Institution

The local mill, established in 1817 by town father Daniel Stringer, had many different owners and names during its century of operations. As well as a grist mill, it also sawed logs into lumber. Fires and floods plagued it, and, when there weren’t floods, often there were droughts. Several times the river came close to drying up in late summer, just when grain was being harvested and the mill was most needed. To solve that problem, steam power was substituted for the water wheel in the 1840s. The old mill, in its last reincarnation, was demolished in April 1921. Traces of the original stone milldam, beginning to fall away in 1919 and finally washed out in 1923, can still be seen a short distance upstream from the footbridge now crossing the river.Today the building is being re-envisioned as the "The Weston Town Hub" which will include a local craft beer tap room, butcher shop, book store and coffee shop. With apartments on the upper levels of the building.

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The economy of Lewis County, dating from its creation in 1816 until after the Civil War, was almost exclusively a self-sufficient, agricultural one. Unmilled wheat and corn were of considerable bulk and somewhat heavy, costly in time and money to transport any distance. Therefore, mills had to be near farms where grains were grown. Of at least a dozen mills scattered about the county in the 19th century, one was in Weston, on the east bank of the West Fork River, at the west end of what is today First Street. 

The original Weston Flour Mill was built by John Brunisdie & Daniel Stringer. Burnside later sold his interest after a few years of being in business. It then became Bland Property for many years and was adjoining the Bland House Property which was located in what would now be the middle of Main Avenue. 

The Stringer and Weston Flour Mill

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The history of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (TALA) predates the existence of West Virginia as a state. In the early 1850s, the Virginia General Assembly authorized funds for a new mental institution. This was largely due to changing public attitudes towards mental health and disabilities. Previously, persons exhibiting atypical behavior were harshly shunned or badly mistreated as inhuman. Dorothea Dix is single handedly credited with changing the way persons with mental health issues are treated. After visiting a jail in 1841, Dix was appalled by seeing mentally ill inmates naked and chained to the wall, with no heat, ventilation, or sanitary provisions. She began a crusade to improve conditions for the mentally ill, eventually opening the first modern mental institutions in the United States. For many of these compounds, she collaborated with Dr. Thomas Kirkbride. Dr. Kirkbride shared Dix’s vision of more humane treatment for the mentally ill. His system of “moral treatment” involved moving the mentally ill from crowded prisons to rural compounds. These compounds were self-sufficient and featured architecturally beautiful buildings with long wings and bountiful windows. The Virginia General Assembly consulted with Dr. Kirkbride on the plans for TALA, which was to be the first public health institution in Virginia west of the Appalachian Mountains. Richard Snowden Andrews, a Baltimore based architect, was selected to design the institution.Ground was broken for TALA’s construction in 1858. Blue sandstone was quarried from Mt. Clare in nearby Harrison County. The labor force was composed of people ranging from African-American convicts to skilled stonemasons who travelled from Germany and Ireland. By the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, $98,000 had already been spent on the project, with $27,000 more allocated. However, when the Virginian government demanded the remaining $27,000 be returned to Richmond, the pro-Union secessionist factions in western Virginia set out to stop this. The Seventh Ohio Infantry arrived in Weston in late June of 1861, ostensibly to arrest Confederate sympathizers. However, the real purpose of the mission was to requisition the funds, which were being held at the Weston Branch of the Exchange Bank of Virginia. The soldiers forced banker Robert McClandish to open the vault before removing the $27,000 and bringing it to Wheeling. The new West Virginia government used the funds to resume construction of the asylum in 1863, renaming it to West Virginia Hospital for the Insane (WVHI). Though the partially completed buildings changed hands between Union and Confederate forces throughout the Civil War, patients were admitted to the institution beginning in 1864.Construction continued on WVHI through the early 1880s. For this reason, Weston avoided the depression that plagued many smaller American towns following the Civil War as there were always plenty of employment opportunities. The buildings at WVHI were executed according to Andrews’ original plans whenever possible, though the scale had to be reduced. Despite this, the site features one of the largest hand-cut stone masonry buildings in the United States. This main building is composed of a central block with long wards stretching an astonishing 1,300 feet from end to end. The central block is four and a half stories tall while the two wards are each three stories. A variety of architectural revival styles freely mingle on the building’s façade, including Tudor, Jacobean, Gothic, and Baroque. The entire site rests on hundreds of acres, with sources ranging from 269 up to 666 acres of total space. This space was carefully landscaped and tailored to keeping WVHI self-sufficient. Auxiliary buildings at the time construction was completed included a laundry building, power house, morgue, stables, greenhouses, and separate kitchen and ward facilities for patients of color. The supplementary buildings on the site remained in constant flux for over one hundred years as new ones were built and old ones demolished.WVHI was initially constructed with a capacity of 250 patients. When construction officially completed in 1881, the institution already held over 700 patients. By 1938, this number had expanded to 1661, over six times the intended capacity. Lack of funding and a focus on maintenance rather than rehabilitation exacerbated overcrowding. In 1949, the Charleston Gazette sent an investigative crew to write a story on the conditions in Weston State Hospital (WSH) — the name was changed from WVHI in 1913. Though they expected squalor, what the reporters witnessed shocked them. In each room intended for a single patient, six or seven patients shared the space where they slept on the floor in freezing conditions. The understaffed buildings were coated in so much grime that daylight failed to reach the interiors. The most troublesome patients were locked in cages in common areas. Experimental treatments and brutal “therapies” were commonplace. Walter Freeman, infamous inventor and advocate of ice pick lobotomies, performed many operations at WSH in the 1950s. These lobotomies left patients unable to perform basic functions such as eating or using the bathroom, if the surgery did not outright kill them. The Charleston Gazette’s piece on WSH advocated for the 2,400 patients — almost ten times intended occupancy — but did little to enact change. It was not until the 1980s that conditions finally began to improve at WSH. More facilities devoted to treating mental illness were opened in West Virginia and changes to mental health treatment lowered the number of people committed to institutions. In 1994, a new mental health facility was built in Weston, and WSH closed for good.The hospital also has a history with suffragists in the form of Harriet Jones, who was assistant superintendent of TALA between 1888 and 1892. Born in 1856, Harriet Jones was a woman of firsts in West Virginia, becoming the first female physician and first female to serve in the West Virginia state legislature. In the legislature one of Jone’s main goals was women’s suffrage in her state. Jones was keenly interested in the aid of women as she ran a hospital for women for twenty years and helped to provide homes for delinquent young girls. In early July of 1915 Jones allowed fellow suffragettes Ella Yost and Gale Ebbhart to stay with her before all attending the Equal Suffrage Convention. Of Jone’s advocacy, she gave a speech entitled Religious Point of View of Women’s Suffrage. For several years, WSH and its grounds languished. In 1999, widespread damage to the interior of the building was caused by a group of paintball players, including at least twenty law enforcement officers. In response, the Weston Hospital Revitalization Committee was formed in 2000 to preserve the building and find a sympathetic new tenant. Proposals to convert the institution into a hotel, golf course, and prison all failed to solidify. Three small museums dedicated to military history, toys, and mental health briefly occupied the main building, but closed in 2004 due to fire code violations. In 2007, the complex was put up for auction by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. Joe Jordan paid $1.5 million for the hospital and grounds. Jordan restored the name of the complex to TALA and began offering tours. Unsurprisingly, the site is a major attraction for ghost hunters and other paranormal investigators. Though many visitors come to investigate possible spiritual activity, history, architecture, and mental health are also major aspects of tours. The funds from tours and events maintain the facilities for future generations.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (TALA), was a psychiatric facility that operated from 1864-1994 and served patients exhibiting atypical behaviors. Over the years, the institution was also known as West Virginia Hospital for the Insane/Weston State Hospital. The main building, which was constructed from 1858-1881, was designed by Richard Andrews and features an eclectic blending of revival styles. The general layout and furnishing of the hospital was guided by Dr. Thomas Kirkbride, who felt mental health patients needed housing that provided therapeutic features such as many windows for sunlight and access to fresh air. Moreover, this hospital was designed to be self-sustained by those working at the asylum and patients alike; working in the garden would be a positive mental and physical stimulator for the patients. Despite the lofty goals of the institution, it was plagued by overcrowding and underfunding. Conditions quickly deteriorated and by the middle of the twentieth century the environment for patients was deplorable. Experimental therapies and brutal medical procedures exacerbated issues. Due to the shift in mental health care from the asylum to more community-based efforts and because of the overall deterioration of the building, the hospital was closed in the 90’s. Today, a new owner has reopened the hospital, advertising a living historical monument where heritage tours and even haunted ghost tours are offered to the public.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (West Virginia Hospital for the Insane/Weston State Hospital)

