This location/address (1614 8th Avenue) is listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book (1954 edition), and was categorized as a restaurant which went by the name of "The Spot."

The Spot 

Contributor

A tour designed for bicycle exploring important events and places in the social history of Huntington, WV.

Huntington’s downtown developed and flourished from
1900 to 1930 because of the railroad that made the city a hub for industry. As
Huntington’s industries took off, local businesses, hotels, and churches formed
in the downtown area. Banks were established in large and elaborate buildings
during the 1920s to accommodate the booming local economy. The Union Bank and
Trust Company hired the architectural firm of Meaner and Handloser to construct
an office building on the corner of 9th Street and 4th Avenue, the heart of
downtown Huntington; Meaner and Handloser were responsible for designing many
of the city’s prominent buildings during the 1920s. The fifteen-story structure
was built in the Renaissance Revival style; the bottom and uppermost floors
were given an ashlar stone façade, while the remaining floors were brick. 

The building was completed in 1924 and initially housed
the Union Bank and Trust Company. It was the company’s second facility; previously
it had operated from a simple frame building on 9th Street and 4th
Avenue. The Union Bank heavily promoted the new building throughout its
construction. The bank’s tenure was short-lived however, as the stock market
crash in 1929 forced it to close. In 1943 a group of local businessmen
purchased the structure and renamed it the West Virginia Building, because it
was the tallest commercial building in the state at the time.

The first floor was remodeled and opened as a
Walgreens Drug Store in 1937. The business flourished for many years and was
said to have the best soda fountain in Huntington. One employee at the
Walgreens was Virginia Ruth Egnor, who later became famous as the 1950s television
star Dagmar. The store closed in 1961 after Walgreens’ corporate headquarters
declined to renew its lease. Another drug store, the Thrift Drug Company, occupied
the space for a brief time but quickly folded. When news station WSAZ converted
from radio to television in 1949, their offices were temporarily located in the
West Virginia Building so that they could utilize the building’s height for
broadcasting. When a nearby movie theater burned in 1950, the station crew
pointed a television camera out a window and broadcast the fire live. 

The following years saw the West Virginia Building
serve variously as commercial space and apartment units, including housing for
Marshall University students. The building began to deteriorate, and in 1981 it
was purchased by the firm of Perry, Monroe &amp; Perry for a mere $500,000. The
company spent years and millions of dollars refurbishing the structure. Most of
the remaining office space was turned into apartments; utilities were installed
or upgraded; and the top floor was converted into a restaurant space. In 2007
the building was acquired by Well Street Properties, LLC, a New York-based
company. 

Local businessman Alex Vence purchased the West
Virginia Building in 2013 and continued the series of renovations that had been
ongoing since the 1980s. The living spaces were renovated into upscale luxury
apartment units and cosmetic improvements were made to the exterior. One of the
most notable changes was the installation of a multi-colored LED lighting
program on the top two floors of the building; it was modeled after the lighting
system for the Empire State Building and changes color to commemorate various events
and holidays. The conversion of the West Virginia Building in the 2010s was
credited with improving the downtown Huntington economy and served as a successful
model of adaptive reuse for historic structures.

Originally known as the Union Bank and Trust Building, the West Virginia Building was constructed in 1924-1925 and was the largest commercial building in the state at the time. Huntington’s Union Bank and Trust company failed during the Great Depression, and the building was later renamed the West Virginia Building. The 9th Street Walgreens was housed in the first floor of the West Virginia Building from 1937 to 1961. The structure underwent a series of renovations and restorations beginning in the 1980s and continuing into the 2010s. Today the West Virginia Building houses luxury apartment units as well as businesses on the first floor. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Downtown Huntington Historic District. 

The West Virginia Building

In 1934, Morris and Sadie Bailey opened Bailey’s Cafeteria in the basement of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Shortly after opening, the couple moved the restaurant to a new location on the east side of the 400 block of 9th Street. In 1937, Bailey’s Cafeteria was among the hundreds of businesses that saw their establishment underwater in the great Ohio River Flood. They cleaned up the muddy mess and re-opened the restaurant and continued to serve the community for another six decades. The restaurant is fondly remembered by most residents of the city, but for nearly three decades, the establishment only allowed white patrons to sit inside. .  The Civic Interests Progressives (CIP) was established by a group of Marshall University students with the support of some of the leaders of the Black community of Huntington. The CIP tried to integrate the restaurant, but the manager, Floyd E. Walker, the nephew of Morris and Sadie Bailey, refused. Walker cited his belief that integration would hurt business because many of his regular customers would stop patronizing his restaurant. On April 25, 1963, five Black and five white students planned and executed a well-choreographed protest at Bailey’s to demonstrate the injustice and the arbitrary nature of drawing the color line. The white students went in first, followed by the Blacks. Walker exclaimed that the restaurant would not serve Blacks, but they continued through the line anyway. They all sat together and the white students shared the food that they had been permitted to order. While previous demonstrations had resulted in no service and less disruption to the business, this unique and creative strategy placed the business owner in the position of either accepting integration or preventing his own paying customers from choosing what they did with the food that they had already paid for.  The students planned to follow this strategy for a second protest on Tuesday, April 30th. In response, the owner decided to close the restaurant early. The students arrived again the following day, May 1 1963, but two men physically blocked the entrance to the restaurant and refused to move out of the way for the Black students. In response, the students decided to picket the restaurant. The next day, Walker and co-owner Sadie Bailey told the students who arrived to picket that they would secure a court order and have the students arrested if they would not leave. Eleven students were subpoenaed to appear in court on Saturday, May 4th. The judge asked Bailey’s Cafeteria to alter their request for a court order barring the students from protesting, claiming that their first draft was “insufficient,” and showed no evidence or need for an injunction. The new petition was submitted on May 8 and asserted that the student's actions would result in the loss of revenue for the business. Judge Hereford turned down the restaurant's appeal for an injunction on May 11th. The judge explained that the only way he could grant the injunction would be if the picketing resulted in damage or violence. Since the protests had been peaceful, the judge refused to issue an injunction. In a tense environment, the judge also took a position on the issue. Hereford stated that the real issue was one of race, and suggested that if his favorite place to eat was good for him, then it was good for Black residents as well. Sensing the changes of the era and recognizing that the judge and police would not prevent the students from protesting segregation, Bailey’s Cafeteria finally agreed to stop segregation after a “two-week period of adjustment.” The end of the explicit color line did not mean the end of discrimination in Bailey's or other restaurants, but it did help accelerate the end of "whites only" policies in Huntington. The following year, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation and future court cases upheld the federal law. Other cases upheld the rights of protesters, including a Supreme Court decision baring states and city's from interfering with peaceful sit-in demonstrations in places of public accommodation. The victory against the owners of Bailey’s inspired the CIP to continue their protest at other restaurants that maintained the color line, including The White Pantry. Roba Quesenberry, the owner of this establishment, was notorious among the Black community. To compare the two restaurants, former Marshall Basketball player, Phil Carter, called The White Pantry “a greasy spoon,” and considered Bailey’s to be much more enjoyable because it served good food at an affordable price. At the first sit-in at The White Pantry on July 13, 1963, twenty-five CIP members entered the restaurant, but only the whites were served, and things started to get hairy. The students began to share their food, and in retaliation, an employee broke every plate touched by a Black student. In sit-ins to come, employees would mop the floor with ammonia, spray insecticides, turn on the heat, and owner Roba Quesenberry, lit sulfur cakes and once used a cattle prod on Phil Carter. Quesenberry once said that he wouldn’t integrate unless forced by law, which eventually took place in 1964 when the Supreme Court banned all racial discrimination. Despite this, employees of the White Pantry recall the the owner would intentionally serve would-be Black patrons undercooked food, resulting in more altercations that hurt the restaurant's reputation among many of the city's restaurants.

