Collections : [West Virginia and Regional History Center]

Scrapbooks, mainly of newspaper clippings, maintained by a mining engineer, geologist, and businessman from Charleston. The scrapbooks contain clippings, announcements, and a few letters relating to Krebs' business, Charleston civic affairs, and professional engineering organizations. Topics covered include: the oil boom at Blue Creek in 1912; oil field development in Kanawha and Clay counties; oil and coal shipments on the C.&O.; coal, oil, gas, and coke production figures; report on the coal strike of 1922; surveys of West Virginia's coal, oil, and gas resources; machinery used in coal production; disputed land claims of the Colonial Timber and Coal Corporation, 1923; the New River Coal field; drainage areas and water power in West Virginia; Hinton Dam; Pennsylvania bituminous districts; rate hearings of the United Fuel Gas Company; early coal and gas operations in West Virginia; Norfolk and Western Railway affairs; silicosis cases resulting from the Hawks Nest tunnel construction, 1933; and bituminous coal prices in West Virginia and the U.S., 1906-1925.

The collection consists of printed volumes relating to Colonel William Edwards, William W. Edwards, and William Henry Edwards; also copies of manuscript materials, including a diary of William Henry Edwards for 1846, and his "Journal and Preface to London Diary," 1848. Other materials relate to the family's coal interests in Kanawha County and include account books for the Coalsburg-Kanawha Mining Company, 1926-1928; the Deep Hollow Coal Company, 1920-1940; and the Kanawha and Ohio Coal Company, 1864-1866.

Negatives and other material from the Gravely and Moore Studio of Charleston, West Virginia. The majority of items within the collection are cellulose acetate negatives; the collection also includes glass plate negatives, prints, two photograph albums, and other material, as well as a card catalog documenting business transactions with customers. The collection is organized into customer project files as established by the Studio; the contents of these files are stored in envelopes usually containing one or two negatives, but they can contain up to a dozen or more. There are approximately 3,500 customer project files containing an estimated 11,000 items, most of which are negatives. The majority of photographs within the collection are portraits of individual adults. Other subjects include portraits of children; group photographs; businesses and advertising; members of the military; civil servants; civic organizations; missionaries; and aerial photographs, among others.

County court records consisting primarily of court case papers, related court record books (dockets, execution books, fee books, witness books, etc.), and public records concerning a variety of topics including land records, schools, and marriages. There are also a few private account books relating to various local industries, including salt, mining, sawmills, steamboats, and general stores.

Personal and business papers of the Lewis family, mainly of John D. (1800-1882), Charles C., Sr. (b.1839), and Charles C., Jr. (b.1865), of Kanawha County. For the period 1825-1875 there are papers of various members of the Ruffner, Dickinson, and Wilson families of West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Kansas, Missouri, and other states. The business papers relate to farming operations, the purchase and sale of slaves, salt manufacturing and trade, the Old Sweet Springs Company, coal, iron, oil, lumbering, railroads, and real estate in Kanawha, Clay, Boone, Fayette, and Nicholas counties. There are newspaper clippings, speeches, and other papers reflecting the Lewis' interests in the Democratic Party in the period 1914-1920. Settlement papers and correspondence regarding the estates of John D. Lewis, and Joel, Daniel, and Andrew Ruffner are in the collection. The personal papers include diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, and letters. Travel accounts in the United States, South America, and Europe are given in the correspondence, as well as comments on schools in West Virginia and Virginia; the building of a church in Kanawha County in 1834; missionary work in Colombia, South America, 1874-1875; Civil War and postwar conditions in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri; conditions at Camp Chase, in the Civil War; and material relating to World War I.

Correspondence, bills, receipts, and memoranda books of Gordon, Gordon, Jr., Jacob, George H., and Mrs. F.R. Mullen of Charleston. Subjects include farming operations; the management of a small store in Kanawha County, West Virginia; Barboursville College; and the State Free Silver Headquarters. The collection includes letterheads, business cards, and calendars of Charleston mercantile establishments, ca.1877-1914; and some Ku Klux Klan papers, 1928, of Dr. A.G. Mullen of Galesburg, Illinois.

Papers collected by Roy Bird Cook, a Lewis County native and Charleston pharmacist, who in his role as historian, researcher, and author, was a pioneering and effective advocate for the preservation of West Virginia history. This collection includes the papers he collected in connection with his research, including documentation of the Civil War in West Virginia, Stonewall Jackson and his family, and genealogy of North Central West Virginia, among other topics. Materials include letters and papers of the Hays family, including Samuel L. and Peregrine Hays of Gilmer County (1836-1884, 1952-1962, undated [includes facsimiles]); records of the Confederate 31st Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and later correspondence, clippings, and papers about the regiment and its members (ca. 1856-1955, undated [includes facsimiles]); various collections of individual and family papers and Civil War correspondence (1793-1974, undated [includes facsimiles]); original and copies of Stonewall Jackson letters and papers, as well as papers pertaining to Jackson family members (1801-1963, undated [includes facsimiles]); and materials related to the history of pharmacy and medicine, with a special focus on West Virginia (ca. 1832-1961, undated [includes facsimiles]). There is also an extensive series of bound notebooks containing manuscripts, transcriptions, clippings, genealogies, pamphlets, and images regarding the following topics: Stonewall Jackson, Mary Anna Morrison Jackson, Colonel George Jackson, and Thomas Jackson Arnold; the Civil War, including historical sketches of battles as well as originals and copies of soldiers' diaries, journals, and letters; Lewis County; Charleston and the Kanawha Valley; Douglas S. Freeman; Granville Davisson Hall; Camden family; George Washington; and other topics.

This collection of panoramic photographs primarily documents the coal miners of Fayette and Raleigh counties. The photographer, Rufus "Red" Ribble, was born May 14, 1878, near Blacksburg, Virginia, and died December 27, 1967 in West Virginia. He came to West Virginia sometime before 1920 and lived out his life in Mount Hope. The collection contains 119 panoramic photographs, which were made with a large rotating camera called a Cirkut camera. These photos are contact prints; all but one are black and white. Images include group portraits, landscapes/views of towns, and a few views of store interiors. Subjects of the photographs include coal miners, mining towns, local businesses, and local social and church groups. The majority of the photos are group portraits of coal miners from Fayette and Raleigh counties.

This microfilm version of the Thornton Tayloe Perry Collection held by the Virginia Historical Society contains historical material collected by Perry over a 30 year period. It concentrates upon western Virginia and West Virginia with particular emphasis upon the lower Shenandoah Valley and Jefferson, Berkeley, and Morgan counties of West Virginia. The microfilm was placed in the West Virginia Collection by the Virginia Historical Society under provisions of a National Historical Publications and Records Commission grant.