittsburgh Renaissance for inspiration in remaking their own city. When the URA demolished the site in 1964 and secured federal funds for a new civic center, the next phase in the Wheeling Renaissance seemed set to begin.¹ Read More

Ohio County Public Library Archives Private Collector

More Baseball & Soda Pop

Seán Duffy April 11, 2016 9 Comments 16354 Views

Featured Image: Wheeling Soda Pop and Bottlers

Spring Time in Wheeling, Continued…

Nothing says spring quite so clearly as an April day at the old ballpark, with the sun shining warmly on your face and tiny, cool bubbles bursting on the tip of your nose as you raise an ice cold bottle of sweet soda pop to your lips for a refreshing drink. Well, that’s our theory anyway, as we celebrate spring with a new exhibit of baseball artifacts combined with Thad Podratsky’s amazing collection of early Wheeling pop bottles — on display now at the Ohio County Public Library. As a complement to this display, we present a two-part post on the history of baseball and pop bottling in old Wheeling.
▶ Read Part 1: “A Social Game of Ball”

Part 2: The Pop-Post

An assortment of Painted Pops. Thad Podratsky Collection.

“I do Sierra Mist commercials not because they pay me a lot of money or because it only takes a couple of days. I do it because I have a respect for all sodas and I like to communicate that. Some people say soda, some people say pop. Where I’m from in Indiana they called it breakfast.”
-Comedian Jim Gaffigan

“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.”
-Lord Byron

Ohio County Public Library Archives

Baseball & Soda Pop

Seán Duffy April 4, 2016April 8, 2016 2 Comments 8561 Views

Featured Image: Wheeling Baseball and Soda Pop, Part 1

Springtime in Wheeling

Part 1: “A Social Game of Ball”

“Ray, people will come Ray … They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past … And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.” -Terence Mann [James Earl Jones] in Field of Dreams

“Wheeling’s a swell town to play [baseball] in. The fans here like a good game an’ don’t care who wins. The kids are bad, though!”
–from The Short Stop (1909) by Zane Grey, writer and baseball player

The Wheeling Nailers playing Kalamazoo on Wheeling Island, May 19, 1887. Brown Collection, OCPL Archives.

During the Civil War, Wheeling served as the birthplace of the new state of West Virginia. In the years immediately after the war ended, Wheeling would serve as the birthplace, in the new state, of a new game called “base ball.”

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

Fifty-Five Feet and Rising

Seán Duffy March 19, 2016March 19, 2016 4 Comments 11062 Views

The 1936 Flood, 80 Years Later

Heavy snow and rain in March 1936 triggered the worst flood in Wheeling’s history. The river crested at a record 55.2 feet, 80 years ago today 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.

Ohio County Public Library Archives

The Birth of a Friendly City

Seán Duffy March 11, 2016March 11, 2016 1 Comment 4479 Views

Featured Image: City of Wheeling 180th Birthday

180 Years of Cityhood

On this day 180 years ago — March 11, 1836 — the town of Wheeling, Virginia was made the city of Wheeling, Virginia by an Act of Incorporation passed by the state’s legislative body, the General Virginia Assembly and signed into law by Governor Littleton Waller Tazewell.