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.
Aug. 14, 1894: Entertainer Ada Beatrice Queen Victoria Louise Virginia “Bricktop” Smith was born at Alderson. She performed in Paris in the 1920s and opened her own clubs, the Music Box and Bricktop’s, a favorite hangout of songwriter Cole Porter.
Aug. 14, 1943: Astronaut Jon Andrew McBride was born in Charleston. McBride became an astronaut in 1979 and piloted the space shuttle Challenger on an eight-day mission in 1984.
Aug. 15, 1867: The cornerstone was laid for the Fairmont Branch Normal School (now Fairmont State University).
Aug. 15, 1906: The Niagara Movement began a five-day meeting at Storer College in Harpers Ferry. The organization was founded in 1905 by a group of Black intellectuals, including W. E. B. Du Bois.
Aug. 15, 1946: The first FM radio station in the state, WCFC of Beckley, began regular programming.
Aug. 16, 1851: William Hope “Coin” Harvey was born in Buffalo, Putnam County. Harvey, a social reformer, was nominated for president of the United States by the Liberty Party in 1932.
Aug. 16, 1913: Helen Holt was born in Illinois. In 1957, Governor Cecil Underwood appointed her to fill the secretary of state’s unexpired term, making her the first woman to hold statewide office in West Virginia.
Aug. 17, 1944: Staff Sergeant Stanley Bender of Fayette County earned the Medal of Honor in southern France. Bender rushed through intense machine gun fire and grenades, and knocked out two German machine guns with rifle fire. His actions inspired the rest of his company to take out a German roadblock, kill 37 enemy soldiers, and take 26 prisoners.
Aug. 17, 1946: Old-time musician Dwight Diller was born in Rand but spent most of his life in Pocahontas County, documenting, teaching, and performing traditional music. He died in 2023.
Aug. 17, 1976: The National Mine Health and Safety Academy opened at Beaver, near Beckley. The academy, located on a 76-acre campus, is the world’s largest educational institution devoted solely to safety and health in mining.
Aug. 18, 1885: Artemus Ward Cox was born on a farm at Red Knob, Roane County. In 1914, Cox bought the George Ort Department Store on Capitol Street in Charleston. That store became the first in a chain of 21 A. W. Cox stores in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
Aug. 19, 1863: Union cavalry under Brigadier General William W. Averell destroyed the Confederate saltpeter works near Franklin.
Aug. 19, 1997: Fiddler Curly Ray Cline died. Born in Logan County, Cline was a member of the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys.
Aug. 20, 1851: The oldest statue in West Virginia, a nine-foot wood carving of Patrick Henry, was dedicated at the county courthouse in Morgantown.
Aug. 20, 2004: Eldora Bolyard Nuzum died in Elkins. While working for the Grafton Sentinel in 1946, she became the first female editor of a daily newspaper in West Virginia. For three decades, she was editor of the Elkins Inter-Mountain.
