Appalachian History

Today, Holzer Medical Center-Gallipolis is the largest employer in Gallia County, OH with 1,123 people on the payroll. Dr. Charles Elmer Holzer (1887-1956) came to Gallipolis in 1909, as a resident surgeon at the Ohio Hospital for Epileptics. Recognizing the need for a community hospital, he returned in May 1910, after completing his training. With [...]

‘Musty’ is one of those old-fashioned words you don’t hear used much anymore. You might on occasion refer to a damp basement that way, and that’s about it. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the word struck fear in the hearts of mountain folk. One of the great comforts of jokes is [...]

Please welcome guest writer Bonnie Heiskell Peters. Ms. Peters grew up in Union County, Tennessee.  She is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and is retired from TVA.  Upon her retirement she began recording Union County history and was appointed Union County Historian in 1994.  She has authored or co-authored 8 books:  Our Union [...]

(continued from yesterday…) Not everyone sided with Drake, however. On February 18, 1841, the KY legislature offered a reward of two thousand dollars to anyone “who shall, within five years after the passage of this act” succeed in discovering “the true cause of the disease, now known to be caused by the poisonous effects of [...]

Variously described as the trembles, the slows, or the illness “under which man turns sick and his domestic animals tremble,” milk sickness was a frequent 19th century cause of illness and death throughout much of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Ohio (also Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan). It sometimes killed as many as half the people [...]