Charleston WV – The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Feb. 11, 1903: Artist Grace Martin Taylor was born in Morgantown. She produced an immense body of work in various styles and enjoyed a lengthy career at the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts in Charleston.
Feb. 11, 1904: Clarence Watson Meadows was born in Beckley. His mother hoped he would become a Baptist minister, but he ultimately entered politics, becoming the 22nd governor of West Virginia.
Feb. 11, 1911: The Charles Town Opera House opened. The 500-seat theater ushered in an era of entertainment and service lasting more than 30 years.
Feb. 11, 1923: Eight members of the Black Hand were arrested in Harrison County. The Black Hand was the name and symbol of an underworld society of Italian immigrants that extorted money from other Italian immigrants.
Feb. 11, 1935: The first houses in the Tygart Valley Homesteads were ready for occupancy. One of three resettlement projects in West Virginia, the homesteads were intended to provide a new start for unemployed farmers, miners and timber workers.
Feb. 11, 1949: Singer and pianist Ethel Caffie-Austin was born in Bluefield, and raised in Mount Hope. As “West Virginia’s First Lady of Gospel,” she performed around the world, taught countless students, earned the Vandalia Award and founded the West Virginia Black Sacred Music Festival.
Feb. 12, 1867: Barboursville was incorporated by an act of the state legislature. Originally the county seat of Cabell County, it lost that honor after the C&O Railway was completed to Huntington.
Feb. 12, 1899: Karl Dewey Myers was born in Tucker County with severe disabilities. He never attended school but educated himself through persistent self-study. He was named the state’s first poet laureate in 1927.
Feb. 13, 1800: Gen. John Jay Jackson Sr. was born near Parkersburg. He served in the Seminole Wars as a member of Gen. Andrew Jackson’s staff. As a delegate to the statehood conventions, he at times supported but ultimately opposed the founding of West Virginia.
Feb. 13, 1913: Labor leader Mother Jones was arrested in Charleston after supporting union miners on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek.
Feb. 13, 1923: Chuck Yeager was born at Myra, about seven miles from Hamlin. In 1947, in a Bell X-1 rocket airplane dropped from a B-29 bomber, Yeager became the first person to break the sound barrier by flying 700 miles per hour.
Feb. 14, 1866: Grant County was created and named for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who later became the nation’s 18th president.
Feb. 14, 1968: Former Governor W. W. “Wally” Barron (1961-65) and several close associates were indicted for public corruption. Barron was acquitted, but all of his co-defendants were convicted. Barron later served prison time for jury tampering in the initial trial.
Feb. 15, 1898: Musician John Homer “Uncle Homer” Walker was born in Mercer County. Among the last in a tradition of Black Appalachian banjo players, he played the five-string banjo in the clawhammer style.
Feb. 15, 1930: Sara Jane Moore was born in Charleston. On Sept. 22, 1975, Moore attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford in San Francisco.
Feb. 15, 1975: Elizabeth Kee, the state’s first female member of Congress, died in Bluefield. Kee was elected to Congress in 1951 after the death of her husband, John. She retired in 1965 and was succeeded by her son, James.
Feb. 15, 2011: The Lady Bobcats of Summers County High School won their 89th consecutive game, setting a state basketball record for girls or boys. They went on to win 105 straight.
Feb. 16, 1821: Morris Harvey was born near Prosperity in Raleigh County. Harvey’s gifts to the Barboursville Seminary led to its name being changed to Morris Harvey College in 1901. The institution is now known as the University of Charleston.
Feb. 16, 1917: The legislature established the West Virginia State Colored Tuberculosis Sanitarium for the care of Black patients. It was built at Denmar in Pocahontas County.
Feb. 16, 1951: Second Lieutenant Darwin Keith Kyle of Boone County died during an intense exchange against Chinese forces in Korea. He was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Feb. 17, 1735: Morgan Morgan of present-day Berkeley County was commissioned a captain of militia in the 201st Field Artillery, which is considered the oldest military unit in the United States.
Feb. 17, 1930: Tunney Hunsaker was born in Kentucky and later became Fayetteville’s long-time chief of police. He was also a boxer and, in 1960, lost to a young Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) in Ali’s first professional bout.
e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia is a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council. For more information contact the West Virginia Humanities Council, 1310 Kanawha Blvd. E., Charleston, WV 25301; (304) 346-8500; or visit e-WV at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
