Tag: West Virginia history
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‘THIS MAY DO ME IN, I MAY RETIRE’
This story originally appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail on April 07, 2010. WHITESVILLE – Ed Runyon, 83, walked to the flag pole in his front yard shortly before noon Tuesday and raised his American flag for the first time this year. He tied it off at half-staff. Although he didn’t know any of the victims […]
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The Greatest’s First Foe
This story originally appeared in the Spring ’19 issue of WV Living magazine. In early October 1960, Associated Press teleprinters clattered to life in smoke-filled newsrooms across the United States. The harried editors assigned to monitor the machines couldn’t have known it at the time, but the rapid-fire hammers were pounding out words that would […]
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Paradise Lost
This article originally appeared on Lapham’s Quarterly‘s Roundtable blog on November 29, 2017. Click here to read the full story. Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett moved to the United States to lay low. Although some have suggested they left England to avoid scandal—Margaret was both Harman’s wife and his niece—their flight had more to do with […]
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The making of Robert C. Byrd’s “Mountain Fiddler”
This story originally appeared in the July 6, 2010 edition of the Charleston Daily Mail. In all of the obituaries written about the late Sen. Robert Byrd over the last week, there’s one detail nearly everyone made sure to include alongside his political victories and infamous missteps—his love of traditional mountain music. A longtime fiddler […]
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They Keep Old Trains A-Rolling
This story originally appeared in the June 4, 2012 edition of the Charleston Daily Mail. CASS — When something breaks on a train at Cass Scenic Railroad, whether it’s as small as a bracket or as big as a boiler, the men and women in the park’s locomotive shops fix it. They have to. Chances […]
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The Quest Gets Tougher
This story originally appeared in the May 4, 2012 edition of the Charleston Daily Mail. Becoming a knight or lady of the Golden Horseshoe has never been a small feat, but winning the state history award now requires an even deeper understanding of West Virginia’s past. Every West Virginia student takes the Golden Horseshoe test […]
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W.Va. Knights, Ladies Honored: Rumors Surround Golden Horseshoe Artifact
This story originally appeared in the May 7, 2010 edition of the Charleston Daily Mail. This morning, State Schools Superintendent Steve Paine will dub more than 200 West Virginia eighth-graders “knights and ladies of the Golden Horseshoe” for their knowledge of state history. But there’s one question none of these adolescent history aces, or anybody […]
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Live from Oak Hill
This story originally appeared in the spring 2017 issue of WV Living magazine. Angel Acevedo was known to Saturday Nite Wrestlin’ fans as Assassin No. 1 of the tag-team duo The Cuban Assassins. Richie Acevedo did not doubt his father’s stories about being Fidel Castro’s bodyguard. To his young mind, the evidence was all there. […]
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Silver Bridge tragedy still haunts river city residents
This story originally appeared in the December 11, 2012 edition of the Charleston Daily Mail. Ben Cedar crossed the Silver Bridge three times on the day it fell. He was working as a Kirby sweeper salesman back then, and crossing the bridge was the fastest way to get across the Ohio River from his home […]
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Renaissance man saved Daily Mail from bankruptcy in 1914
This story originally appeared in the Charleston Daily Mail on Friday, April 4, 2014 to mark teh newspaper’s 100th birthday. One hundred years ago this Sunday, a former Alaskan governor purchased a small bankrupt newspaper in Charleston, W.Va. The publication, known at the time as The News-Mail, had spent decades in and out of financial […]