Appalachian History

In that back country in the 1870′s money was very scarce. Just how scarce we people of this day can hardly realize. Most trade in the store was exchange of goods for farm produce – eggs, butter, poultry, hides, feathers, ginseng, yellow root, etc. In order to get some real money Father went to the [...]

The extremes of wealth and poverty do not now exist and have never been existent in Tazewell. There are many comfortably wealthy men in the county; and, perhaps, half a dozen millionaires. But, with a population of 27,840 souls in the county, as shown by the census of 1920, there are only 53 paupers here. [...]

At the turn of the century, when 4,000 people lived here, at least 14 millionaires called Bramwell, WV home, making it the richest town per capita in the United States. The “Home of the Millionaires,” incorporated in 1889, was the business and residential community for Pocahontas coalfield owners and operators such as J.H. Bramwell, I.T. [...]

When asked what brought him to this community, Joe Raines said the Lord had sent him here as a pest on the Maynors and Williames for their meanness. That is the only reason Joe ever gave for coming to Cirtsville, WV. However, he came, and once here, he proceeded to make the most of the [...]

We need to be less aware of the picturesque, amusing or distressing differences, and more keenly conscious of the kinship of the mountain people with their kind elsewhere and everywhere. Otherwise we shall bring to noble effort in the mountains a certain disabling attitude that is fatal to success. And so over against the types [...]