Presley M. Hale operated Hale Emporium at this location which was lost during the war in retaliation in part for his role securing the funds being held at the Exchange Bank. Mr. Hale was known as the "Grand Old Man" in Weston until his death in 1916 he was a hatter by trade, had part in the construction of many buildings and later owned a butcher shop in town at First and Main.For almost fifty years, the depot served several trains daily that ran north to Clarksburg, south to Richwood, and east to Buckhannon and Pickens. After rail passenger service through Weston ended in the fall of 1939, the building served as a motorbus station for different companies. The station also housed the facilities of the Railway Express office, and for a number of years following World War II was the location of the Western Union telegraph office.The railroad sold the depot to the City of Weston in the fall of 1963. It was converted in 1978 into modern offices for the mayor and city clerk, a headquarters for the city police department, and a chamber for city council or other meetings.

Weston’s current municipal building at 102 West Second Street was originally the depot for the West Virginia &amp; Pittsburgh Railroad, and also, on the upper floor, the company’s corporate offices. Upon completion in March 1892, at a cost of $10,000, it was celebrated as the finest train passenger station in West Virginia, boasting steam heat and electric lights throughout. When the W. Va. &amp; P. was absorbed by the Baltimore &amp; Ohio Railroad at the end of the 19th century, the building became that company’s Weston depot and, later, headquarters for its Charleston division.

West Virginia & Pittsburgh Railroad Depot

Originally the site of the Monticello Hotel which was constructed in 1903 to serve the people and visitors of Weston WV. Although then the city’s most modern hotel (the first with fire escapes), and just across the street from the Baltimore &amp; Ohio railroad passenger station, its 26 rooms failed to attract a large clientele. Much the greater number of travelers arriving in Weston still preferred to patronize the then 53-year-old but always much loved Bailey House, as well as the 8-year-old Camden Hotel, both two blocks away, on the northwest and northeast corners of Main Avenue and Second Street, respectively.The historic three story building no longer stands as it once did. In the early 1990's the building was remolded and the 3rd floor was entirely removed and half of the second floor. What stands today is the original first floor and half of the second floor of the building.The location has been home to many business over the years including a restaurants and bars. In the 1990's the building was renovated which included the demolition of the the 3rd floor. Today the buildings primary street address only consist of 200 N River Ave which is now a two story building that is home to a Ember Arts a local art studio.

The substantial, three-story building that used to sit at the west end of the Second Street bridge, north side, specifically at 200 North River Avenue, and that in more recent times was known as the Westoner Hotel, was originally the Monticello Hotel, built in 1903-04 by John Riley. The current location is home to Ember Arts Studio and active retail art studio in downtown Weston.

