During the First World War, convoys of U.S. Army trucks, or “liberty truck” trains, rumbled over century-old stagecoach tracks down the National Road, a primary channel for shipping supplies for the war effort. And a storied old stagecoach watering hole once known as the “Four Mile House” and later “Stamm Inn,” located in the Pleasant Valley area of the Old Pike in Wheeling became, toward the end of the war, a little oasis of comfort and cheer– a sweet reminder of home — for those truck driving soldiers.
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Distance Lends Enchantment: Wheeling’s WWI Memorials
This article is part of a series about Wheeling during the First World War. The series will lead up to a centennial observation of Armistice Day (now known as Veteran’s Day) to be held on November 11, 2018 at 2 pm at the Doughboy monument at Wheeling Park. If you are a descendant of a WWI veteran or nurse, please contact us at lunchwithbooks@yahoo.com.
The War to Ends Wars
The “Great War” had raged in Europe for three years before the United States joined the conflict on the side of the Allies in April 1917. What H.G. Wells optimistically dubbed, “the war that will end war” is now known as the First World War because, of course, instead of ending wars, it led to a second, far for destructive international conflict just two decades after the November 11, 1918 Armistice.
That was enough time for a whole new generation of farm and factory boys to follow their fathers and grandfathers onto the blood-soaked battlefields of France and Germany. In most important ways, the Second World War was merely the continuation of the first. It follows that memory of the first is often overshadowed by what happened twenty years later.
It has now been nearly a century since that celebrated Armistice. In this series of posts, we will present an overview of Wheeling’s involvement in the First World War. And on November 11, 2018 at 2 pm at the Spirit of the American Doughboy Statue at Wheeling Park, the City of Wheeling will remember those who served on the centennial of that Armistice. Read More
Wheeling: the Wickedest City in the South?
Carrie Nation Visits the Friendly City
As we are so often reminded, Wheeling was once a wide open city, chock-full of businesses eager to supply the robust demand for the vices most popular with working men: primarily beer, tobacco, gambling, and prostitutes. At the dawn of the 20th century, hundreds of saloons lined Main and Market Streets, all of whose bars were lined with brass spittoons.
Into this den of iniquity descended the famous (or infamous) temperance and anti-tobacco activist from Kansas, Carrie Amelia Nation, who visited Wheeling in early October, 1901.
A physically imposing woman whose first husband ‘died of the drink,’ inspiring a lifelong crusade, the “Kansas Joint Smasher,” was best known for smashing saloons and “grog shops” with a hatchet.
Carrie Nation spoke on October 6 at the state fairgrounds on Wheeling Island after promising to “regulate the wickedest city in the south.”
The railroads took advantage of the national celebrity of the “Apostle of the hatchet,” advertising her visit and offering special “Carrie Nation Excursions” to bring “immense crowds” to Wheeling from Pittsburgh and Washington, PA, via the B & O, and from Cleveland and Canton, OH, via the Wheeling and Lake Erie. For its part, the trolley car line from Moundsville lowered its roundtrip rate to 25 cents.
An Unmerciful Roasting
En route to her hotel after a second lecture at the First Christian Church (where she accused the city’s wealthy brewers and saloon men of “making their money at the expense of the home”), Mrs. Nation made a stop to carry out her promised “active campaign.” Contractually bound to avoid smashing, she nevertheless refused to pass a saloon without at least a word or two.
Accordingly, she pushed her way into The Senate saloon on the corner of 16th and Market, and was followed by as many of the 300 hundred mostly women followers (members of the “Home Defender Club”) who could squeeze into the saloon’s two entrances. Once inside, she admonished the bartenders to “mend their ways” lest they be damned to hell. Police officer O’Leary, who had been tasked with keeping an eye on Mrs. Nation, followed her into The Senate where he confronted her, accusing her of disturbing the peace and ordering her to return to her hotel. She refused and was arrested, charged with “inciting a riot” and violating a city ordinance that prohibited “loud cries on the Sabbath Day.”
[The Senate Saloon stood, ca. 1903~1914, on 16th and Market where WVNCC’s Barnes and Noble/Starbucks store is now. Harry L. Wheat was the proprietor. It’s the building with the Pabst sign in the above 1907 flood image from the William O’Leary Real Photo Postcard Collection of the Ohio County Public Library Archives.]
At the police station, Mrs. Nation “roasted Chief Ritz and Lieut. O’Leary unmercifully,” then fell asleep on a sofa. Meanwhile, Mayor Sweeney was immediately called and, in a highly unusual move, a trial was promptly convened at midnight.
