Right of Way

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The Impact of Highway Construction on Wheeling’s Neighborhoods

From the churn of paddlewheels on the Ohio, to the rattle of Conestoga wagons along the Old National Pike, to the mournful cry of steam locomotives pulling into station, Wheeling’s storied neighborhoods have long been filled with the beautiful noise and bustle of transportation. And both the boundaries and character of each of those neighborhoods have been defined, in large part, by the city’s role as a transportation hub.

But perhaps no other mode of transportation has had a greater impact on Wheeling’s neighborhoods than the automobile and the transportation infrastructure built to accommodate it: the modern interstate highway system and the bridges, overpasses, ramps, and tunnels that make it work. For better or worse, the construction of the Fort Henry Bridge, Wheeling Tunnel, I-70, I-470, and the changes to Route 2, dramatically altered Wheeling at all levels. And perhaps the most profound impact came at the level of neighborhood.

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The Thoroughfare Plan

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Early highway planning, the so-called “Thoroughfare Plan” (see, “A Plan for Action, City of Wheeling,” July, 1964), considered transportation in and around Wheeling to be a “circulation system” and valued “efficient vehicular movement” and minimized losses of time as the standards. While recognizing that “construction of a new major artery will have a profound influence on a community,” and that thoroughfare planning “must be carefully balanced against other community objectives,” planners emphasized that, “with the reduction in railroad traffic into the area, the primary means of transportation now relies on trucking.”

So trucking was seen as essential to economic growth and to Wheeling maintaining its position as a marketing center for the Upper Ohio Valley. Accommodating such trucking by minimizing time and maximizing speed for trucks, thus became one of the primary early goals of highway planning.

In addition, Wheeling had to be “made more accessible.” “Regardless of how attractive the shopping facilities are in downtown Wheeling,” said the planners, “if it cannot be easily reached, its customers will soon change their shopping habits.” Planners stressed the need for a unified front of the public, merchants, industrialists, civic organizations, and city and county government, to “stress the need for I-70 and I-470 and the Route 2 Freeway.” They believed that traffic movements would be greatly facilitated. “Trips to Pittsburgh from Wheeling will undoubtedly increase in number with the completion of I-70. Inter-city trips will also increase as the ability to move quickly is made possible by the new interstate routes.” Later planning for I-470 had as its goal to relieve the through-traffic on Interstate 70 in the Wheeling area and on the Fort Henry Bridge.

The Fort Henry Bridge was the first piece of the I-70 puzzle to become a reality, opening to traffic in 1955. The West Virginia Department of Transportation began obtaining right of way for Interstate 70 in 1961.

Work began on the new I-70 tunnel in 1963. The tunnel was dedicated on December 12, 1966 and opened to traffic in early 1967. The I-70 link through Elm Grove was begun in 1968 and opened in August of 1971 (formal dedication on September 3, 1971). Construction on I-470 through Wheeling began in 1975 and was complete by 1983. This included the Route 2 link from I-70 at the tunnel to I-470 at Twenty-ninth Street, begun circa 1976.

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Neighborhood Impact

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Of course, building roads through urban and suburban areas means relocating and demolishing a significant number of residential homes and businesses, with compensation, via “Right of Way” and “eminent domain” laws, the complexities of which are beyond the scope of this article. Suffice to say a lot of homes were moved and a lot of businesses were lost, and those kinds of structural changes directly impact the character of a neighborhood.

But assessing the specific nature of the impact on individual neighborhoods is a difficult proposition. The long-term changes to these areas are the result of a complex interaction of a diverse set of variables, and determining the role of highway construction amid those variables is challenging, to say the least. Short of a well-funded study, one way to examine the impact is to ask the people who have lived in these neighborhoods during the transition. Anecdotal evidence was culled from individual interviews as well as via social media. Understood in this context, such evidence provides a useful insight into the attitudes and feelings of those who have been directly affected.

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Downtown

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Construction of the I-70 tunnel, for example, had a significant impact on the African American community. Ann and Clyde Thomas were married in Wayman A.M.E. Church in 1960. A few years later, Wayman was razed to make way for the tunnel. The building stood near what is now the eastbound entrance. Houses of worship have always been cultural centers for Wheeling’s communities, and, while the church was relocated to Eoff Street, the impact on the community in combination with ongoing Urban Renewal changes, was, in Ann’s view, significant.

