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Policing for Peace

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Pvt. James M. Jacobs & The Aliceville WWII POW Camp

German POWs on American Soil

During the course of the Second World war, more than  400,000 German POWs were interned in 511 prisoner of war camps in the U.S.  The largest, Camp Aliceville in Alabama, housed more than 6,100 POWs and employed more than 1,000 American military and civilian personnel. Aliceville is the primary setting for our story, thanks to a remarkable archival collection recently shared with the Ohio County Public Library. Read More

Local History AuthorOhio County Public Library Archives

For the Small Fry

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The Big Heart & Marketing Genius of Thomas P. Wickham

Thomas P. Wickham, Sr.

This summer, the Ohio County Public Library is celebrating the memory of Wheeling’s once plentiful corner stores, markets, and other businesses. There are modern examples and survivors, of course (Jebbia’s, Neely’s, and new places like the Public Market), but most of the historic ones are long gone.

Yet the nostalgia for such places is stronger than ever. We cherish their memory because they felt safe, like the homes of neighbors and friends, even as they supplied every neighborhood with food and drink, cut our hair, managed our money, employed us, and offered community gathering places to sit around a potbellied stove, play checkers on a pickle barrel, look for bargains with coupons clipped from the newspaper, sip a cherry Coke, or buy comic books.

But one such store, Wickham’s on the southeast corner of N. 25th Street and Warwood Avenue, went above and beyond that Mayberry ideal, offering an array of special promotions from a free circus to a dog show due to the innovative marketing mind of its owner. Read More

Archiving WheelingLocal History Author

Miss Totorri in Wheeling

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This 1928 photo, taken on Chapline Street looking north, shows the Japanese Friendship doll, Miss Mayagi with two members of the segregated Blue Triangle Branch of the YWCA. Doc White’s pharmacy and Lincoln School can be seen in the background. But why was the doll in Wheeling?

The Japanese Friendship Dolls of 1927

In 1927, 14 years before the attack on Pearl Harbor would change the relationship between the two countries forever, Japan sent ambassadors to the United States in the form of lovely, elegantly clad, three-foot tall dolls, one of which visited Wheeling. Read More

Archiving WheelingLocal History Author

From Irish Row to Corktown

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The Wheeling Irish

Blighted potatoes slowly turn into an inedible black mush.

How did so many Irish immigrants end up in the United States and in Wheeling?

There were many waves of immigration. But the biggest one related to the Gaelic -mostly Catholic- Irish, was caused by starvation.

In oversimplified terms: by the mid-19th century, the tenant farmers and working poor of Ireland had become dependent on the potato crop for survival. Starting in 1845, an insidious potato blight resulted in crop failure after crop failure. People starved. Read More

Ohio County Public Library Archives

Serene Dignity: Marian Anderson’s True First Wheeling Performance

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“Sometimes racial prejudice is like a hair across your cheek. You can’t see it, you can’t find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing it because the feel of it is irritating.”-
Marian Anderson

Marian Anderson was one of the world’s greatest contralto singers. She toured the planet as a musical ambassador, the toast of monarchs, musical heavyweights, and citizens of every race, while in her own country, she remained a second class citizen. But did you know that before the critical incident that guaranteed her immortality, she visited “Jim Crow” Wheeling as a guest of the Blue Triangle branch of the Y.W.C.A. and Madison School?

Before we get to that, let’s go back to the future. Read More

Local History AuthorOhio County Public Library ArchivesUncategorized

Celebrating Freedom: Wheeling’s “Juneteenth” in Context

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In recent years, Wheeling has joined the national celebration of Juneteenth, with the 2022 version featuring events at the Ohio County Public Library, YWCA, Market Plaza, and Heritage Port. See details.

Juneteenth is a celebration of the liberation of Texas slaves in execution of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which applied only to slaves held in states in rebellion—that is, Confederate states. On June 19, 1865, roughly 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas and announced that “the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as ‘Juneteenth,’ by the newly freed people in Texas.” Source.

Juneteenth was made a federal holiday on June 19, 2021. Wheeling had already begun marking the day a few years prior.

But historically, the African American population in the Wheeling area had celebrated “Emancipation Day,” despite the fact that no slaves were freed in West Virginia (which had joined the Union in 1863), by Lincoln’s executive order. The date chosen (probably in hopes of fairer weather) was actually that of the so-called preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, announced on September 22, 1862. The official order would come on January 1, 1863. Read More

Contributor Posts

McColloch’s Leap and Other Wheeling Wayside Adventures

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Archiving Wheeling - Featured Image: McColloch's Leap in Wheeling

— by Marcia Hartman

Note: This story originally appeared in the March 2021 edition, Volume 6 Issue 6 of The Crossroads magazine, part of The Journal and the Noble County Leader, www.journal-leader.com. Copyright Southeast Publications, Caldwell, Ohio. It is reprinted with permission.

Preview: We talk about taking a leap when someone tries a risky venture. Not many take a leap like Sam McColloch did in 1777! Just one of several adventures across the river in Wheeling.

McColloch’s Leap

Oil on canvas, artist unknown, probably a copy after a lithograph by Karl Bodmer and Jean Francois Millet, 1852. Courtesy of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming; Whitney Western Art Museum; Gift of Edgar William and Bernice Chrysler Garbisch. 10.77.

In 1777, Samuel McColloch (1752-1782) was a major in the local militia and commander of Fort Van Meter located about seven miles north of Wheeling near what is now Clinton, West Virginia — a few miles northeast of Oglebay Park. Samuel served in the militia alongside his brother John. In 1770, the McCollochs emigrated from land they owned on the South Potomac, near where Moorefield, West Virginia is today, and settled on Short Creek where Fort Van Meter was built. The family is thought to have been somewhat more educated than most other early settlers. McColloch served different positions in government during his life and was third in command of the nine militia companies in the Ohio County Militia. (Interestingly, one of the McCollochs’ sisters married Col. Ebenezer Zane, making her a sister-in-law to Betty Zane, who is credited with saving Fort Henry during a later Indian attack.) Read More

Archiving WheelingContributor Posts

Cartooning “Pa Wheeling”

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Archiving Wheeling - Featured Image: Cy Hungerford and Pa Wheeling

Cy Hungerford Hones His Craft in the Friendly City

— written by Terri Blanchette

Few people in Pittsburgh today know of an institution who once graced their city with his people-centered perspective and sensitivity, and his great talent. Even fewer know that without five pivotal years spent in Wheeling, West Virginia, he would not have become the icon he was. Read More

© Copyright 2015-2016. Archiving Wheeling | A collaborative community project of the Ohio County Public Library, Wheeling, WV
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