Q-7 Fullmer Wagner House*

This Wagner was the home to Lon and Elizabeth Fullmer and their 12 children. You may recognize Mr. Fullmer's name from the Forge where he was one of the two full-time Blacksmiths. He had been a skilled Blacksmith before coming Arthurdale and taught fellow homesteaders while he worked in the forge. After the government left, he continued to work in his own forge which was in the barn at Q-7. Some of his work is in the Smithsonian collection.

Lon (James Londus) Fullmer was born on March 12, 1889 in a log cabin near Hudson (near Valley Point) West Virginia to James Preston and Rachel Jane Cale Fullmer. Although he only completed the 6th grade, he was a self-educated man who could out-spell, out-write, and knew more math than most high school educated students. He could play 5 musical instruments and learned to play the piano and read music when he was about 70 years old.

He was an outstanding Blacksmith. His abilities ranged from shoeing horses and making farm and mine equipment to artistic smithing such as decorative wellheads, lamps (including one in the Roosevelt Museum in Hyde Park, New York), and pieces in the Smithsonian Museum. He also did contract work for the Smithsonian.

He was the excellent father of 12 children, 10 of whom he and Elizabeth "Lizzy" Fullmer raised to adulthood. Lon was hired in 1934 by Arthurdale as a Blacksmith and worked in the old wooden shop until the new forge was built. He continued as a smith until World War II started. He then worked as a Blacksmith and layout man for the DuPont Company in Morgantown. After the war, he returned to his own shop at his home in Arthurdale where he continued working well into his 80s. He died in May of 1980.

Arthurdale Heritage, Preserving Arthurdale, WV – Eleanor Roosevelt's New Deal Community. Arthurdale Heritage Inc.. Accessed March 20, 2017. http://www.arthurdaleheritage.org/.

Haid, Stephen Edward. "Arthurdale: An Experiment in Community Planning, 1933-1947." Master's thesis, West Virginia University, 1975.

Maloney, C. J. Back to the Land: Arthurdale, FDRs New Deal, and the Costs of Economic Planning. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

Patterson, Stuart. “A New Pattern of Life: The Public Past and Present of Two New Deal Communities.” Doctoral Thesis, Emory University, 2006.

Penix, Amanda Griffith. Images of America: Arthurdale. Arcadia Publishing, 2007.

Ward, Bryan. A New Deal for America. Arthurdale Heritage Inc., 1995