Physician. Historian.
When the mines opened in West Virginia, at first there was no way to get coal from the mines to the industrial centers of the East Coast. In came the railroads, hauling away the coal and coke. The railroads not only took coal out, but brought people and goods in. A lot of these people…
This post is picking up from part one. Please go back and read it if you haven’t already. Things were not better at the end of World War II. Funding for schools, like funding for roads, remained a serious problem. West Virginia could not maintain competitive teacher salaries. Teachers began to leave the state in…
West Virginia teachers have went on strike twice in the past two years. The strike of 2018 set off a wave of teacher protests around the country. The strike of 2019 was brief. The state legislature apparently learned its lesson: don’t threaten public education. Currently, the Senate is at it again. On June 3rd it…
Harrison County Mayors Discuss Fixing West Virginia Roads[1] West Virginia Officials: Staffing Issues Slowing Road Repair[2] West Virginia’s commissioner of highways tours 50 miles of roads in Marshall County[3] Miller Brings Out Platform—Hits School Politics and Condition of Roads in Talk at Armory[4] Bad Road Conditions Trigger ‘Blockade’[5] Gov. Justice announces plans to fix secondary…
West Virginia is not only about coal. Our history cannot be simplified down to our relationship with only one industry. We have had many industries come and go over the years, for better or worse. Our identities do not come down to our relationship with this industry. However, to understand West Virginia today, it’s vitally…