Bailey’s Cafeteria earned a reputation as one of the best eateries in Huntington, West Virginia at the turn of the century. The popular restaurant was established in 1934 and remained open for six decades. To this day, many residents recall the restaurant with fondness, but prior to 1963, the restaurant was not open to all residents of the state. Members of the Civic Interest Progressives, a local civil rights organization established to challenge segregation, launched sit-in protests against Bailey's and several other Huntington restaurants in the spring of 1963.  On May 1, 1963. The owners of Bailey’s Cafeteria then filed a court order against the protesters to stop the picketing in front of the restaurant. This attempt to use the courts to squelch the protest backfired and the more students and community members joined the protest. Hoping to end the demonstration, the owner reluctantly agreed to end segregation at Bailey’s. With this decision, several other restaurants followed suit and the Civic Interest Progressives focussed their efforts on the remaining establishments. 

Bailey's Cafeteria; 1963 Civil Rights Sit-In

African Americans used nonviolent protest tactics against segregation for generations prior to the modern civil rights movement, including dozens of African Americans who refused to give up their seat within railcars and other forms of public transportation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. African Americans held formal sit-ins to protest racial discrimination at libraries and places of public accommodation in the years prior to World War II, including a 1939 sit-in within an Alexandria, Virginia library that only allowed white patrons. During the 1940s, students and community members in northern and western cities held organized and sustained sit-ins within restaurants in Midwestern university towns. A sit-in at a segregated lunch counter at Wichita's Dockhum drug store in 1958 served as a harbinger of things to come in 1960. Sit-ins at segregated lunch counters attracted national attention in the spring of 1960 following a sit-in by four college students in Greensboro, NC. On February 1st, four students occupied seats at the lunch counter at a local Woolworth. Additional students joined the protest which grew until over three hundred protesters filled the store on February 5th. News of this protest inspired similar sit-ins throughout North Carolina the following week. By the end of the month, there were sit-ins in dozens of southern cities and hundreds of restaurants and lunch counters ended their policy of racial segregation.   The situation in Huntington mirrored the national trend towards racial integration, but the owner of this particular restaurant refused to serve African Americans even the other restaurants opened their doors to all customers. Few African Americans wished to eat at the White Pantry, which had a reputation of sub-standard food and service, but by 1963, a growing number of Huntingtonians decided that they would challenge the owner's racial bigotry. Students at Marshall University, led by community members, utilized the civil rights organization known as the Civic Interest Progressives to organize sustained protests at the White Pantry. The support of attorney Hebert Henderson was critical to the ultimate success of these sit-ins, but students such as basketball standout Phil Carter were physically attacked by the owner during these events. In addition, the owner ordered employees to spray pesticides next to Black protesters, mop the floor with ammonia, and even lit a sulfur cake causing noxious fumes that forced the students to leave. Even after the court ordered the restaurant owner to serve all patrons, discrimination continued, including servers who delivered uncooked food to Black patrons as directed by the restaurant owner.During the sit-ins at the White Pantry, the owner physically attacked students and even burned sulfur cakes to release toxic fumes that forced the protesters to leave the premises. Gustavus Cleckly and Cicero Fain were arrested on trespassing charges by the Huntington Police Department. The police later served the two civil rights organizers with "John Doe" warrants. (A "John Doe" warrant is used for the arrest of a person whose name is unknown, and is sometimes used to arrest a person known by sight and not by name).From an interview conducted in 2020 by Delcie Davis, a former employee during the sit-ins who served as a hostess and cook at the age of 17, more information can be discovered about the tactics and attitudes of the restaurant owner. Davis confirmed that the owner used many of the tactics that harmed the student protesters but did not believe that the owner ever used a cattle prod. However, she indicated that even after the restaurant was ordered to serve all customers, he declared that the law "did not dictate how I cook" and deliberately sent raw and under-cooked meals to African American patrons. While she was employed for years as a hostess, she often times worked as a short order cook when needed. She indicated that this would sometimes result in altercations as Black patrons responded to the raw bacon and eggs they were served for breakfast. The intent of the owner, Davis indicated, was to continue his practice of only serving white customers by discouraging Black patrons without explicitly refusing service as he had in the past.The atmosphere around the restaurant grew more notorious and the proximity of the police station likely prevented violence. However, Davis confirmed that the owner lit surfer cakes and took other actions that put students in danger and sometimes also placed his staff in an uncomfortable position. For more information about the sit-ins and share-ins, as well as the organization of the Civic Interest Progressives, please click on the videos and article by Isaac McKown. McKown's research was conducted as part of Marshall University's Carter G. Woodson Project. Located within Marshall's history department website, the Woodson Project hosts a number of articles about African American history in West Virginia. These articles are based upon research in local archives, newspapers, and interviews with longtime Huntington residents.

In 1963, members of the Civic Interest Progressives, a civil rights organization led by Marshall students and Huntington community leaders, challenged racial discrimination at local eateries such as Bailey's and the White Pantry Inn. After students waging a sit-in were attacked at the White Pantry, they changed their strategy and held a series of "share-ins." In these protests, liberal white students who wanted to help challenge the color line would enter a restaurant and order a meal. After the meal was delivered, they would invite African American students to join them at their table. Although these protests, combined with the legal work of local attorney Herbert Henderson, led to the end of Jim Crow at many Huntington restaurants prior to the spring of 1963, the owner of the White Pantry turned violent and attacked one of the Black students with a cattle prod. The second video clip below shows a young woman on the ground gasping for air after the owner of the White Pantry Inn lit sulfur cakes to force Black students to leave his restaurant.

Sit-in at the White Pantry, 1963

There is relatively little information about the cast iron statue of a Union soldier that once stood at this location. Newspaper sources indicate that the statue was erected in the 1890s, likely by members of the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1915, a group of residents with Southern affinities announced their intention to erect a statue of a Confederate soldier in the city's Ritter Park. The group hoped to win support for their plan among residents--most of whom observed a tradition of silence about the memory of a war that had divided residents throughout the region--by "balancing" the park's interpretation by moving the statue of the Union soldier to Ritter Park as well. This plan upset many residents who hoped to avoid controversy, especially those who remembered the actions of Confederate raiders and were proud of the state's allegiance to the Union. From the perspective of these residents, erecting a statue of a Confederate soldier "would be discreditable to the Union cause." As locals debated the issue, a number of conflicts erupted. The ensuing controversy came to a head when residents woke up to find that the Union statue had disappeared. Some residents reported that they had seen men loading the statue on a wagon, but did not report the occurrence because they assumed that the men were moving the statue to Ritter Park. To this day, no one knows the fate of that Union soldier.  Several other Union monuments disappeared throughout the state. As a result, there are more Confederate monuments in the state than there are monuments honoring the majority of West Virginians who supported the Union. Because West Virginia was created in opposition to secession, the creation of pro-Confederate monuments in the early 20th century and the simultaneous destruction of Union memorials illustrates how historical interpretations are often contentious.

A statue of a Union soldier was once located on the southwestern corner of 5th Avenue and 9th Street in Huntington. The statue stood above a public drinking fountain, across the street from Hansford Watts' Fifth Avenue Hotel, and in front of Carnegie Public Library. Although sources vary, it appears that the statue was vandalized and removed in 1915 which was around the same time that Confederate sympathizers announced plans to create a monument to Southern soldiers. 

