The History Project

Every summer, Americans practice two favored activities, farming and lawncare, and a West Virginian invented a product that is valued for both pursuits. Born in Dunbar in 1876, America's centennial year, 1876, and given a famous inventor's name, Benjamin Franklin Gravely would make a great contribution to America's agrarian culture. He and his wife were raising five children on two acres of land and their large garden proved helpful in feeding the family. While working in his garden, Gravely was discontent with the plows afforded the everyday gardener, so he worked in the machine shop of his friend F.W. Wilcox in nearby Middleport, Ohio, where he combined a hand-pushed plow with an auxiliary Indian Motorcycle engine, the first Gravely tractor, the first of 65 patents he would have in his lifetime.

After fire destroyed West Virginia's capitol in 1921, leaders decided to create a new magnificent building to replace it and who better to design it than America's first star architect, Cass Gilbert. Around the nation, Gilbert's structures graced town squares, capital cities and vaunted skylines. Gilbert's Woolworth Building in New York set the standard for the American skyscraper. So, when he came to Charleston, he guided everyone to a large plot of land in the city's east end, where he could build his latest masterpiece, a lasting monument to his reputation and a testimony to the people of the Mountain State.

Twenty-five states have changed their minds about the location of their capitals, so West Virginia is in good company. Nonetheless, the back and forth between Wheeling and Charleston makes for one of the Mountain State's most amusing stories. Just shortly after being granted statehood during the Civil War's battle between North and South, West Virginia's capital location became a battle royale between the state's powerbrokers of its north and south, with government records making the trek up and down the Ohio River so frequently, the steamboats seemed to house them more than any great building created just for that purpose.

When journalist Herbert Morrison was sent to cover the arrival of the Hindenburg by Chicago radio station WLS, he thought it would be an exciting foray to see the possible future of air travel. But instead, his coverage would be the world's first recorded broadcast of an eyewitness account of a major world disaster. As if that weren't enough, Morrison and his sound engineer had to sneak the recording back to Chicago as Nazi Germany tried to circumvent its release.

Country music star Little Jimmy Dickens did not even hit 5 feet in height, but his talent, humor and personality filled huge auditoriums around the world. He started at a radio station in Morgantown and was discovered by Roy Acuff, who put him on the path to stardom. His countless hits and popularity made him one of Nashville's biggest stars, placing him in the company of Hank Williams and Merle Haggard. Dickens' performances moved audiences past his diminutive size to show them the musical giant he was.

Everyone knows that Mary Tyler Moore was a talented actress, equally adept at comedy and drama, and winner of multiple awards. Her beauty and charm propelled her to become a favorite celebrity who used her popularity for the good of others. What many may not know is that some of her philanthropy was aimed at Shepherd University in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, where her family heritage stretched back two centuries. Thanks to Moore, the university has a premiere history study center that she created in her father's name.

As America entered the Civil War, it grappled with the idea of fellow countrymen fighting each other. When West Virginia separated from Virginia, the two states had rancor over their opposition. But within West Virginia itself, the idea of "brother against brother" could be quite literal as the borders of the new state concealed opposing sides that were almost in equal measure. Union and Confederate blood christened the new state, the only one born out of war.

Slavery has been called America's original sin, and its origins on the Virginia coast made it a tragic staple of the state's and the South's economy. Western Virginia counties, like the Northern states, had a far smaller percentage of enslaved residents, but, of course, one slave is one too many. Through a complicated process endorsed by President Lincoln, West Virginia was able to end the atrocity before the Civil War ended, and finally make it's state motto about freedom ring true.

Before West Virginia could be rent from Virginia, all allegiances to the Old Dominion or support for the Confederate States had to be eradicated. General George B. McClellan was put in charge of the Ohio Valley states, which included the western portion of Virginia. He launched a campaign on the region that was successful in every possible way and made a name for himself that would put him onto the national stage and at the top of Lincoln's list for the Union's military leadership.

Factions in both the North and the South had reached a stalemate; the South would keep its practice of slavery and the North would mostly turn a blind eye. Abolitionist John Brown went after the abomination with such a vengeance, that it was impossible for the nation to continue ignoring an atrocity they had accepted as fact. First in Kansas and finally in Harpers Ferry, John Brown let loose a battle cry with an echo that reverberated to the launch of the Civil War.