Charleston WV – The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history.
To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Aug. 15, 1867: The cornerstone was laid for the Fairmont Branch Normal School (now
Fairmont State University).
Aug. 15, 1906: The Niagara Movement began a five-day meeting at Storer College in
Harpers Ferry. The organization was founded in 1905 by a group of Black intellectuals,
including W. E. B. Du Bois.
Aug. 15, 1946: The first FM radio station in the state, WCFC of Beckley, began regular
programming.
Aug. 16, 1851: William Hope “Coin” Harvey was born in Buffalo, Putnam County.
Harvey, a social reformer, was nominated for president of the United States by the Liberty Party
in 1932.
Aug. 16, 1913: Helen Holt was born in Illinois. In 1957, Governor Cecil Underwood
appointed her to fill the unexpired term of the secretary of state, making her the first woman to
hold statewide office in West Virginia.
Aug. 17, 1944: Staff Sergeant Stanley Bender of Fayette County earned the Medal of
Honor in southern France. Bender rushed through intense machine gun fire and grenades, and
knocked out two German machine guns with rifle fire. His actions inspired the rest of his
company to take out a German roadblock, kill 37 enemy soldiers, and take 26 prisoners.
Aug. 17, 1946: Old-time musician Dwight Diller was born in Rand but spent most of his
life in Pocahontas County, documenting, teaching, and performing traditional music.
Aug. 17, 1976: The National Mine Health and Safety Academy opened at Beaver, near
Beckley. The academy, located on a 76-acre campus, is the world’s largest educational
institution devoted solely to safety and health in mining.
Aug. 18, 1885: Artemus Ward Cox was born on a farm at Red Knob, Roane County. In
1914, Cox bought the George Ort Department Store on Capitol Street in Charleston. That store
became the first in a chain of 21 A. W. Cox stores in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio and
Kentucky.
Aug. 19, 1863: Union cavalry under Brigadier General William W. Averell destroyed the
Confederate saltpeter works near Franklin.
Aug. 19, 1997: Fiddler Curly Ray Cline died. Born in Logan County, Cline was a
member of the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys.
Aug. 20, 1851: The oldest statue in West Virginia, a nine-foot wood carving of Patrick
Henry, was dedicated at the county courthouse in Morgantown.
Aug. 20, 2004: Eldora Bolyard Nuzum died in Elkins. While working for the Grafton
Sentinel in 1946, she became the first female editor of a daily newspaper in West Virginia. For
three decades, she was editor of the Elkins Inter-Mountain.
Aug. 21, 1861: Confederate troops under General John B. Floyd crossed the Gauley
River at Carnifex Ferry, Nicholas County, and began to entrench their position. It was the
beginning of what became known as the Battle of Keslers Cross Lanes.
Aug. 21, 1915: Singer Ann Baker was born in Pennsylvania. She later operated a popular
Charleston nightclub, The Shalamar, and became known as “Charleston’s First Lady of Jazz.”