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Elm Grove

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Regarding construction of I-70, Don A. remembered, “watching all the huge dump trucks…We used to sneak up and ride our bikes on the unopened parts of the highway. As time went on 1-70 from Elm Grove to town wasn’t open yet so we moved from bikes to drag racing our cars.” He wasn’t alone, as Lorie F. added: “My dad had many stories of he and his buddies drag racing on I-70 through the tunnels before they were open!”

“I lived with my parents in Cecil Place across from Park View Lane,” said Frank W. “The house overlooked Wheeling Creek. It was a really nice place that I-70 took. I-70 and 470 dissected our city and destroyed what were once lovely neighborhoods. Never the same after. Personally, I would rather see it the way it was. I never understand why they need to build these roads right thru the center of a town.”

Changes to Elm Grove were extensive. Much of the business district east of the Monument Place Bridge was lost, along with quite a number of residences. Businesses like Princess Theatre, Foodland, Butler Florist, Robert Hall Clothing Store and venerable structures like the Stone Presbyterian Church and Elm Grove Church of God were lost. According to Robert K., “Over 20 businesses were lost or relocated and over 150 homes were demolished in Elm Grove to make way for I-70 and the on/off ramps. I remember political rhetoric that Elm Grove would become a major rest stop on I-70 like Breezewood was on the Pa. Turnpike. Elm Grove has never recovered and Breezewood can no longer be seen from the Pa. Turnpike.”

“The Streets of Elm Grove used to be full of people every day of the week,” Jack Maynard wrote in his 1999 book, Elm Grove. “People were told that the Interstate would bring new life to Elm Grove’s business district…but this was not true. It took years for the east end of Elm Grove to recover and the Interstate had very little to do with the progress.”

“All of the homes on Liberty Street, Hendricks Avenue, Drove Avenue, Edison Avenue, Mine Street, and Cleveland Avenue in Elm Grove were demolished,” said David S., who grew up on Liberty Street. “Part of Monroe Avenue was lost,” Candi M. added. “Also the lower part of Wheeling Ave…”

“They paid less than our house was worth,” said Mary D. “They had my newly widowed mother leave the neighborhood of her adult life and where she raised us, tore [her house] down and built the YMCA there. It wasn’t near anything. It’s so sad to come home and see half of your childhood neighborhood gone.”

Beth B. has a somewhat different view. “Elm Grove was a wonderful place to grow up. Safe. Convenient. We even had a neighborhood movie theater. Having said that, the neighborhood businesses would probably not have survived even if the road hadn’t taken them. In the ’60-’70s. bigger was better. Malls were coming and small towns were dying.”

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Bethlehem

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Construction of I-470 and Route 2 took large tracts in Center and South Wheeling, and later, Bethlehem. Businesses lost included the Foodland and Big Wheel stores. “I lived on 26th & Eoff,” Jack F. said, “and we lost the old Webster grade school and the 26th street playground & Cave Club plus a lot of homes.” Valerie H. added: “When Route 2 went in we lost a great hill for sled riding on 40th and Wetzel Street in South Wheeling. Our end of the street became pretty much a ghost town when the houses on the highway side where removed…”

The I-470 bypass proceeded up the hill to Bethlehem, where changes were also significant. “Forest Park in Bethlehem was obliterated,” Aileen M. said. “A lovely little neighborhood…Some homes were lifted onto trucks and physically moved to a new Bethlehem location…It was a big deal to some of the stay at home moms. They would get together, bring chairs and watch the building and blowing up and movement of the whole project.”

“My grandfather had his house moved to a new location in Bethlehem.,” Jack E.M. added. “I remember they left a glass of water on the kitchen table and didn’t spill it! that was a life changing summer for me as I lived with my gramps and worked with him everyday.”