Monticello Hotel

In 1823, when the town was only five years old, the State of Virginia entertained the first proposals to construct a turnpike to link Staunton, east of the Alleghenies, with Parkersburg, on the Ohio River, via Monterey, Beverly, Buckhannon and Weston. It would be another 14 years, however, before construction began in earnest, and not until about 1850 the historic road that ran through the heart of Weston was finished in all respects. Today, U. S. 33 west from Weston to Linn and W. V. 47 on to Parkersburg follow the original route for almost every mile. The Turnpike promised significant economic development in central West Virginia, and large landowners, particularly the Arnolds, Baileys and Camdens in Lewis County, were encouraged to survey and plot their acreage and offer it for sale, at attractive prices (as little as $2.50 per acre), in European newspapers. The greater response came from Irish families escaping the potato blight then devastating their homeland, and from young German males emigrating to America to escape compulsory military service at home. The end result was increasing population in Court House, Freeman’s Creek and Collins Settlement Magisterial Districts in the years before and after the Civil War. However, it was a hardscrabble existence for the newcomers, the rocky soil that made up their generally hilly properties being of poor fertility. Many who stuck it out, and most had no alternative, eventually profited, and some hugely, when rich deposits of oil and gas were discovered under their lands at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The Turnpike was a partly macadamized, mostly dirt road, poorly maintained, particularly west of Weston. (It would not receive modern paving until the late 1920s, early 1930s.) In the generally wet winter and spring months, it had, as a Parkersburg newspaper put it in January 1899, the “consistency of sorghum molasses, nine feet deep”. In those seasons, people avoided travel by carriage or wagon as much as possible, riding horseback instead. The Weston &amp; Gauley Bridge Turnpike — the first to directly connect the Monongahela and Kanawha valleys — began at the intersection of Main Avenue and Second Street, ran one block east to Center, then south on Center and crossed Town Run by a small bridge. (At that time the southern portion of Main Avenue ended in a morass.) There it climbed to the lower level of the Old Hill-Arnold cemetery, skirted the graveyard’s north and west fence lines and ran along the hillside until it reached what is now Jackson Street, descending there into Kitsonville and along what became called Pike Street, now South Main Avenue, into Homewood and Bendale. (What is today the road’s riverside pathway through the “narrows” was a 20th century improvement.) It continued on south to Gauley Bridge via Rush Run and Roanoke, then followed the West Fork River to Indian Farm (Arnold), took the ridge on the high hill that begins there to Jacksonville, and, via Abram’s Run, on to Knawl, Bulltown, Sutton and Summersville. Construction of the 18-foot wide, 106-mile long Turnpike — mainly dirt surfaced, here and there stone-based — began in 1849 and was largely completed by 1852, with only its grander bridges yet to be erected across the West Fork River at Weston (Bendale), the Little Kanawha at Bulltown, and the Elk at Sutton.The Turnpike was essentially replaced with the initiation and construction in the late 1920s-early 1930s of the then-modern, partially brick-, partially concrete-paved U. S. 19 through central West Virginia, which bypassed many sections of the old roadway.The fact that Weston was the crossroads of both the Staunton &amp; Parkersburg and Weston &amp; Gauley Bridge Turnpikes played an important role in the choosing of the town to be the site of Virginia’s third hospital for the mentally ill.

Since the founding of Weston, four different bridges have spanned the West Fork River on Second Street. Before there was any bridge, and also after when an existing one was closed for repairs, the river just a short distance upstream from Second Street was more often than not shallow enough to ford. The first span, an open one washed away by the July 22-23, 1846 flood, was described in the Weston Sentinel’s account of that event as being “new”. In fact, it had been constructed of timbers on stone supports many years earlier (1829-30) at the expense of Lewis County, and by the early 1840s was in a bad state of repair. In 1845, the state (of Virginia), as a part of the Staunton &amp; Parkersburg Turnpike project, provided money to substantially update the structure, apparently leading the paper’s editor, newcomer Benjamin Owen, to think it was new. Within two years, a second bridge, a covered one, was built by William Hamilton, and in 1858 was repaired by Lemuel Chenoweth (West Virginia’s acclaimed master bridge-builder (1811-1887)). It came to weather, but only barely, another terrible flood, that of July 9-10, 1888. Almost three years later in April 1891, to all appearance in a ramshackle, dangerous state (though its foundation turned out to be in fairly good condition), the old covered bridge was razed, and by late June of that year the erection of a third, a then-modern iron bridge, was completed. (It was to be the site of a dreadful and shameful lynching on July 6, 1892.) A single-lane span, it was outmoded by the introduction and proliferation of the automobile in the first two decades of the 20th century. In 1922, the fourth and present concrete bridge took its place. That span initially boasted a new feature — pillar-supported, multiple-unit electric lights, which heralded, beginning two years later in June, the erection of such lights throughout the rest of Weston’s business section, turning it into a much lauded “Great White Way”. On Main Avenue and Second Street, a total of 41 street lamps were installed, each of a thousand watts. Unfortunately, the Depression and the city’s then threadbare budget forced the reduction of their numbers and power to just nine units dimmed to 650 watts each. Poorly maintained, the metal poles supporting the lights gradually rusted away. The power company removed them in October 1940, replacing them with the present wooden poles — to the detriment of the business section’s overall appearance.

The East and West Second Street Bridge

The Citizens Bank of Weston has been serving the people of Weston and Lewis County for 120 years. In 1891 the bank received its charter. The bank opened its doors for business in February of 1892. On October 1, 1894, the bank employed Thomas A. Whelan who was to become a banking legend in Lewis County. After nine years of service with the bank Mr. Whelan was elected Cashier after the death of Mr. Bailey. At twenty-seven years old, he was the youngest man in the State of West Virginia to have attained such a highly respected position within the banking community.In 1927 Mr. Whelan arranged the purchase of the Bailey House property. In May of 1930, the bank moved from its old location on the corner of Bank Street and Main Avenue (the old location of Frank’s Bakery), to the present day facility. It required three years to plan and complete the building. By the end of the same year, Citizens Bank was closed during the “Banking Holiday,” reopening almost three years to the day in 1934. Due to T. A. Whelan’s work and concern for his fellowman, not a penny was lost by the depositors during this time period. An article published in the daily newspaper, American Banker, dated August 24, 1961, gives a summary of the amazing financial strength of the bank under the guidance of T. A. Whelan. The paper reported that the Citizens Bank was in the unique position of having the highest capital account ratio in the United States.Mr. T. A. Whelan, after 72 years of service to the Citizens Bank of Weston and the people of Lewis County, died on April 27, 1966. He left behind a legacy and a solid foundation for this institution’s future growth. Shortly thereafter the bank applied for and received membership in the FDIC being one of the last banks in the Fifth Federal Reserve District to become a member.The Citizens Bank became a major source of financing for the local community servicing such diverse projects as the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Hospital, the Weston Sanitary Board, Alkahn Labels, Inc., Lewis County Recreational Park, Louie Glass Company, Lewis County Industrial Park, Pittsburgh Tube Company and Garton Plaza.This bank has served the people of Lewis County for over 129 years and is the only hometown, independently run bank in the community.

One of the "must see '' buildings in Weston is the second quarters of the Citizens Bank, a world-class example of Art Deco architecture and décor. The construction of this building took place from 1928-30 with additions in 1968 and 1979. "Imposing" and Magnificent" describes the exterior and interior appointments: Indiana limestone, Vermont granite, unique Samuel Wellen wrought iron, Pyrenees marble, French burl walnut, furniture crafted from the world's rarest woods, a huge wall tapestry and on the south wing ceiling, a breathtaking rendition of West Virginia's Great Seal rendered in plaster covered by rare metals. The nationally famous Bailey House hotel occupied this site from 1852 until 1927 when it was closed.

This building was constructed when the Great Depression hit and officially opened for business on May 31, 1930. The bank was closed on October 13, 1931 by its board of directors to prevent a run on its cash assets. It was reopened three years later to the day without any of its customers losing any of their savings. 