A transcript of this rather odd and impromptu “special session of the police court” was included verbatim in the Intelligencer on October 8. O’Leary testified that members of Nation’s entourage were “shouting and hooting and acting in a disorderly manner.” He further alleged that Mrs. Nation was “making loud remarks on tobacco chewing and designated the saloons as hell holes.” Another witness testified that he heard Mrs. Nation say to O’Leary that “he ought to take that chew of tobacco out of his mouth and wash it out with lye.” Representing herself, Mrs. Nation complained that she hadn’t been permitted to call her own witnesses for the defense. The Senate bartenders accused Mrs. Nation of threatening to “close down this hell joint” and “whooping and hollering like someone that was drunk” (the irony of this remark caused laughter in the courtroom). A “wordy war” then ensued among Mayor Sweeney, Solicitor Coniff, and Mrs. Nation. The latter testified that she rarely passed a saloon without rebuking the men inside. She felt it was her Christian duty to warn them that “hell is being prepared for them; that they are anarchists; [and] that there is no law that will protect them…” Mrs. Nation said “she had counseled the women of Wheeling to smash the saloons, and save their husbands and sons from ruin.” Coniff countered that she should stay out of the saloons where she could do no good and only bring violence to herself and her women followers. Mayor Sweeney accused her of desecrating the Sabbath by lecturing for an admission fee, which he called “a purely mercenary transaction.” He added that Wheeling felt “insulted and imposed upon” by her actions. Mrs. Nation was fined $20 and sentenced to thirty days in jail. Refusing to pay bond, she spent the night in the county jail, vowing an appeal.
As the Intelligencer reported a couple of days later, the spectacle of the police, mayor, and city solicitor severely lecturing an “old woman” (Nation was 54 at the time) at midnight did not sit well with a lot of Wheeling citizens who had read the account. She was released from jail after 18 hours. On her way back to her hotel she reportedly opened the doors of a number of saloons on Market Street, shouting, “Come out of there you men! Don’t you know you are going straight to Hell?”
But Was Wheeling the Wickedest?
While she was being interviewed later in her room at the McLure, the reporter asked, “Is Wheeling as bad as you have been told it was?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Wheeling is rum soaked. I never saw so much spit on the streets as here in your town, showing so much tobacco used. Ladies cannot walk along the streets on account of the spit…Shame! Shame!! Shame!!”
Meet Carrie Nation in Wheeling This Friday!Want to see notorious bootlegger “Big Bill Lias” and hatchet-wielding temperance advocate “Carrie the ‘Apostle of the Hatchet’ Nation” do battle in the flesh? Join us at the Francis Pier-Pint Historic Brew-Off: Prohibition Edition this Friday, August 16, 2019 at 5:30 at River City. History and hops will take center stage at the Francis Pier-Pint Historic Brew-Off: Prohibition Edition. The event, which takes guests back to prohibition-era Wheeling, is part beer tasting, part trivia, part interactive history. Big Bill Lias vs Carrie The Kansas Joint Smasher Nation, LIVE! Get a ticket or call 304-232-0244!! |
The Spirit of the Wheeling Doughboy
Standing Guard
He’s a familiar figure to most Wheeling residents.
After all, he has stood guard vigilantly at Wheeling Park for more than eighty years — grenade in one hand, [part of a] rifle in the other. He even inspired a 2011 motion picture featuring a lot of local sets and actors. Read More
Memorial Day Preview: From Camp Lee to the Great War
- The WWI Letters of Lester Scott & Charles Riggle
About a year ago, Margie Richey contacted Jon-Erik Gilot, the Archivist of the Diocese. She said she had some WWI letters from two relatives to share. Jon-Erik informed me and we met with Margie, who gave us permission to scan the letters and photographs. Jon-Erik then rehoused the collection archivally for Margie and her family. In exchange, she granted us permission to digitally share this historically important collection on Archiving Wheeling.
The letters were written by Margie’s uncles, Lester Scott and Charles “Dutch” Riggle, farm boys who grew up in the hills of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Dutch’s brother, James D. Riggle, married Lester’s sister, Minnie.
Lester loved music and was a member of a hillbilly and western trio. He was drafted in 1917 and trained at Camp Lee, Virginia, as did so many of the Wheeling men who served in the First World War. Scott served as a Wagoner in the 314th Field Artillery Supply Company, Battery “A” 80th (Blue Ridge) Division in France. He drove a four-line team of mules which provided food and water to the front daily for the troops.
Dutch Riggle was also stationed and trained at Camp Lee and was shipped to France as a PFC with the same unit as Lester.
Approximately 40-50 letters, a few telegrams and other documents, and a dozen photographs have been digitized. The letters have also been transcribed. Most were written by Lester Scott to his sister Minnie or by Charles Riggle to his brother James. The bulk of the letters date roughly from September 1917 to November 1918, with a few extending into spring 1919.