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Goosetown

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Perhaps no Wheeling neighborhoods felt the impact of the construction of Route 2 quite as powerfully as Goosetown and East Wheeling. “[Goosetown] was a very, very active, little community,” Jack Fahey remembered in an interview. “There were probably 75-100 homes there at one time. When the highway came in, it was destroyed . . . There are probably 22 homes down there now. It is a dead-end street when you go down off McCollough Street down into Goosetown…and it was a terrific place to raise kids, because you had very little traffic…”

“Goosetown was essentially destroyed by ‘progress,” Jacob J. said. “Along with 16th, 17th, 18th…the stock yards, train yard, fuel depot, and home tended gardens. All of that, just in east Wheeling.”

“My father was born and raised in Goosetown.,” Brenda M. added. “I remember going there so many times to see my grandparents in 1958. I was born in 1954. Dad was born in 1931. My grandmother would take me to a small store there. We would walk the stairs to the top to get a little bag of penny candy. But I think there was another store close to them down the street. [Jacob J. added: ‘One store was operated by the Knabe brothers (we called them Blind Butch and Bald Butch). Great little store. The second little store was operated by Wurtzbacher.’] Also, I remember a bar [The Spot] that all the men gathered in on weekends and after work. My grandfather had a huge garden in the summer with the outhouse. Still remember how cold it was. Took some years to have actual running water inside. Grandma did everything on her wood stove and, yes, the ice blocks for their refrigerator. Most everything was taken for the highway. My grandparents house was demolished and there is another small house on its ground. My grandparents have both been gone for years.”

At one time, so many Italian immigrants settled in the area of East Wheeling from 17th to 19th Streets that it became known as Wheeling’s “Little Italy.” By all reports, the neighborhood was “like a family.” The community even raised its own funds to build a church, St. Anthony’s Church, a mission of St. Joseph’s Cathedral, built in 1923.

In 1940, Italian immigrant Gennarino “Jerry” Ammirante opened a grocery store above Ziegenfelder’s Candy Store on 18th Street. He soon sent for his wife Josephine to join him from Italy. They moved the store closer to St. Anthony’s, which was good for business. Jerry’s grocery grew into a local favorite, selling everything from hot Italian sausage and imported cheeses to Christmas trees in season. It was a family place, with an old fashioned charm. The store became a place to congregate and chat with neighbors. Jerry kept a bench in front of the store so that people could sit down and chat.

By 1978 competition from large chain groceries like Kroger made survival nearly impossible, but Jerry’s held on stubbornly, the last outpost of Little Italy in East Wheeling. But when Route 2 came through, parts of 18th Street—including the store, St. Anthony’s, and the Ammirante home—were targeted for demolition. It was the end of an era, and the neighborhood has never been the same.

And that has been the inevitable result of highway construction. It coincided with the end of the era of insular neighborhoods with slow moving traffic and corner markets, the wagon wheels and train whistles having long been replaced by car horns and semi-trucks, whizzing by on elevated concrete freeways. Wheeling has become less of a hub and more of a place to drive through and around while headed elsewhere. Whether the pros outweigh the cons is debatable. But there can be little debate about the dramatic impact the highways have had, in combination with other changes, on Wheeling’s neighborhoods.

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Sources

• Elm Grove, A History in Pictures by Jack and Barbara Maynard (Creative Impressions, 1999).
• Interview of Jack Fahey Wheeling Spoken History Project: John “Jack” Fahey. June 23, 1994.
• “Meeting to discuss improvements in the WV primary Rte 2 and Interstate 70.” Oct. 24, 1962. Harry Hamm collection: OCPL Archives.
• “A Plan for Action, City of Wheeling-Ohio County, West Virginia,” Wheeling-Ohio County Planning Commission, Candeub, Cabot and Associates/Planning Consultant; July, 1964. OCPL Archives.
• “Proposed Thoroughfare Plan, Street & Highway Study, Wheeling and Environs,” for the Wheeling Are Conference on Community Development, Inc. Wheeling, WV., March 1957. OCPL Archives.
• The Wheeling Family: A Celebration of Immigrants & Their Neighborhoods by Seán Duffy (Creative Impressions 2008).
• Wheeling Intelligencer, various dates.
• Wheeling News-Register, various dates.

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