In its nearly 200-year history, Weston has been famous for several things: its relationship to Stonewall Jackson and Jackson’s Mill; the gigantic Asylum building; the glassware, oil and gas, lumber and railroad industries; the J. M. Bennett mansion and other imposing Victorian houses; and the Citizens Bank building. However, it is not likely that anything, including the State Hospital, impressed a visitor to the town any more than did the Bailey House, if he or she was ever its guest, even once. For close to three-quarters of a century, the hotel, on the northwest corner of Main Avenue and Second Street, had a national reputation and, possibly, a limited international one — a dream home away from home, something to write home about!

It was the ideal country inn, famed for seasoned management and unsurpassed, old-time hospitality, the ambiance gracious, sociable, congenial, comfortable, making it the much-preferred address for the traveler who, after 1896, had the option to stay in newer, more modern hotels like the R. P. Camden across the street. Service to patrons was impeccable, beginning with the moment of their arrival; while hostlers attended to the travelers’ horses and conveyances, if any, other Black retainers met the guests at the front door with large whiskbrooms to brush away the journey’s dust. The cleanliness of the lobby, of the public rooms, the halls and bedrooms was fastidious. Starched bed linens were spotless, pillows and mattresses restful. Woolen carpet slippers, boiled in a lye soap solution between uses, were under every bed for guests’ use; boots and shoes placed outside the room door were polished by a bellboy during the night. The food in the dining room, served boardinghouse-style on trestle tables, was memorable; the rye and bourbon poured at the bar were of the best quality and generous in measure.

For many Westonians, the Bailey House was the center of community life, a place for dances, parties and holiday revelry, for ladies to have teas and show off their newest hats and other finery created by Weston’s several modistes, and to gossip while they played whist. Weston’s business and professional men looked upon the hotel as a welcoming resort, a treasured place of fellowship, a retreat where one could smoke cigars, drink a little whiskey, and wager a few coins on euchre or poker or pinochle. For intellectuals — there were a few — the game was chess; for the rustics — there were many — checkers. Those sojourners with a taste for politics and debate, and that was most of them, had a name for themselves: the Weston Senate and Every Evening Club. The Senate met nightly, in the roomy lobby in cold weather, within earshot of the barkeep; summer weather took them outside, where they seated themselves under cooling maple shade trees that fronted the chewing tobacco-stained, flagstone sidewalk, the high-back chairs of the “discussers and cussers” leaning against the hotel’s red brick wall.
The original genius of the inn’s management was its namesake, “hail fellow, well met”, backslapping, portly Major Minter Bailey, born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in 1799. When he was nine, the Bailey family moved to Broad Run, yet in Harrison County, not to become part of Lewis until 1816. In 1832, newly married.

By 1850, the Weston Hotel had become too small to accommodate the growing numbers of patrons. The following year, construction was completed on a new hotel that would be named the Bailey House, a plain Jane, three-story brick, where is now the Citizens Bank. (A spread-winged American eagle of great size, painted high on the south wall and visible at some distance, was the hotel’s only outside identification at that time.) In just a few years, this building could not meet the still greater demand for overnight and longer stays, and, in 1858, a two-story extension was added on the west end. As well as more guest rooms, it included a larger dining room capable of seating forty, and an adjacent, new kitchen. In or around 1900, most likely because the up-to-date-in-every-way Camden Hotel had opened four years earlier 


The Citizens Bank Building #2 / The Baily House

In later additions to the first floor the Traction building included a display room for electric appliances sold by the Monongahela West Penn electric power company. On the third floor was location of the open switchboard of the C&amp;P Telephone Company. At the end of the year 2000, the building was converted into offices and is now home to the Weber Law Firm.A streetcar line serviced Weston, Jane Lew, Lost Creek and other locations up to Clarksburg from 1913 to 1946. It was originally operated by Monongahela Valley Traction Company which then became part of Monongahela West Penn Public Service Company. This company was part of the much larger West Penn System located out of Pittsburgh, PA. It had the biggest interurban system in West Virginia. It remained in their control until 1944, when it was sold to City Lines of West Virginia and was converted into a bus line by 1947.

The Traction building was built as a passenger terminal for the Clarksburg-Weston trolley line. This three story brick building was constructed in 1916 by Monongahela West Penn Traction Company as a terminal for the streetcars coming to Weston from Clarksburg and other locations from the North. 

Traction Building 

Mrs. Helen F. Holt of Lewisburg was sworn in December 4th 1957 as secretary of state - becoming the first woman in West Virginia history to hold a high statewide office. She succeeds D. Pitt O'Brien, who died of a heart ailment after serving as secretary or assistant to his father since the early 1930s. The term to which Mrs. Holt was named by Gov. Underwood will run only until the general election.Helen Holt was the widow of Rush D. Holt of Weston, the youngest person ever elected to the U. S. Senate at this time. It was while he was serving his lone term in Congress that he met and married Helen. Holt, a longtime Democrat, bolted the party in 1950 to run on the Republican ticket for Congress in the Third District. He was unsuccessful, as he was when he sought the governorship in 1952 also as a Republican.Mrs. Holt came into statewide focus while touring the state with her husband in 1952, and she filled out his unexpired term in the House of Delegates from 1955 to 1957. Holt served several terms in the Legislature.Portrait of US senator Rush D. Holt below is inscribed 'Young people should not be afraid to put their ideas against those of their elders. They should not accept things simply because those things are old and conventional. This is a time for questioning and experimentation. It is through this kind of conflict that every worth while advance has come. young people must not follow the old standards and leaders blindly through'

At the Holt Park property once stood a home that was built in 1844. This home remained until 2004 when it was torn down. The home was acquired by Dr. Matthew S. Holt in 1899. Dr. Holt was a local physician and publisher of the Weston Republican. This was the child hood home of U. S. Senator Rush D. Holt. His wife Helen Holt was the first woman to hold a statewide-office in West Virginia. Helen Holt married the former U.S. Senator Rush Holt Sr. on June 19, 1941. Rush Holt was the youngest person ever elected to the Senate at the age of 29 in 1934. Helen remained married to him until his death from cancer on February 8, 1955. At the time of his death, Rush was serving in the first month of a term in the West Virginia House of Delegates. Helen and her husband had three children, including the Congressman from New Jersey's 12th congressional district, Rush Holt Jr. Helen Holt never remarried and in 2013, she was a resident of Washington, D.C. She received an honorary degree from West Virginia University in 2013 and turned 100 in August of that year. Helen Holt died in Boca Raton, Florida of heart failure on July 12, 2015, aged 101, a month short of her 102nd birthday.