The Lost Union Statue (1915)

Frederick Prichard and his business partner, Houghton A. Robson, hired Cincinnati architects Elzner and Anderson to design the ten-story Robson-Prichard building, which would house their real estate offices. The building would have 175 office spaces, fireproof vaults, combination locks in all offices, a vacuum steam heating system, ice water fountains on each floor, hot and cold water in each room, and lighting by bottled gas and electricity. It opened for business in 1910, with the Huntington Banking and Trust Company and a coffee shop on the first floor. Prichard and Robson housed their real estate office on the fourth floor of the building, while other Huntington-based businesses such as the Island Creek Coal Company and Lumberman’s Insurance Company had offices on the remaining floors. Along with other prominent banks in Huntington, the Huntington Banking and Trust Company collapsed during the Great Depression and did not reopen. The Cincinnati-based Western and Southern Life Insurance Company foreclosed on the bank, and the building sat empty until 1939, when Sterling Diddle founded the Guaranty Bank and Trust Company on its first floor. The new bank occupied the building until it moved to another location in the early 1950s. The name of the Robson-Prichard Building was changed to the Guaranty Bank Building due to the success of the newly established bank.In 1946, Western and Southern Life Insurance Company sold the building to Sheriff Don Chafin of Logan, West Virginia. Chafin was well-known for his involvement in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. A fierce opponent of unionization, Chafin had mobilized a force of deputies, national guardsmen, and local townspeople to prevent armed miners from marching across Logan County to free imprisoned miners in Mingo County. Chafin resided in the penthouse of the Robson-Prichard Building, which he installed in 1947, until his death in 1954. Concerned for his safety, he installed guards in the lobby as well as at the top of the elevator. Shortly before his death, Chafin had the building renamed after himself. After his passing, the Chafin Building was sold to the C&amp;O Railway, which housed its engineering department there from 1957 to 1977. While it was owned by the C&amp;O Railway, the building’s lobby was occupied by Stonewall Jackson Life Insurance Company. In 1977, the Chafin Building was purchased by lawyer Stanley Prizer, who then sold the building to John Hankins in 1997. After Hankins purchased the building, he was approached by Sterling Hall, grandson of Sterling Diddle, who requested that the structure be renamed the Guaranty Bank Building after he reopened Guaranty Bank on the first floor. The first floor lobby area has since housed First Sentry Bank, which merged with Guaranty Bank in 2009, as well as the downtown branch of Fifth Third Bank. As of September 2019, it currently houses United Bank, and the building has been renamed the United Bank Building. Various local law firms have occupied the top floors over the years; currently, Anspach Law houses the tenth floor below the penthouse. The owner of the building, John Hankins, is remodeling the remaining floors, and has recently remodeled the penthouse where he resides.

The Guaranty Bank Building is a high-rise office building on the central block of Ninth Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in downtown Huntington. Originally called the Robson-Prichard Building after its owners, Frederick Prichard and Houghton A. Robson, the building opened in 1910 with a bank on its first floor and offices of various businesses on its upper floors. After the bank failed during the Great Depression, the Guaranty Bank and Trust operated on its first floor until it moved locations in the 1950s. During the 1940s, the building was sold to Sheriff Don Chafin, who lived in the guarded penthouse until his death. Since his passing, the building has changed owners several times, and many different local businesses and banks have been housed in this historic piece of Huntington’s skyline. As of September 2019, the first floor now houses United Bank. Although it has changed hands and names many times over the years, the historic building remains a staple of Huntington’s skyline.

The Guaranty Bank Building

Collis Potter Huntington was born on October 22, 1821, in Harwinton, Connecticut. Huntington was raised in a poor household; he left at the age of fourteen to travel throughout the South as a peddler selling watches and other merchandise. Huntington's second entrepreneurial endeavor was in the form of a general store in Oneonta, New York. Sometime around 1849, he journeyed to California during its gold rush and established a store that sold mining equipment. This business proved highly successful, and Huntington quickly became significantly wealthy. He utilized these profits to invest in other business opportunities, expanding his financial clout.Huntington was very active in the Republican Party, and his involvement sparked interest in the railroad industry. In 1860, he joined a partnership with Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Charles Crocker, who became known historically as the “Big Four.” With an investment of $1,500, Huntington and the other members of the Big Four created the Central Pacific Railroad Company. In 1862, Huntington secured a commission from the U.S. government to build the western half of what would be the Transcontinental Railroad. The railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, when the Central Pacific linked with the Union Pacific.The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad earned Huntington a great deal of fame, and in November 1869 he singlehandedly purchased control of the struggling Chesapeake &amp; Ohio Railroad in Virginia. The C&amp;O sought to extend their line to connect the James River in Virginia with the Ohio River in West Virginia, but damages caused during the Civil War had derailed these plans. Huntington agreed to provide the necessary funding to build the railroad in exchange for being appointed president of the C&amp;O. He actively helped plan the route of the rail line through the Appalachian Mountains and selected a plot of land along the Ohio River to be the site of its terminus. Construction of the terminus, immediately dubbed Huntington, began in 1871. Huntington himself was not very involved in the creation of the city other than choosing the location, and much of the planning was left to his brother-in-law Delos W. Emmons and engineer Rufus Cook. The C&amp;O’s expanded line was completed in 1873.During the 1880s, Huntington also extended the C&amp;O further east to the port of Newport News, Virginia (which he also founded), and west to Cincinnati. This enabled coal from West Virginia to be transported to even farther markets. The rapid expansion of the lines proved a great strain to the C&amp;O, and in 1887 the company went into default. It was saved when J. P. Morgan purchased a controlling stake in the company, but Huntington was pushed out as result. He still retained control of the Central Pacific and Southern Pacific Railroads, the Newport News Shipyard, and owned vast amounts of land across the country. Huntington died in 1900 with a net worth of around $70 million.Around 1924 Huntington’s widow Arabella and his favorite nephew Henry commissioned a sculpture of the city’s founder in his honor. The eight-foot bronze statue was sculpted by artist Gutzon Borglum, who later achieved international recognition as the creator of the Mount Rushmore monument. The statue was unveiled on October 23, 1924, in a ceremony attended by approximately 7,000 people. The Huntington Boy Scout Band gave a performance and Pastor M. L. Woods of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church delivered the invocation. Neither Borglum nor the Huntington family attended the ceremony.The Collis P. Huntington statue originally stood in front of the C&amp;O depot. In May 1977, it was moved to Heritage Station, a newly-created retail center that had formerly been Huntington’s Baltimore &amp; Ohio Railroad depot. In 1999 CSX Transportation, which occupied the former C&amp;O depot, requested that the statue be returned to its original location. Some speculated that CSX desired the move because it was the successor company to the C&amp;O, whereas Collis P. Huntington had no affiliation with the B&amp;O. The statue was moved back to the C&amp;O depot in 2000 with the understanding that CSX pay for its transportation costs, but that the statue remain under the ownership of the Greater Huntington Park and Recreation District.

Collis P. Huntington was a famous railroad tycoon and one of the "Big Four" promoters of the Central Pacific Railroad that became part of the Transcontinental Railroad. Huntington later became the President of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway which completed a line from Richmond to the Ohio River Valley. The new railroad led to the creation of an industrial city along the Ohio River which was named Huntington in his honor. The statue was created in 1924 by Gutzon Borglum, a sculptor most famous for creating Mount Rushmore.

Collis P. Huntington Statue

The Socialist movement came to West Virginia in the early 1900s and found a receptive audience among the working class, primarily coal miners but also those in manufacturing industries. Support grew rapidly, and by the 1910s there were thousands of Socialist Party members in the state, organized into 86 branches. Socialists were elected to 40 local political offices, and a number of communities were dominated by Socialist municipal governments, most notably Morgantown. The Socialist Party focused heavily on workers’ rights and became associated with many labor unions. Socialism in West Virginia began declining in the mid-1910s due to a variety of factors: new restrictions on third parties imposed by the state legislature; the alienation of many party members when some developed a more militant ideology; and the United States’ entry into World War I.

Several newspapers dedicated to Socialist ideology were published in West Virginia, with one opening in Huntington in 1911 or 1912. The Socialist and Labor Star was described as the official mouthpiece of the Huntington Trades &amp; Labor Assembly. The Labor Star was housed in a building on Seventh Avenue. It was owned and operated by The Socialist Printing Company, a printing business that also sold books, stationery, and other printed materials for local labor unions. The four-page newspaper was published weekly on Fridays.