Beginning in September, in observation of the centennial of American involvement in the war, Archiving Wheeling will begin showcasing these letters and photographs in chronological order. These posts will include the original letters, the transcriptions, and audio podcasts of the letters being read aloud by actors, with appropriate related images.
For more information, please enjoy the trailer created by Erin Rothenbuehler, Ohio County Public Library Archives, with Jeremy Richter providing the voice of Lester Scott.
GO to EPISODE 1
Close Cover Before Striking: Mid Century Wheeling in Matchbook Cover Art
Loving the Light
Are you now, or have you ever been, a phillumenist — a practitioner of phillumeny or phillumenism?
And what is this phillumeny, you may well ask? Read More
From South Wheeling to the South China Sea
October 24, 1944. 5 o’clock p.m. South China Sea.
The nearly 7,000-ton Japanese freighter, Arisan Maru, is churning toward Formosa. Packed in the stifling heat of the ship’s holds are 1,782 mostly American and some Allied war prisoners of the Empire of Japan. The men are destined for forced labor camps.
Seeing only an unmarked enemy vessel, a U.S. Navy submarine, the USS Shark, fires three torpedoes. Direct hit. Split in two, the Arisan Maru slips beneath the waves in less than two hours. While most of the POWs escape the sinking ship, they are left to die on the open sea. The Japanese navy attempts no rescue. Only nine men survive. It is the largest loss of life at sea in American history.
Among the dead is 42 year-old Private First Class Frederick William Elkes, a 17-year veteran of the U.S. Army Air Force, 17th Pursuit Squadron, 24th Pursuit Group. Stationed in the Philippines, the South Wheeling boy who grew up on McColloch Street, was captured during the fall of Bataan. Read More
Finding Cedar Rocks
The Golf Course “Out the Crick”
by George S. Jones II and Seán Duffy
“A golf course is the epitome of all that is purely transitory in the universe; a space not to dwell in, but to get over as quickly as possible.” -Jean Giraudoux
One of the best things about doing local history research and exploring local archival collections is learning about the wonders of old Wheeling that are now lost to time. And some of the most interesting stories about “Lost Wheeling” are often the unlikely ones—the ones that stretch the imagination, like the amusement park on the Lower Sisters Island, the beer garden at Wheeling Park, the town’s old German singing societies, and the Mozart Incline.
Another one of those wonders was a short-lived, championship caliber golf course located “out the crick” on Big Wheeling Creek Road—a place called Cedar Rocks Country Club—where one of the greatest golfers of all time won a tournament 78 years ago today, on September 17, 1938.
And if you’re like me, you’ve probably driven right through this long gone golf course hundreds of times without even realizing it. Read More
Boss Tweed’s Mysterious Wheeling Visit
The “Boss” Comes to Wheeling
The notorious William Magear “Boss” Tweed visited Wheeling 143 years ago today on September 6, 1873, but the reason for his visit was then, and remains today, a mystery.
Who’s the Boss?
Tweed was a Democratic politician and the “Boss” (circa 1858-1871) of New York City’s infamous Tammany Hall, one of the most overtly corrupt political machines in the nation’s history. Tweed used a system of cronyism to make sure members of his inner circle, the “Tweed Ring,” were appointed to positions of power in city government; he essentially controlled city elections by awarding jobs to mostly Irish immigrant constituents in return for votes, as well as through outright fraud; and he used inflated building contracts, bribery, and kickbacks to embezzle tens of millions (hundreds of millions in today’s money) of taxpayer dollars. Political cartoonist Thomas Nast launched a relentless crusade against Tweed, principally in the pages of Harper’s Weekly.
According to legend, the power of Nast’s satirical depictions of Tweed caused the latter to despair, “I don’t care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don’t know how to read, but they can’t help seeing them damned pictures.”
His corruption fully exposed, and his support badly eroded, Tweed was arrested in 1871. The jury at his first trial deadlocked in January 1873, but Tweed would be tried again in November of that same year, and this time, he was convicted.
It was during the period between trials, in September of 1873, that Tweed, for some still unknown reason, visited Wheeling. Read More
To the Defenders of the Union
The Case for Moving Wheeling’s Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument
“So may the future days
Come nobly to our State:
When, prosperous and great,
Her citizens shall praise
Those who gave life and all to consecrate
Their land to liberty;
And bade their watchword be
These words in granite here,
To freemen ever dear,
Montani Semper Liberi.”
-From Soldiers’ Monument Poem by William Leighton
In case you haven’t heard, a campaign has been launched to move the Soldiers’ & Sailors’ Monument from Wheeling Park to the empty lot beside West Virginia Independence Hall. Read More