The Holt Square / Holt Family 

What did we use before plastic? Glass work is an array of art- it can go from something as simple a a coke bottle, shampoo bottle, or a window, all the way to collectible dishes, vases, or pieces that people put on display in their homes. These glass pieces are made by melting silica sand and combining it with sodium carbonate and lime.1 The WVMAG contains numerous pieces in all shapes, sizes and colors and explains the history of glass work from the art of hand blown glass to glass factories. This museum is also home to the National Marble Museum.Glass work was a part of Appalachian Heritage long before West Virginia existed. In 1813, Issac Duval and Company was established in Wellsburg, and specialized in dinnerware and flint glass. The industrial revolution and the development of roads and railways that connected West Virginia to larger cities quickly resulted in the spread of the glass industry all over the mountain state. Glass companies were established in Wellsburg, Wheeling, Moundsville, New Martinsville, Paden City, Williamstown, Parkersburg and Huntington along the Ohio River, as well as Star City, Morgantown, Fairmont, Clarksburg and Weston on the banks of the Monongahela River and its tributary, the West Fork- making glass the fourth largest employer in the state in 1910.1  However, like every labor based industry, new technologies were developed and less workers were needed. <blockquote>By the 1930s, the tri-state upper Ohio River region had more than half of the glass factories in the nation. These factories specialized in bottles, window glass, or tableware. By the 1880s, glass workers were organized into three strong craft unions based on these specializations. The glass workers’ unions were dominated by French, Belgian, and German immigrants who passed the craft on to their sons. Their tight control of production provided strong incentive for glass companies to mechanize their plants in the early 20th century. The unions fought bitter strikes but failed to deflect the introduction of technology by the 1920s. Legislation protecting the right to organize unions during the 1930s revived the glass workers’ organizations and boosted union membership among West Virginia’s 13,000 glass workers.2</blockquote>Art glass was all the rage in Europe in the 1850s, and the trend quickly spread to the United States. Hobbs, Brockunier and Company of Wheeling, Fenton Glass Company of Williamstown, and the Fostoria Glass Company of Moundsville were some of the nation's top producers of art glass, specializing in carnival glass and milk glass. Unfortunately, art glass was a trend, and trends fade fast. None of these companies produced art glass past the 1950s, however- if you're lucky, you can find many of these art pieces in antique shops or in the WVMAG. The glass industry was a huge part of West Virginia's labor history, and thankfully we have the Museum of American Glass to properly represent what might be lost otherwise. Not only will you see an array of conventionally used glassware, but also beautiful glass art pieces. You will be able to learn how the glass is made, about the people who made it, and why the glass industry is such an important part of West Virginia heritage.

West Virginia is well known for its glass manufacturing on a small artisan scale and also a large factory scale. The Museum of American Glass is a non-profit museum that was founded in 1993 with a goal of preserving any component of the glass industry in West Virginia as well as the United States. The Museum of American Glass focuses on the whole history behind glass work in West Virginia and gives insight to the people, factories, and products that made glass such a valuable piece to West Virginia's history. The WVMAG also contains an archive of oral histories from the glass blowers and archives from the American Flint Glass Workers Union, which is one of the oldest unions in the United States.

From 1777 until 1795, this site was occupied by a log building used by the Indian Spy Service of the Virginia Melita. Two buildings have succeeded it: The original Bailey House hotel, where the future Stonewall Jackson took the examination for admission to West Point. The building burned in 1877 and was replaced by the current structure build in 1885 by PM Hale and the home of the Lewis County Bank in the first quarter of the 20th century. It is now occupied by the West Virginia Museum of American Glass. The side of the West Virginia Museum of American Glass has a mural which illustrates the community’s rich history in the glass industry. Each piece of glass painted on the side of the building is available to view at the museum. This mural was completed in 2020 by West Virginia artist, Jesse Corlis.

The Museum Of American Glass in West Virginia / First Baily House / PM Hale

The Camden Hotel opened its doors to guests on February 9, 1897, beginning business at the dawn of the automobile era — in a town where no one yet owned a car. By comparison, five other inns already in business locally were strictly horse and buggy in age, style and accommodations. The new hostelry was the largest of any (by ten rooms), far and away the most impressive looking outside, and wonder-full inside. Among its several attractions were an elevator, bedrooms incorporating bathrooms, steam radiator heat, fire hoses on all three floors connected to high volume water mains, call bells to awaken guests in the morning, and 460 electric light fixtures illuminating every room, hallway and utility space from attic to basement. Due to uneven financial success over time, the Camden eventually closed its doors on November 30, 1969. The term “opera house” dates from 1720, when it meant a theater for the performance of classical operas. Gradually it came to be a synonym for any theater that presented musical dramas and plays, not necessarily operas, and, finally, the definition broadened to mean a building offering stage presentations of any kind. Weston’s Camden Opera House was exactly that, a theater, fancier titled, where live entertainment was staged (for the first time on November 20, 1896) — regularly plays, musical and not, but also vaudeville acts, minstrels, inspirational lectures, and home talent shows. (Until construction of the Weston High School building with its large auditorium was completed in 1912, graduation ceremonies were conducted at the Camden. Worship services were an occasional use when some denomination’s church was being renovated.) In time, the opera house was renovated, able to better accommodate the occasional showing of movies, and more significantly so in the late 1920s, converted from “a drab scene to one of brightness and beauty in a Spanish motif”. Again remodeled in the mid-30s to become a true movie theater, it continued in business for nearly thirty more years, closing in mid-1963.

Weston’s largest commercial structure, on the northeast corner of Main Avenue and Second Street (202-214 Main), now occupied on its first and in part, second floors by the United Bank, was erected in 1896. The three-story, steel frame building, faced with Milwaukee, yellow-orange, and terra cotta brick and trimmed with Cleveland stone, featured a flagpole-topped, conical turret towering above all else on the street intersection corner. (A flag is no longer flown.) Inside, it boasted natural gas-fired steam heat, electric lights, wired in accord with the latest rules and regulations of the Chicago Fire Department, hot and cold running water, and modern, flushing toilets throughout.  These Innovations seldom found in small town America at the end of the 19th century.