The paper’s founder and editor, Wyatt Hamilton “W. H.” Thompson, was born in Malden, West Virginia in 1885. Thompson spent his childhood working in a coal mine before securing a printing apprenticeship in Charleston. Thompson served two terms as president of the Huntington Typographical Union, was a delegate to the 1914 American Federation of Labor Convention, and occasionally wrote pieces for publications such as the International Socialist Review. It is significant to note that Thompson did not receive a salary for his work with the Labor Star and worked for another local newspaper to supplement his income. Other members of the staff included Ralph Chaplin, who later became an editor for the Industrial Workers of the World; and Sarah Swann, the paper’s only female editor.&nbsp; 

During its brief existence, the Labor Star focused primarily on labor-related issues, politics, foreign policy, and religion. The paper found itself in hot water in 1913 when it began commenting on the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike in Kanawha County. The strike began in April 1912 when coal mine operators refused to renew their contract with the United Mine Workers union. The strike descended into violence, with armed clashes between miners and strikebreakers hired by the mine operators. The strike ended a year later in April 1913 when Governor Henry Hatfield imposed a controversial settlement on the miners and operators. Thompson and the Labor Star strongly criticized the proposal, arguing that it cheated miners and did not offer them any concessions. The newspaper’s attacks on the agreement drew the attention of Hatfield, who came to regard the Labor Star as a political enemy. 

On May 5, 1913 warrants were signed for the arrest of Thompson and four other officials in the Socialist Printing Company under the guise that they were inciting riot and insurrection. Under the orders of Governor Hatfield, members of the Cabell County Sheriff’s Department and the state militia launched a raid on the Labor Star and its employees on May 9. At around two o’clock in the morning sheriff’s deputies arrested Thompson, Elmer Rumbaugh, F. M. Sturm, R. M. Kephart, and George W. Gillespie at their residences. Meanwhile, the militia went to the Labor Star’s printing facility, confiscated the May 9 edition, and destroyed the printing presses. The Labor Star estimated that up to $2,000 in damage had been inflicted upon the Socialist Printing Company. 

After a brief detainment, Thompson and the others were transferred from Cabell County to the Kanawha County jail. Gillespie, Sturm, and Kephart were released the following day, but Thompson and Rumbaugh were held for another fourteen days; none of them were ever charged with a crime. Despite the destruction of its presses and significant financial troubles, the Labor Star resumed publication on May 30; it promptly described the raid as an “act of tyranny of the Hatfield Military Regime”. In 1915 it merged with the Argus Labor Socialist newspaper in Charleston to create the Argus Star. &nbsp;Thompson became editor of the new paper and for a time it had offices in both Huntington and Charleston.

At this location from 1911 to 1915, Wyatt Hamilton “W. H.” Thompson published the Socialist and Labor Star, a newspaper published in Huntington during the height of the Socialist movement in West Virginia during the early twentieth century. The paper's headquarters was a former building on Seventh Avenue and the paper was printed under the name of the Socialist Printing Company. The paper covered issues related to the labor movement and commented frequently on the 1912-1913 Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike. The political views of the Labor Star and its harsh criticism of Governor Henry Hatfield led local officials to order the police to raid the newspaper office on the morning of May 9, 1913. Under the orders of governor Hatfield, editor W. H. Thompson was arrested and the Labor Star's printing press was destroyed by state militia. The paper recovered from the incident and continued publication until it merged with a Socialist paper in Charleston to form the Argus Star in 1915.

The Socialist and Labor Star (Huntington West Virginia Newspaper Office 1911-1915)

Prior to Huntington’s incorporation in 1871, there were no African American churches in Cabell County, leading many parishioners to attend services across the river in Ohio. Although the white churches in the area may have allowed African Americans to attend their services, the community quickly agitated for their own sites of worship. The First Baptist Church (first named Mt. Olive Baptist Church) and Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church were both established soon after the city was founded. At the time, Huntington had few facilities where the congregations could meet, so members of the two churches appear to have initially worshiped together at a building on Norway Avenue near today’s Spring Hill Cemetery. Later, Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church’s first church building was constructed at the intersection of 8th Avenue and 16th Street. Its first pastor was the Reverend Jacob Owens. The congregation then relocated to a building at the intersection of 16th Street and Artisan Avenue, where it remained until the church moved to its current location on 8th Avenue between 17th Street and Hal Greer Boulevard in 1917. That year, the cornerstone of the new church was laid by the Reverend A. H. Whitfield. The building is a one-story brick structure distinguished by a bell tower at its northeast corner, which has decorative stone- and brickwork and an octagonal roof. The church’s facade has a central arched window opening filled with stained glass windows. A plaque located in front of the church reads “In Memory, Rev. and Mrs. C. E. McGhee,” which may be a reference to the Reverend Charles Edmond McGhee. McGhee was the founder of the West Virginia Colored Orphans’ Home in Huntington. Around 1939, the congregation was renamed the Ebenezer Methodist Church in 1939. In 1965 or 1966, renovations began at the church, resulting in a new parsonage that was completed and consecrated between 1967 and 1969. The church was renamed the Ebenezer United Methodist Church in 1968. Ebenezer United Methodist Church serves the community in a variety of ways beyond traditional church services. In 1976, a daycare was started at the church with the expectation that a full-time outreach center would be started soon after. The Ebenezer Community Outreach Program began in the late 1970s during Reverend Richard A. Miller’s term as pastor. In 1982, the church purchased property across the street for a future Ebenezer Community Outreach Building. Construction started on the community center two years later, with Walter S. Donat, Inc., as the architect. Donat was also credited on the architectural drawings for First Baptist Church’s main building in the 1960s. In 1985-1986, the daycare at Ebenezer Outreach Community Center was licensed for seventy children. Today, Ebenezer Community Outreach Center continues to offer programs to the local community, such as preschool childcare and after school and summer children's programs, as well as a clothing closet, baby supplies, and school supplies for those in need. In 1986, Ebenezer Outreach Community Center began operating a free medical clinic on a volunteer basis. In 1988, the clinic was placed under a medical advisory committee and began opening for eight hours a week in partnership with the residency program at Marshall University. Through grant funding and donations from area United Methodist Churches, the clinic continued to operate through the early 1990s. To receive greater funding, Ebenezer Medical Outreach incorporated as a separate organization with its own board of directors. In early 2003, the medical clinic moved its physical operations to the Douglass Centre, the former Douglass Junior and Senior High School, where it continues to provide medical services to the Fairfield West community today. Since its foundation, Ebenezer United has been a fixture of the African American community on the south side of Huntington known as the Fairfield neighborhood. The leadership provided by the church has shaped the African American experience in the city, offering its members the opportunity for status and uplift. According to historian Cicero M. Fain III, as the city’s African Americans acquired land, opened businesses, and founded churches and schools, they “helped facilitate a transformation in the development of Black culture and consciousness, as evidenced by the expansion of Black institutions, the rise of a Black middle class, and civil and political challenges to the racial and class status quo.” In 1965, the church was integrated, although it remained a primarily African American church due to the demographics of its neighborhood. It was the first church in Huntington - and one of the first in the state of West Virginia - to do so. Given its significance as a local religious and cultural institution, the church is a potential nominee for the National Register of Historic Places. As the oldest African American church building in Huntington, the building meets the fifty-year age minimum of most eligible structures and the exterior remains well-preserved.

Ebenezer Methodist Church is one of the earliest African-American churches established in Huntington. The church was established in the early 1870s on Norway Avenue before it relocated to its current building at 1651 8th Avenue in 1917. In 1965, Ebenezer Methodist Church was integrated, becoming the first in the city, and possibly the state, to have done so. During the 1970s, the church established the Ebenezer Community Outreach Center Inc. to provide children with a safe learning environment and address issues of literacy, racism, economic conditions and spiritual hopelessness. The church also operates an affiliated medical clinic, Ebenezer Medical Outreach Inc., that provides medical services to the Fairfield community. 

