Appalachian History

If you’re in the Huntsville, AL area you’ll want to get yourself on over to Burritt on the Mountain this weekend. A brand new play titled “Appalachian Witches,” by Christine Burke Ashwell wraps up its premiere run this weekend. It’s the story of three women bound to the Appalachian Mountains, its traditions and music, superstitions [...]

“Look at the city–at any city built by man! They, the great last word of the century, a tremendous expression of the human intellect, grow up wild, according to no plan or intention, allowing nothing for expansion, discommoding everybody, causing intolerable civic growing-pains, and utterly upsetting any adventitious efforts toward beauty or dignity of proportion [...]

Please welcome guest blogger C.J. Pitzer. Pitzer, who recently graduated from West Virginia University with both a Bachelor Degree in Political Science and a Masters Degree in Business Administration, has recently begun researching the life of West Virginia towns that were submerged by the Tygart Lake Dam. He’s publishing his findings in a brand new [...]

After a serious train accident in 1891 in Ohio, caused by the malfunction of an engineer’s watch, the North American railroad industry charged their General Time Inspector Webb C. Ball to establish unified standards for all the watches used by their personnel across the various participating Railroad Companies. When these standards were developed, most manufacturers [...]

When cold weather come on he would tell me to move his chair up in front of the fireplace. He would sprawl out there in the same way all winter long. There wasn’t room for anybody else to get around saw just at the sides. Every time anybody set down he would rare about them [...]