The original occupants were the National Exchange Bank, immediately on the corner; the 40-room R. P. (for Richard Pindall) Camden Hotel, its main entrance and lobby centering the building on the Main Avenue side ground floor (206-208 Main), its bedrooms on the second and third stories; and the Camden Opera House, whose entry was on Second Street (115 East Second).

Camden Hotel / United Bank Building 

It was sold to John Connell in early 1900’s. Mr. Connell had a saloon in 135 E Second Street. It was called the Connell Saloon fine wine and liquors. The current owners purchased the building from Connell family in 2001. The building's upstairs features single rooms that have been converted into two apartments along with two commercial spaces on the first floor. Large fluted cast-iron pilasters on large pedestals with capitals ornamented with a floral pattern. The original storefront has been moderately altered. The front has glass window transoms. Central doorway to second floor framed by smaller round cast-iron columns supporting large glass transom. Five long narrow rectangular windows on second story with cornice window heads ornamented by molding and carved flowers and centered with decorated keystone. Decorative metal string course stamped with a foliated pattern and edged with dentils. Large galvanized cornice with paired brackets and larger corner and center brackets. Building has a flat asphalt roof and a sandstone foundation. The building is currently home to Curated a retail gift store with many local artisans and WV made products as well as the locally owned and operated restaurant, The West Fork Eatery cleverly named after the river that runs through the town.

The Tracy block was built in 1891 by Father Tracy.  The building is a well preserved example of iron storefronts and details supplied by Geo. L. Mesker & Co. out of Indiana. The building still boasts the metal plates signifying the Mesker mark. This building is two stories, consist of five bays and made of red brick. 



The Tracy Block

On the exterior, St. Patrick's church has a very large presence in its space. The structure is built from rough faced sandstone in Romanesque Revival style, it has a twin-towered façade. Compared to the exterior, the interior is extraordinary. The basilican arrangement uses the Corinthian order of the Baths of Caracalla. Richly carved and gilded columns carry full impost-block entablatures that support the arches at their springing line. The nave is five bays long, although the narthex is contained within the rear bay at first-floor level. Huge, round-arched aisle windows, four to a side, have stained glass depictions of events in the life of Christ. The façade window lighting the choir loft above the narthex fittingly shows St. Cecilia, patron saint of music, seated at an organ. The original alter and fittings have been replaced at some point over the past 100 years. Albert Breternitz was the architect on this and several buildings in Weston.

The St. Patrick's Catholic Church was constructed between 1914 and 1915 located at 212 Center Ave. The church has 110 foot towers which cost $45,000 to build. The inside of the church is constructed using eight columns with Corinthian capitals, handcrafted plaster and wood throughout. The church also boast significant stain glass windows throughout. 



St. Patrick's Catholic Church

In 1895, wanting to erect a new church they traded their old building for this new property which was owned by the Baptist but was vacant. They completed construction of the current English Gothic St. Paul's in 1896 using blue sandstone quarried locally. Highly treasured stained class windows accompany the church.

Weston's Episcopalian organized a congregation in 1848 and in 1850 built their frame church across from where the current Baptist Church  now stands. 

St. Paul's Episcopal Church

There was no Baptist Church in Weston in 1867. In response to an invitation made by members of Baptist churches living in or near Weston, a council of ministers and members met in the Court House at 10:30 a.m. on September 14, 1867 to consider the possibility of organizing a Baptist Church in Weston. Membership was slow to grow until 1895 when a new interest in the church was had. Once the church had established a firm hold on the community a collection fund was started to help ensure a permanent location. The church erected a frame building for services. In 1914 the church decided to move forward with the building of a new church building on the old site location. On June 9th 1915 the corner stone of the new church was laid. While the new church was being build service was held at the local high school. The entire sum was raised to build the new church to pay for the full cost of the building and all furnishings at $25,500. In 1921 a parsonage was erected at a cost of $7,383.41.  In 1950, Weston experienced a severe flood. No lives were lost but there was consid­erable damage to the church, the basement was covered with several feet of water. Since then the church has suffered property loss during the floods of 1963 and 1985. Each time the trustees, as well as others, have done an excellent job of cleaning up and restoring the church property.Under the leadership of Rev. Stanley Beaumont (1956-1962), a three-story educa­tional wing was added to the church structure in 1962; an additional lot was purchased from the Bennett family and the debt on the parsonage was paid off two years ahead of schedule. The educational unit was dedicated in March 1963.

Weston's Baptist, organized in 1867, were without a church building of their own until 1895, At that time they traded their then vacant lot across the street, where the Episcopal Church now stands, the old 1850 Episcopal Church on this corner which they wanted to replace. In 1915, the old church was razed and replaced by the present Gothic revival style edifice.

First Baptist Church

In the early hours of June 30, 1861, Colonel Erastus Bernard Tyler and the 7th Ohio Infantry swept into town to capture gold being held in a vault for construction of the asylum. Banker Robert J. McCandlish lived on the second floor and reportedly answered the door to the demands of the Union soldiers. All but about $2,000 of the gold, needed to pay the asylum workers would be sent at first by wagon (reportedly a hearse) to nearby Clarksburg, then by train to Wheeling. Francis Pierpont, governor of the "Restored Government of Virginia", used this money roughly $30,000 to enact legislation establishing the state of West Virginia. The Wheeling Intelligencer defended acquisition of the funds, concluding in its July 4 edition, “We need money almost as badly as they do down at Richmond, and are in no particular need of a Lunatic Asylum….Just now coin is indefinitely preferable to crazy people. The National Exchange Bank Of Weston in West Virginia printed $1,496,500 dollars worth of national currency. Some types and denominations of currency from this bank could be considered rare. This national bank opened in 1865 and stopped printing money in 1932, which equals a 68 year printing period. This is considered a long printing operation period for a national bank. During its life, The National Exchange Bank Of Weston issued 17 different types and denominations of national currency. The National Exchange Bank Of Weston was located in Lewis County and the building is now a private home. The bank was assigned charter number 1607.

In the far left wing of the 133 Center Ave was a branch of the Exchange Bank of Virginia, the first bank in Weston and only the fifth in western Virginia form 1853-1875. The banks cashier Robert J. McCandlish, lived in the upstairs quarters. During the civil war federal troops took money from the bank intended to be used to pay construction workers who were building the State Hospital. 