Ebenezer United Methodist Church

Carter G. Woodson was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, on December 19, 1875, where he grew up working on a farm. Carter’s family temporarily moved to Fayette County, West Virginia, in the 1880s so that his father could work in the railroad industry, and he and his brother could work in the coal mines. In 1895, when Carter was 20 years old, he enrolled in high school at Frederick Douglass High School and completed all the coursework required to graduate in just two years. After graduating in 1897, Carter attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, but graduated from Berea College in Kentucky in 1903. Berea had been a higher education institution established by abolitionists in the 1850s with the purpose of educating ex-slaves, and Carter graduated one year before Kentucky made a law prohibiting interracial education. Carter returned to Frederick Douglass High School after graduating college to teach, and also spent four years teaching in the Philippines. Carter G. Woodson valued education more than anything in life, and believed that it was the key to transforming society, improving race relations, and benefiting the lower classes. He enrolled in the University of Chicago in 1907 to better educate himself, and graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in European History; his thesis was on French diplomatic policy toward Germany in the eighteenth century. In 1909, Woodson was accepted to Harvard University and earned his Ph.D in history in 1912 with the assistance of scholarships. Woodson’s dissertation was never published, but it was on the events leading to the creation of the state of West Virginia after the Civil War broke out. After Harvard, Woodson taught in Washington until 1919 at the Armstrong and Dunbar/M Street high schools. From 1919 to 1920, Woodson was the dean of arts and sciences, professor of history, and head of the graduate program in history at Howard University. Then from 1920 to 1922, Woodson taught at the West Virginia Collegiate Institute, followed by a return to Washington to direct the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History full time.While Woodson was earning ranks in higher education, he was also still working on his passion project of spreading knowledge of African American history to all levels. The Journal of Negro History began publication in 1916, to provide a platform for works in Black history. Woodson believed that if African American history was taught at all levels it would diminish racial issues, and founded the annual celebration of Negro History Week in February 1926. The Journal of Negro History led to the creation of the Negro History Bulletin, another platform that could be used to publish African American history works, and the Negro History Week turned into what we now know at Black History Month. The Journal of Negro History was a pure form of equality; not only did the journal provide a place for Black scholars to be published, but it also provided a place for white scholars to be published when their ideas of slavery or Black history did not fit the well-known white narrative. The journal provided multiple topics on Black history such as slavery, the slave trade, Black culture, the family, religion, and antislavery and abolitionism, and included biographical articles on prominent African Americans.Negro History Week increased awareness of and interest in Black history among both Blacks and whites, and was chosen to be celebrated at that time because of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays. Each year, he sent promotional brochures and pamphlets to state boards of education, elementary and secondary schools, colleges, women's clubs, Black newspapers and periodicals, and white scholarly journals suggesting ways to celebrate. Woodson provided these institutions with primary and secondary sources to be handed out as information, and eventually Negro History Week was being celebrated in every state in America, and even reached some foreign countries.Woodson changed the way America viewed the Black population by using new sources and methods, such as census data, slave testimony, and oral history. This information made Americans realize that Blacks were not just victims of white oppression, but they were vital and major roles in America’s development. The NAACP awarded Woodson with the highest honor, the Spingarn Medal, in June 1926, because of his endless efforts to promote African American history. Woodson directed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History until his death in 1950; today there are multiple scholarships and programs dedicated to his life and research.

Carter G. Woodson, known to many as "the Father of Black History,” was born to former slaves and worked in the mines of West Virginia before graduating from Berea College, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University, where he earned his Ph.D. Woodson believed that educating the populace about Black history had the power to transform society, improve race relations, and benefit people of all races. Woodson was educated in the segregated public schools of Huntington, West Virginia, and became the principal of his former high school after completing a teacher certification program at Kentucky's racially integrated Berea College. He went on to earn a M.A. from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Woodson founded Negro History Week in February of 1926, and his efforts to grow this annual celebration of Black history and culture led to the creation of Black History Month. Woodson also created the Journal of Negro History and the scholarly and community organization known today as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. These institutions, together with his scholarly and popular books, journals, and articles, provided a platform for educating others about African American history with works written by Black and white scholars. Woodson was among one of the first scholars to research and publish works on slavery from the perspective of the enslaved.This statue was commemorated in 2003, and is said that Woodson's line of sight is directly pointed at the first location of Douglass High School.

Carter G. Woodson Statue

Reverend Albert D. Lewis was one of the earliest leaders of Huntington’s African American community. Born in 1858, Lewis arrived in Huntington in the 1890s after working as a railroad laborer in Baltimore, Richmond, and Kentucky. Once in Huntington, Lewis drove the city’s first Adams Express wagon before he became a clergyman. He served as pastor of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church from 1915 to 1927. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was formed ten years prior, in 1905, after forty-one people separated from the First Baptist Church. The current church building was constructed around 1924 under Reverend Lewis’s leadership. Beyond overseeing the construction of the new building, Lewis had a widespread impact on Huntington’s African Americans. Indeed, the leadership provided by the church during Reverend Lewis’s time shaped the African American experience in the city and endures today.  In 1918, Reverend Lewis reportedly donated the property that would eventually become the A.D. Lewis Community Center. The community center’s origins can be traced to the early 1950s, when a public swimming pool was built at the site. During the era of segregation, the pool was the only public swimming pool open full-time to Huntington’s Black residents. Prior to its construction, African Americans could only use the public swimming pool in Ironton, Ohio on Mondays. The A.D. Lewis Community Center was founded in 1967. Alongside nearby institutions like churches and schools, it rapidly became a prominent feature of the Fairfield West community, providing the neighborhood’s African American youth with recreational activities and after school educational programs. According to a 1995 newspaper article, the community center was operated by the City of Huntington through community development block grants. The facility has served many functions over the years, including providing recreational and educational activities for children and young adults. It has also served as a gathering place for birthdays, receptions, church groups, and other public and private events. Today, the Community Center is one of the most utilized public resources in the Fairfield neighborhood. Along with the swimming pool, which is the last remaining public pool in Huntington, the center offers basketball courts, a playground, a football field, and other recreational opportunities for youths in the Fairfield neighborhood. Inside, the center offers a game room with a pool table, a ping pong table, an air hockey table, a foosball table and a utility room that can be used for meetings, crafts and movies. The center’s weight room has many types of equipment like weight benches and treadmills. The A.D. Lewis Community Center also offers programs for youth to attend, such as after-school meals and tutoring and ACT prep classes.

The A.D. Lewis Community Center dates back to the establishment of the first municipal pool for African Americans in the era of segregation. Today, it is a full-service community center named in honor of Baptist Minister Reverend A.D. Lewis (1858-1943). Prior to the creation of the Center's pool, there were no municipal pools open to African Americans. In 1967, the community center was added and a new building was opened. Today, the center has a pool, basketball courts, and other sports facilities along with after-school activities. The center also holds fairs, festivals, and programs for the community at large. Since its foundation, A.D. Lewis Community Center has been a fixture of the Fairfield West community, providing valuable resources to the neighborhood’s youth.

A.D. Lewis Community Center

History of the Apartments Delos W. Emmons was the brother-in-law of Huntington's founder, Collis P. Huntington. Huntington could spend very little time in the city himself, so he placed his relative in charge of the city in his absence. His relative grew quite successful during his time at the helm. Delos W. Emmons oversaw the first land sales in the town and served on the first City Council. Emmons also was the director of the Bank of Huntington. However, one of his sons, Arthur S. Emmons, left an indelible mark on the town when he sought to erect apartments. The first apartment building that he built, Emmons Sr., was a six-story brick structure that Arthur S. Emmons saw as his investment in Huntington's future. Quoted in a&nbsp;The Huntington Advertiser&nbsp;article published in 1911,&nbsp;Emmons claimed that, "Huntington is a progressive city and my faith in its future led me to take the initiative in planning and erecting this building."&nbsp; Emmons, with very few exceptions, chose local merchants and industries to complete his building. When it was finished, it contained twenty-nine apartments, with ten of them having three rooms plus a bathroom, and the others having six rooms each and equipped for housekeeping. The building was outfitted with steam heat, hot and cold water, gas, and electricity. It also had a phone system and telephone wires installed for twenty-five telephones that connected each apartment with the office, kitchen, janitor, and front door, at 'considerable cost'. He did not seem to spare much expense on the apartment building, which was evident by the fact that more than half of the apartments were claimed before it was even opened. It was shaping up to be a popular place to live at the time. Emmons believed that his apartment building would be one of many structures to make Huntington the 'first city in the state'. Emmons Jr. was erected in 1924 to complete the structure. The Emmons Apartments Fire On Saturday, January 13, 2007, a fire started in a living room closet in Emmons Jr., which spread to the adjacent Emmons Sr. building. Because Emmons Jr. was built in 1924 and did not fit the definition of a 'high-rise' building, the building code did not call for&nbsp;a sprinkler system. When the fire started inside of the closet, the fire spread into vertical and horizontal openings throughout the building itself, which helped to spread the fire fairly quickly. Other issues seemed to have been apparent, such as smoke detectors in certain units having been taken off the walls instead of having the batteries replaced. No exact cause of the fire was ever determined after investigation. Ultimately, nine people lost their lives. The fire&nbsp;convinced some building owners around Huntington to install sprinkler systems, thicker walls and other fire deterrents into their own buildings. It also made residents aware of the importance of fire alarms and having emergency plans. The demolition of the buildings was delayed around ten months while the investigation into the fire was still pending, but the demolition finally began October 3, 2007. As of 2017, the lot where the two buildings stood is still empty.

