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The Russell House
William Ganaway Russell had the good fortune to buy a farm exactly halfway between Walhalla SC and Highlands NC. In 1849 an industrious group of Charleston German businessman were looking for a...
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The Greenbrier Ghost
On January 23, 1897, Elva Zona Heaster Shue of Lewisburg WV, a bride of three months, was found dead at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor of the log house where she lived with her...
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A nickel’s worth of ice, please
From the mid-19th century to the 1920s, when the refrigerator was introduced to the home, the icebox was the place to keep foods cold. Iceboxes were typically made of wood, lined with tin or zinc and...
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All the machinery stopped and the lights went out
Before the days of T.V.A. and large power companies, electricity was supplied to rural areas by such imaginative and pioneering men as Arthur Abernathy Miller. In 1925, Miller, a brilliant...
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Uncle Nathe wuzn’t no hand to set at home by hissef
“Am I to understand that our good brother was married four times?” “You shore air,” said Len. “There lays four of as good wives as a man ever had. Them tombstones don’t tell no lies. They’s all ’fore...
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They used outlaws and anything they could get
Jenkins, KY didn’t come into existence by steady settlement over a period of years. Jenkins was planned and built by Consolidation Coal Company [Consol] for men who came to mine its coal– what was to...
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Lots of people thought I was an idiot
“I never spoke a word until I was nine years old. I only clucked and motioned for what I wanted. Lots of people thought I was an idiot because I could not talk. I may have looked like one, for I was a...
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The Waldensians in North Carolina
The largest Waldensian colony in the world outside of Italy–Valdese, NC–was officially incorporated as a town on February 17, 1920. The Waldenses, or Waldensians, are a Christian sect founded in the...
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In these hills they feel the heartbeat of God
“Stories of the feud-ridden, ignorance-shrouded people of the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia have been published far and near and throughout the land the common belief is that every cove...
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Voice from the Queen City of the Alleghenies
Sara Roberta Getty (1880-1973) served as Woman’s Editor for the Cumberland [MD] Daily News from 1924 to 1942. She wrote four books of poetry, including Little songs of every day, (1924) and Maryland...
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Theirs was a hardy race
“Practically all Melungeons preferred a care-free existence with members of their own clan. For many generations they seldom married outsiders, and virtually all families in each area were related....
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George W. Christians, American fascist
It is the privileged role of the Art Smiths, the William Pelleys, and the George Christians to lay only the cornerstone of fascism. It is in their rudimentary organizations that the petty bourgeoisie...
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"Que te parece! Now I believe in the egg!"
“Benito Fernandez, known by all the Spaniards as Benito El Tuerto because he couldn’t see out of his left eye, lived just two houses away from our house on Ashton Lane. His wife, Cristina, was a short,...
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Alarmed by the American Plutocracy
As we look over the country today we see two classes of people. The excessively rich and the abject poor, and between them is a gulf ever deepening, ever widening, and the ranks of the poor are...
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The Kraft Pulp Mill Construction
Report on Construction Products Plant, Mar 6, 1920 West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company Covington Va “Herewith picture taken 3:15 p.m. 3-4-20 of construction grounds taken from a point lower down on...
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The boldest indecent passages I have ever seen
Publishers’ Weekly 145 (March 25, 1944): “Strange Fruit banned by Boston booksellers” Says a Cambridge adage: “Banned in Boston is the trademark of a good book.” On March 25,1944 Cambridge Police Chief...
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Chattanooga woman strikes out Babe Ruth
On April 2, 1931, world famous New York Yankees sluggers Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were struck out by a 17 year old female pitcher named Virnett ‘Jackie’ Mitchell in Chattanooga, TN. “I don’t know...
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A mill built plenty sturdy
The western Algonquin called it the ‘Mooskingom,’ and to the Narragansett tribe it was the ‘Mooshingung’ —“water clear as an elk’s eye.” The Muskingum River, which empties into the mighty Ohio River...
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The Scottsboro Boys
On March 25, 1931, local authorities in Paint Rock, AL arrested nine black youths on a freight train after receiving word about a fight between blacks and whites on the train. They discovered two white...
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He deserted the Confederate AND the Union armies
John Denton fought for the Confederate Army, but deserted it. Then he joined the Union Army, but deserted it even faster. And that was just the beginning of his troubles. Denton volunteered for Company...
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