The National Exchange Bank Of Weston

Old buildings on site of the now Weston Post Office included homes that were on level with the street doorways. It was recorded that a meteor fell in this unpaved street in 1833. Notable people born at this location were Edwin Maxwell, Bishop John W. Hamilton and William George Bennett . It has been reported that at the Maxwell's home at this site was where the first meeting of the County Court of Lewis was held. Levi Maxwell's home was the only structure to survive into the 20th century where in remained until 1933 when it was demolished to build the new post office. Levi Maxwell was the brother of Lewis Maxwell one of the founding men of Weston. The small old brick, concrete office was office of Gideon D. Camden and J. M. Bennett, both local lawyers. The building to right reaches to corner of 'Bank Ave' it was once owned by Burns family.' In 1867 it was home to the Democrat Newspaper until it moved in 1875 when it became home to the post office. The post office was opened in this location under the postmistress Mrs. Newton Bennett Barnes. The letter posting slot was saved when the building was destroyed and was in the possession of the Lewis County Historical Society in 1975 but it's current location is unknown.

The Weston Federal Post Office was built in 1933-34. It was built in the classic 20th century federal building style that pulls from many classic revival periods. The building includes several ornamental features with a brick on steel frame and cement foundation. The building has a high first floor and a low second floor. The arched entrance is inset with marble and Corinthian columns. Center stage of the structure is an American Eagle of high relief. In 1962 the pitched roof was removed and a flat roof was completed.

The Weston Post Office / Maxwell home

In 1903, Lewis County Circuit Clerk George Woofter built the now painted-brick house, which is currently occupied by the Lewis County Health Department. When he was not an elected official, Woofter was a right-of-way agent for the Monongahela Valley Traction Company, the builder of the trolley line that connected Weston with Clarksburg and Fairmount from 1913 to 1947. 

George Woofter House

One story brick church building constructed 1876 immediately below site of first Catholic Church in Weston. Remodeled between 1914-1929 when catholic church moved into new quarters. Front has been extended with brick addition, now covered with stucco, and steeple has been removed. Remainder of building reasonably intact, with arched windows on either side and circular opening at rear where a stained glass window has been removed or covered over. Entire building now painted white. Catholic population in Weston and Lewis County originally established in 1840's with the construction of the turnpike when the county saw a large influx of Irish immigrants, and enjoyed further growth in the 1860's when Italian stonemasons came in to work on the building of the Lunatic Asylum.

Old St. Patrick's church / Weston 

Jonathan McCally Bennett (1816-1887) was one of the most successful and influential local politicians in Lewis County’s history. As a young man, he became a deputy sheriff, where he was able to identify tax-delinquent properties and purchase them for himself at auction. In this way, Bennett made a fortune for himself by acquiring thousands of acres of land in the region, many with gas and oil deposits. In 1842 he was elected the first mayor of Weston. Later he would serve as a state senator, First Auditor of Virginia, and President of the Exchange Bank of Virginia’s Weston branch. He notably influenced the state legislature’s decision to locate the new Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum at Weston in 1859, forever impacting the town’s history. After West Virginia statehood he also served as the finance committee chairman for the new State Senate in the 1870s. Bennett married Margaret Elizabeth Jackson, a cousin of Thomas “Stonewall Jackson;” reportedly he and Bennett were friends.In April 1873 the Bennetts’ home on Court Avenue was destroyed in a fire. A year later Bennett hired Parkersburg architect Columbus Burroughs Kirkpatrick to create a new grand mansion on the same spot. The seventeen-room home was designed in the Riverboat Gothic style, a type of Victorian architecture more common in the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. Notable features included plaster ceiling moldings, detailed millwork, a mansard roof, and a four-and-a-half-story tower. It was also the first home in Weston to have gas lighting. Construction was completed in June, 1875 at a cost of $4,000, an exorbitant sum at the time. The house soon became one of the political and social centers of Weston, hosting many important visitors to the area.After Jonathan Bennett died in 1887 ownership of the house went to his son Louis Bennett. Louis had an illustrious career of his own; he served as principal of what is now Glenville College, Lewis County prosecuting attorney, and Speaker of the state House of Delegates. In 1908 he unsuccessfully ran for governor as a Democrat. He married Sallie Maxwell and had two children, Agra and Louis Jr.Louis Bonnett Jr. achieved distinction as West Virginia’s only ace pilot in World War I. He left Yale University in 1917 when the United States entered the war, and soon organized and trained an air unit dubbed the West Virginia Flying Corps. Undeterred, Louis Jr. enlisted in the British Royal Flying Force and was deployed to Europe. In nine days between August 15 and August 24, 1918, Louis Jr. flew 25 sorties and made twelve confirmed kills. This made him the ninth-best ace of World War I. On August Louis Jr. was shot down and died of his injuries soon afterward.Sallie Maxwell Bennett went into mourning upon the deaths of her son and Louis Sr., who had died on August 2. Using the family’s wealth and influence, she was able to honor her son and husband in several ways across the globe. She commissioned a window in Westminster Abbey in their honor, depicting St. Michael and the West Virginia state seal. A statue of an aviator was erected at Linsley Institute in Wheeling. In Wavrin, France, where Louis Jr. had died, a monument was created and the local church rebuilt. Lastly, Maxwell Bennett sought to honor her family in their hometown of Weston. After noticing that the community lacked a library, she decided to donate their home for that purpose in 1922. The Louis Bennett Public Library formally opened in 1923. The first floor of the house contains library facilities, while the second floor houses a war memorial. A clause in the donation agreement stipulated that most of the home’s exterior could not be altered from its original appearance; the house as a result remained preserved.

The Louis Bennett Public Library is located within a historic home in Weston, West Virginia. The seventeen-room Victorian mansion was built in 1875 by Jonathan M. Bennett, one of the most prominent politicians and businessmen in Lewis County. His son Louis was also a noted civic leader, serving as Speaker of the House of Delegates and unsuccessfully running for Governor in 1908. Louis' son Louis Jr. became famous as West Virginia's only ace pilot in World War I. He flew over twenty missions and made twelve confirmed kills before dying in 1918. His mother, Sallie Maxwell Bennett, decided to honor her husband and son by donating their house to the Lewis County Commission to operate as a war memorial and library in 1922. Today the home continues to house a library while the property includes a war memorial. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Louis Bennett Public Library

Next to this house is a WV rarity, a bald cypress tree (taxodium distichum) according to ledged Judge John Brannon brought a switch of the tree from Richmond, VA in 1853 and planted it here. It is believed the tree is 167 year old. It is now more than 130 feet tall and the largest in the State of West Virginia. It is listed in the National Journal of big trees of America. The tree has a circumference of 18 feet. This is one of the three surviving centennial trees in WV and is listed on the West Virginia Big Tree register.