The Emmons Apartments were built by Arthur S. Emmons in 1911. Emmons was the son of a Delos W. Emmons, who was a prominent figure in Huntington and Collis P. Huntington's brother-in-law. The first building became known as Emmons Sr. once the second building, Emmons Jr., was built in 1924, and they quickly became known as luxurious places to live. In 2007, a fire started in the closet of Emmons Jr., quickly spreading and ultimately claiming the lives of nine people. The buildings were damaged and subsequently demolished, and the lot currently remains empty.

The Emmons Apartments

On August 27, 1902, Mary Smith was born in Huntington, West Virginia. At 13, desperate to escape beatings from her stepmother, she disguised herself as a boy, hopped a train and began performing in the circus. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she performed in medicine and minstrel shows. In the 1940s, she took the name “Diamond Teeth Mary” when she had diamonds from a bracelet implanted in her front teeth. Mary's half-sister was the famous blues singer Bessie Smith, and the two were later reunited and performed together for a short time. In 1937, Mary watched helplessly as Smith died while in a waiting room of a hospital. Tragedy would strike again in the late 1940s when Mary had the diamonds removed from her teeth to help pay for the expenses of her dying step-mother. McClain's decision to use the diamonds in this manner reflects the difficult path of her early life and her desire to acknowledge her past. According to interviews with McClain, the diamonds came from a bracelet she stole from her stepmother when she left Huntington. Over the years, McClain shared the stage with such well-known performers as Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Big Mama Thornton, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, and her half-sister Bessie Smith. In 1960, she settled in Bradenton, Florida, and married Clifford McClain, where she became a popular gospel singer. It wasn’t until Mary was 91 that she issued her first recording, “If I Can’t Sell It, I’m Gonna Sit Down On It,” and in 1983, she was featured in the documentary Free Show Tonight.McClain was one of the first recipients of the Florida Heritage Award, and a play about her life premiered at the 2000 Florida Folk Festival. She continued to perform until her death in 2000, appearing at regional blues festivals. At her request, her ashes were sprinkled on the railroad tracks at Huntington, where she hopped her first train. She was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2011.The Diamond Teeth Mary Blues &amp; Arts Festival is held annually at Heritage Station in Huntington. McClain was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2011. Some of her gowns are in the Florida State Museum and the Memphis Blues Museum.

Singer Mary Smith McClain was born on August 27, 1902, in Huntington, West Virginia. Living in an abusive environment, Mary left home at the age of 13, hopped a train, and joined the Rabbit Foot Minstrels in Memphis, Tennessee. From this point on, Mary became known as "Walking Mary," singing for the traveling minstrel show. From the 1920s to the 1940s Mary's career took off and she crisscrossed the country and performed alongside numerous blues and jazz legends. She also toured Europe three times. Mary passed away in 2000, and per her request, her ashes were scattered along the railroad tracks in her hometown of Huntington where she hopped a passing train to pursue her dreams. Mary is one of only a handful of West Virginians who became blues legends. Her career was long, but it wasn’t until she was in her 80s and 90s that she received widespread recognition. In those years, she performed at Carnegie Hall, the White House, and the Apollo Theatre.

Diamond Teeth Mary Memorial Marker

Huntington, West Virginia was historically known as a thriving railroad town thanks to Collis P. Huntington, the Chesapeake &amp; Ohio Railroad (C&amp;O), and the Baltimore &amp; Ohio Railroad (B&amp;O). Originally, Huntington served as the westernmost depot on the C&amp;O Railroad, which traveled south through the coalfields and into Richmond and Newport News on the East Coast. Collis P. Huntington chose this location along the Ohio River so that the steamboat and railroad systems could link together, thus making Huntington a boom town in 1871. The B&amp;O depot was constructed in 1892, when the B&amp;O line was extended into the city. The extension of the B&amp;O, coupled with the C&amp;O and the Ohio River, made Huntington a major regional destination for travelers and trade.The first B&amp;O train departed Huntington on August 10, 1892.  The B&amp;O depot made news in December 1892, when Tom Collins and Burrell Forgey boarded a train at the site and attempted to rob it. At 16th street, Collins and Forgey put their masks on and began shooting at the ceiling of the train car. Passengers listened to the robbers’ demands, all except Oscar Dic, who attempted to disarm one of the robbers. Captain Samuel Mathison, Chairman of the Democratic State Executive Committee, attempted to help Dic. When Mathison and Dic took the pistol away from one robber, he pulled out another gun and shot Dic point blank in the face. The other robber was shooting at the end of the train car as W. A. Zingerly, the train ticket collector, appeared and began shooting at the robbers. Both robbers were shot, but they were able to pull the bell-rope and jump off at the Guyandotte Station. The escaped robbers were caught three days later in Bradrick, Ohio, just across the river from Huntington. Collins and Burrell were sentenced to twelve years in the state penitentiary.  By 1900, the B&amp;O trains arriving and departing from the depot were carrying passengers, mail, and freight. The B&amp;O Railroad profited from the coal industry so much that it allowed them to expand and give Huntington passengers access to thirteen different states by 1917. The railroad industry was wildly popular in the community during the 1920s, and became the most utilized form of transportation as the majority of Huntington residents did not yet own cars. However, when the Great Depression struck in the 1930s, service at the Huntington depot was reduced to only two trains daily. World War II once briefly revived the industry in Huntington as war supplies were carried by trains and gas rationing led to an increase in passenger usage.  Passenger train use declined once again in the post-war era, and the popular Pullman Cars were slowly phased out; nighttime trains stopped running in 1953, and all daytime passenger trains were halted in 1957. One of the Pullman Cars now sits on the Heritage Station property. The collapse in passenger train popularity was due primarily to the availability of automobiles and the construction of the interstate highway system. Freight trains still passed through the Huntington Depot until the line was closed in 1965. Afterwards the depot sat empty until 1977, when the Urban Renewal Authority started to restore the entire train station so that it could be re-purposed as an artisan center. It opened as Heritage Station, a retail facility offering spaces for new local businesses and artisans. Since the 1970s Heritage Station has hosted numerous shops, restaurants, and community events. The original depot building houses the Huntington Area Convention &amp; Visitors Bureau, which promotes tourism in the local area.  Elk River Coal &amp; Lumber Company #10 Steam Locomotive In front of the Depot stands the Elk River Coal &amp; Lumber Company #10 Steam Locomotive, also on the National Register of Historic Places. This locomotive operated on the Buffalo Creek &amp; Gailey Railroad between 1950 and 1959, largely carrying mine waste from Rich Run Mine (Walden, WV) to a “gob pile” (a pile of material removed while digging) a short distance away. #10 was taken out of service in 1959 and placed in storage for a few years before being given to the Huntington Railway Museum, Inc./Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society, Inc. in 1963. CPHRHS moved the locomotive to Huntington and put her into storage at the Chesapeake &amp; Ohio’s Huntington Locomotive Shops. When Heritage Station opened in 1977 the locomotive was moved here, and ownership passed to The Greater Huntington Park and Recreation District that same year. Originally, #10 was repainted to represent a Baltimore &amp; Ohio locomotive with the number 4559 to represent the last B &amp; O steam locomotive to operate in Huntington, but that was an incorrect designation. The engine was restored in 2000 and its correct ERC&amp;LC #10 lettering was repainted. The #10 locomotive was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

This former Baltimore & Ohio Railroad depot was built in 1887, and served Huntington until the mid-1960s. Concerned citizens worked to preserve the historic railway station during the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, the B&O depot was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. With the support of the Urban Renewal Authority, the facility was repurposed in 1977 as Heritage Station, a center for artisans and other retail outlets. Today, Heritage Station is a hub for local businesses and events, while the original depot building serves as the headquarters for the Huntington Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. In front of the Depot stands the Elk River Coal & Lumber Company #10 Steam Locomotive, also on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Huntington B&O Railroad Depot (Heritage Station)

When railroad magnate Collis P. Huntington founded the city in 1871, intending to establish a western terminus for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, businessmen were quickly drawn to the area and the opportunities it offered. As offices, retailers, and hotels opened in the small downtown, it was soon time for a bank to open. The city’s first bank, the Bank of Huntington, was chartered in July of 1875. It was situated in a small brick building on 3rd Avenue. Peter Cline Buffington, who served as Huntington’s first mayor, was the new bank's first president, although he passed away shortly after it was founded.Mere months after the bank opened, it was the site of a now-legendary holdup. On September 6, 1875, the president of the Bank of Huntington, John Hooe Russel, stepped out for lunch. He left cashier Robert T. Oney to tend the bank until he returned. At that time, two gunmen entered the bank while two others stood guard outside. After a brief standoff, Oney was forced to open the bank’s safe and hand over its contents. While the exact amount of money that was taken remains unclear, estimates run between $10,000 and $20,000. Russel returned to the bank in time to see the bandits flee. He, along with the sheriff of Cabell County and twenty armed men, chased after the criminals but were unable to catch them as they escaped across the Big Sandy River into Kentucky. A second group, led by the bank’s vice president, set out from Barboursville and ultimately pursued the robbers for three days.The robbers successfully made it out of West Virginia, but they soon encountered troubles that led to both their identification and an enduring mystery. One of the criminals, Tom McDaniels, was killed in a shootout in Kentucky while another, Tom Webb, was apprehended in Tennessee. Webb served several years for his crime, but he never identified the two other men involved in the robbery. As a result, it proved difficult to determine just who the other robbers were, leading to widespread speculation. The most popular theory to emerge was that the unidentified men were Cole Younger and Frank James of the famous James-Younger gang. Jesse and Frank James were former Confederate guerrillas who led a notorious band of outlaws in the years following the war. The brothers often paired with members of the Younger family, together robbing banks and trains. The Missouri-based gang typically robbed banks in broad daylight, which was the case in the Bank of Huntington robbery. This similarity, along with the sheer notoriety of the gang at the time of the robbery, may explain why the Huntington heist was so eagerly tied to James and Younger.In the aftermath of the robbery, a flurry of rumors arose about James and Younger’s whereabouts. Some believed that James established a farm in neighboring Wayne County and lived there for several years under the alias of Frank Morris. This is unlikely, however, as James was identified as a participant in bank robberies outside of West Virginia in later years. In 1903, James, who was never convicted for any of his alleged crimes, started a Wild West Show alongside Cole Younger. The pair visited Huntington that year to perform their show, “The Great Cole Younger &amp; Frank James Historical Wild West Show.” When they were questioned about the bank robbery, both men denied any involvement, and no attempt was made to arrest them for the heist.As Huntington prospered at the turn of the century, emerging as the state’s largest city by 1910, new banks were founded that began to compete with the Bank of Huntington. Several of these banks were housed in imposing high-rise buildings with elaborate lobbies and cutting-edge fixtures that easily overshadowed the small brick Bank of Huntington. In 1894, the bank merged with the Commercial National Bank to form the Huntington National Bank. Later, in 1925, the Huntington National Bank merged with the First National Bank to form the First Huntington National Bank (FHNB), which had an impressive twelve-story building on 4th Avenue. By that time, the 3rd Avenue building was no longer in use as a bank. The first floor was likely occupied by various local businesses, while an apartment was rented out of the second floor. During the 1970s, the former bank building was at risk of being demolished to make way for a roadway. In 1975, one hundred years after the bank robbery, the community decided to relocate the bank to its current location at the old B&amp;O Railroad Depot. The building is now a part of the Heritage Station historical and shopping center. The interior has been well preserved, with its teller cages intact. Since its relocation, various local businesses have operated out of the ground floor: as of 2019, the Haute Wick Social, a custom candle-making shop, currently occupies the space. The second floor has been converted into the Chessie Room, a B&amp;B named after the C&amp;O mascot.

The Bank of Huntington was established in 1875 on the eastern side of downtown Huntington. A local legend claims that the infamous James-Younger gang robbed the bank that same year, but sources indicate the heist was coordinated by two relatively unknown men who may have been assisted by Cole Younger and Frank James. As Huntington’s population grew, larger banks were founded and began to draw customers away from the Bank of Huntington, leading it to merge with another bank and close its doors in the early 1900s. Following its closure, the first floor of the building was utilized by local businesses while an apartment occupied the second floor. In the 1970s, the building was in danger of being destroyed until the community decided to relocate it to Heritage Station. The former Bank of Huntington building is once again an active business, with a local shop on the first floor and a B&B on the upper floor. 

 Bank of Huntington and the James Gang Bank Heist of 1875

Prohibition in West Virginia began in 1914, several years before it went into effect nationwide. As in many parts of the United States, the temperance movement had been gaining traction in West Virginia for decades before the 18th Amendment, thanks to groups like the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Claiming that alcohol was at the root of the ills of American society, these organizations campaigned tirelessly for local and national prohibition laws. By 1910, 37 of West Virginia’s 55 counties were dry, with a statewide prohibition amendment enacted at midnight on June 30, 1914. In 1919, West Virginia became the 21st state to ratify the national prohibition amendment, which went into effect under the Volstead Act in January 1920. As saloons across the country closed their doors, the illegal production and distribution of alcohol boomed. In West Virginia, which was already known for its moonshine industry, bootlegging flourished. At this time, “the Strip” along 4th Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets of downtown Huntington became a prime location for speakeasies, gambling dens, and brothels. The Strip included Crescent Pool Hall, where bootlegged whiskey could be purchased, and an apartment above the State Theater where people could buy illegal drinks. Between the pool hall and theater were apartments that housed brothels, along with “alley joints” where people could purchase alcohol. William Allen Cross was the manager of several downtown theaters during the Prohibition era, including the Keith Albee and the State Theater. In a 1974 interview, Cross discussed the Strip during Prohibition and told stories of bootlegging at the time. Cross did not make moonshine himself, but he was a regular buyer of illegal liquor and knew the Strip well. He and his friends drank moonshine out of “horse quarts,” and he had his moonshine delivered to him while he was at work. Cross' supplier had a distillery in Merritt's Creek, and he recalled that there were numerous others in the area, including in an abandoned coal field in Scotstown, Ohio. According to Cross, local law enforcement rarely bothered bootleggers, as bribes in the form of booze or money, known as “rake-offs,” were common. National prohibition ended on December 5, 1933 with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. In 1934, West Virginia voters approved amendments to the state constitution, which officially permitted the production, sale, and transporting of alcohol within the state. According to Cross, business along the Strip declined significantly after Prohibition ended. Once people could buy alcohol legally once again, the gambling joints and brothels that seemed to go hand in hand with bootleggers also lost business. By 1945, the illicit activities that gave the Strip its notoriety had disappeared or relocated elsewhere, leaving the district to become just another part of Huntington’s downtown.

Huntington became a city with two sides during Prohibition, with a lively nightlife lurking behind the appearance of a quiet town. Located along 4th Avenue in downtown Huntington, “The Strip” was a popular location where residents could buy liquor, gamble, and go to speakeasies and brothels. Although these activities were illegal, law enforcement rarely disturbed the people and businesses of the Strip due to bribes and payoffs. An interview with William Allen Cross, who served as the manager of several downtown theaters at the time, allows for a glimpse of life during Prohibition and the Strip’s heyday. After Prohibition ended in 1933 with the ratification of the 21st Amendment, the Strip’s popularity declined once residents were able to purchase alcohol legally. 

"The Strip": Prohibition and Bootlegging in Huntington

The Frederick Hotel was built by the Central Realty Company of Huntington at a cost of $400,000, with an additional $100,000 for furnishings bought in Chicago. It was designed by noted local architects Edwin N. Alger and James B. Stewart in the Edwardian Renaissance style. Considered one of the most elegant hotels of the time, it was built using 3.7 million bricks, five railroad cars of glass, 300 tons of iron, 200 telephones, and 4,000 electric lights. The hotel was built on an imposing scale, covering almost the length of a football field. A newspaper article published at the time of its opening labeled it “the greatest building project ever begun in Huntington.” The hotel was named after George Frederick Miller, the primary financer of the project.The Frederick was said to be the most prominent hotel between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. It contained 150 guest rooms (45 of which had private bathrooms), 65 offices, a bar, billiard room, two dining rooms, a ballroom, pharmacy, cigar stand, shoe shine stand, barbershop, and a Turkish bath. Various retail shops were housed on the first floor. The building also boasted its own emergency power generators and a stained glass skylight. At the time of its opening, it was one of the most expensive hotels in the area; it cost anywhere from $2.50 to $4.00 per room for one night. Many noteworthy figures stayed at the Frederick Hotel over the years, including Richard Nixon, Bob Hope, and Liberace, along with many others who came to perform at the Keith-Albee Theatre across the street. Rumors persist that a secret underground tunnel existed connecting the Frederick to the Keith-Albee, but no evidence has been found to support the claim.The hotel also housed two luxury restaurants, the Elephant Walk Club and the Colonade Restaurant. The Elephant Walk Club, created by Huntington businessman Bill Ritter and designer John Jenkins, opened in 1964. It was a private club, open only to members and their guests. Bill Ritter was the president of Central Realty, the company that owned the Frederick Hotel, and decided to open a club in the lobby to attract business to the hotel. He and Jenkins looked for a theme and name for the club for quite some time, until Ritter reportedly woke up in the night and saw a book titled Elephant Walk on his nightstand. Once deciding to use this as the name of the club, they ordered all types of gold elephant sculptures and wallpaper to decorate the lobby. The two men were so committed to this theme that they booked a live circus elephant named Shirley, who entered the club doors on her knees much to the amazement of the club guests. Today, one of the elephant head sculptures still hangs in the hotel behind the lobby desk.Matewan police chief Sid Hatfield and his new bride Jesse Testerman were arrested by Baldwin-Felts agents at the Frederick during their honeymoon in June of 1920. Two weeks after the Battle of Matewan on May 19, Sid Hatfield boarded a train for Huntington with Jessie Testerman; she was the widow of Matewan’s mayor, Cabell Testerman, who had been killed during the incident. Hatfield and Testerman married, but the honeymoon was cut short when the Felts Brothers arrived and arrested Hatfield. Two guns that belonged to Mayor Testerman were found in the newlyweds’ hotel room. Hatfield was accused of murdering the mayor and marrying his widow to take control of the deceased’s estate. Hatfield stood trial but was acquitted for the Matewan shootings. However, a year later Hatfield was murdered on the steps of the court house in Welch by Baldwin-Felts agents.A decline in occupancy rates forced the Frederick Hotel to close on July 30, 1973. The building remains in good condition, thanks in part its use of special repressed brick in its construction. After closing, the Frederick was converted into a mixed-use facility, and today houses a combination of apartments, offices, restaurants, and retail space. The first floor lobby has been preserved and retains much of its original ornamentation. It also displays many artifacts from the early twentieth century including newspapers, pharmaceutical products, and other common items from that era.

The Frederick Hotel opened in 1906 and was one of the most elegant hotels in both Huntington and all of West Virginia. The luxurious Edwardian Renaissance style building contained 150 guest rooms, 65 office spaces, and a host of amenities. The Frederick Hotel hosted many prominent visitors over the years including President Richard Nixon, musician Liberace, and comedian Bob Hope; Sid Hatfield was arrested here in 1920 for his involvement in the Battle of Matewan. The hotel closed in 1973 and the building today houses offices, apartments, and retail stores. The first floor of the Frederick maintains its original appearance, displaying artifacts and ornamentation from the hotel's glory days. The Frederick was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 as part of the Downtown Huntington Historic District.

Frederick Hotel

Originally from China, Ming Eng made his way to Hong Kong and then to Toronto Canada when he was just a teenager. There, he and his cousins began working as waiters and busboys, and within ten years Eng had become the head chef of a Toronto restaurant. In 1969, Eng was introduced to Harold Frankel, the owner of the Route 60 Holiday Inn in Huntington. Since purchasing the Holiday Inn in 1965, Frankel and his wife had built it into a successful business along with the Makiki Supper Club, a Polynesian-style bar and restaurant at the hotel. After some convincing, Eng agreed to come with Frankel to Huntington to be the head chef at the Makiki Club. Eng worked at the restaurant for eleven years before the restaurant shut down. After the Makiki Club closed, Eng opened his own restaurant at the historic Frederick Hotel in downtown Huntington. The restaurant occupied the location of the former Elephant Walk, a private dining club that opened as part of the Hotel Frederick in 1964. True to its name, elephants were a major motif in the club’s decor, including elephant paintings, a carpet with elephant footprints, barstools fashioned to look like elephant feet, and a mural of dancing elephants. When Ming’s took over the Elephant Walk space, which had closed in 1973 along with the Frederick, the owners left the interior intact. Complete with its elephant decor, Ming’s soon became a staple of downtown Huntington, serving patrons a mix of Chinese and Polynesian dishes like Tahitian chicken and egg rolls. Eng and his wife Lisa worked ceaselessly at the restaurant for the next twenty years.  In 1998, Ming’s Restaurant closed at the Hotel Frederick and relocated to the Stone Lodge motel on U.S. 60 East. Opened in 1949 by Paul Taylor and his wife Dilla, the Stone Lodge had undergone several expansions and changes in ownership by the time that Ming’s moved into the motel’s restaurant space. The move offered Eng, who had been working sixteen hours a day at the Frederick, more flexible hours than before. Eng also simplified the restaurant's menu, though it continued to offer many favorites from the original location. Ming’s offered Chinese specialties like sesame chicken and Cantonese lobster, as well as American dishes like sirloin steak and salmon. The restaurant also began selling jars of its sweet and sour sauce from its new location. Ming’s remained at the Stone Lodge for ten years, with a loyal customer base despite new, buffet-style Chinese restaurants that opened in the area.  After over thirty years in Huntington, Ming's Restaurant closed on November 14, 2009. When the sign outside the restaurant announced the news, so many customers came during its final few days that Ming’s ran out of food and was forced to turn people away. Then in his seventies, and having worked fifteen hours a day for decades, Eng was ready for retirement and looking forward to taking his first ever vacation. In 2010, the year after Ming’s closed, the Stone Lodge was sold to the Prestera Center for Mental Health. The purchase of the motel, which had 120 rooms and seventeen cottages, enabled Prestera to consolidate its programs into a campus-like setting. The former Ming’s Restaurant is now the center’s food services building. Meanwhile, Ming’s original location in the Hotel Frederick has been home to the restaurant 21 At The Frederick since 2005.

Ming’s Restaurant was a mainstay of the Huntington food scene for decades, from its original home in the historic Frederick Hotel to its final location at the Stone Lodge motel on U.S. 60 East. The restaurant was owned and operated by Ming Eng, who immigrated as a teenager from China to Canada, where he became the head chef at a Toronto restaurant within ten years. In 1969, Eng met hotel owner Harold Frankel, who convinced him to come to Huntington to be the chef at the Makiki Club at his Holiday Inn. Eng worked at the Makiki Club for eleven years before opening his own restaurant in the former Elephant Walk Club of the Frederick Hotel. There, Ming’s became a popular eatery that served a combination of Chinese and Polynesian dishes. In 1998, Ming’s relocated to the Stone Lodge Motel, where it operated for another ten years before closing in 2009. Today, Ming’s original location is home to 21 At The Frederick, and the Stone Lodge motel has become the Prestera Center for Mental Health.   

Huntington Social History Bike Tour

The Spot

Introduction

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