Virginia State senator and later circuit judge John A. Brannon built this fine home in 1853. During renovations by owners, Robert Piersons, a trapdoor was discovered in the first floor hallway leading to a hidden room under the house. It is believed to have been a Civil War hideaway used to escape capture by Union troops, when they occupied Weston. Brannon's household slaved lived in the 2-story painted brick behind the main house; It is likely the only former slave quarters in central West Virginia. 

236 First Street and Bald Cypress Tree

The heart of this home, built in 1887 by George Jackson Arnold, is a smaller ante-bellum house with a hidden trapdoor leading to a cellar room. The union-loyal Arnold family took refuge there whenever Confederate troops occupied the town. Prior to its acquisition by Lewis County and lease to WVU Extension Services, James Hoffman Edwards and his descendants owned the house. 

Arnold Edwards House 

In time, it became known as the “Old Hill Cemetery”, and after Weston attorney William E. Arnold gave a piece of his abutting property for an addition to the graveyard, it became called, as well, the “Arnold Cemetery”. A section of the original acre was reserved, fenced off and consecrated for the burial of deceased Catholics. The most famous person buried in the “Old Hill” is Alexander Scott Withers, one of young Thomas J. (later “Stonewall”) Jackson’s teachers but more renowned as the author of Chronicles of Border Warfare, an authoritative and gripping account of the conflict between white settlers and Native Americans in western Virginia in the last half of the 1700s. Other prominent Westonians interred there are Daniel Stringer, a co-founder of Weston, owner of the first grist mill in the town, and twice elected to Congress; Weeden Hoffman, one of Weston’s first merchants, who opened the first general store around 1820, and an ordinary, or inn, around 1822 on Main Avenue; Major Thomas Bland, progenitor of the prominent Bland family, owner of an early Weston hotel-tavern, and once a Virginia State Senator; Levi Maxwell, who in 1817 built one of the town’s first houses; Benjamin Owen, publisher-editor of Weston’s first newspaper, the Weston Sentinel; Alexander and Conrad Kester, father and son, the town’s first and second gunsmiths; the Rev. Jonathan Holt, Weston’s first Methodist minister; the Rev. John Talbott, also a Methodist Episcopal minister and the one who brought Weston’s members of that denomination together and, in 1844 on Third Street, erected the town’s first church building.

In 1820, only two years after the founding of Weston as the governmental seat of Lewis County, the town’s first true cemetery, a one-acre plot, was established on the hillside above the south end of Center Avenue, 15 South Center Ave. 

Old Hill-Arnold Cemetery 

In 1906, John McGuire extensively remodeled an 1892-93 house built by attorney William W. Brannon and created this grand home of neo-classical design. Its longest owner-occupant (1914-1966) was Thomas A. Whelan, cashier and principal owner of Citizens Bank. 

Brannon-Whelan House

James Herbert Bailey, Jr. purchased the company from the original owner in 1905, enlarging and modernizing the building as business increased over the years. He owned and operated it for 35 years. In the summer of 1940, he sold it to his son-in-law, Albert D. Jarvis, and James Cledith Bleigh. They renamed the enterprise the Weston Laundry and Cleaners, further enlarged the building and adopted the most up-to-date practices in the laundry-dry cleaning industry. Operations, especially including door-to-door pick-up for linen service, ceased in September 1969, with the effective sale of the business’ accounts to a Pittsburgh-based syndicate whose nearest center of operation was in Clarksburg.The building that used to sit on the northeast corner of Main Avenue and First Street (102 Main) and housed the Colonial Restaurant for many years dated back to the 19th century, with its interior having been rebuilt following a great business section fire in late December 1894 that destroyed everything but its outer walls. It was originally the Tidal Wave saloon, one of as many as 14 or 15 at a given time that were scattered throughout the business section in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (Some of their — and the back-alley bawdyhouses’ — best customers were lumberjacks from the town-less timbering regions of Braxton, Nicholas, Upshur and Webster Counties, who rode the train to “wild and woolly” Weston on weekends.)

The Weston Steam Laundry, organized in 1899, was located north of the "Y" at 9 South Main Avenue in a frame building 34' x 60' in size, with an attached boiler room. Located at the vacant lot at 1st and Main Ave in Weston once stood The Dawson "Tidal Wave" Saloon.

Weston Steam Laundry & The Dawson "Tidal Wave" Saloon

Previously owned by Frederick Brinkman, the building was acquired at the end of May in 1899 and was first used for storage of street repair tools, fire hoses and other town property. The offices of the Mayor and City Clerk, and a two-cell jail, were installed in the building a few years later. Before the city’s purchase of this building, “City Hall” was wherever the Mayor of that date had his place of business or office.

The town of Weston’s first city office building was located at 118-120 Main Avenue, where is now the furniture department of Bennett’s Firestone store. 

Weston First City Building

The owner-builder in each case was Frederick Brinkman, a Prussian army officer (hence, the former theatre’s name) before immigrating to the United States. Once in Weston, he engaged in several different retail businesses. He was the town’s mayor in 1882-83. The current building is noteworthy for its cast iron facade, a popular style of storefront décor in the late 19th century that may be a product of the George L. Mesker Company of Evansville, Indiana, the nation’s foremost creator of such building exteriors.

This store building at 126-128 Main Avenue, now a part of the Bennett Firestone complex, was constructed in 1895, following the late December 1894 fire that destroyed its only-13-month-old predecessor, a retail business structure with a 700-seat, electrically lighted theatre, the Bismarck, on its second floor. (The fire, well under way when first discovered, started in a next-door bakery.)



Brinkman Building

The great fire began in a bakery located behind the building. The owner of both was Irishman Michael W. Dougherty; his business was a restaurant/saloon, with hotel rooms above, called Dougherty’s Shanty. It was a public drinking place when the city fathers were disposed to license such establishments, a speakeasy when not and prohibition was in fashion. These two succeeding “shanties” were, in fact, the second and third buildings to occupy the site. The first was a small, one-story frame structure that burned in a November 1889 business section fire. A gray date stone inserted in the brick high up on the front façade of the present building reads “Dougherty Shanty May 1895”.

This imposing yellow brick business and (now) apartment building at 132-134 Main Avenue replaced an almost equally impressive three-story brick building that burned in a great business section fire in late December 1894. 

Dougherty's Shanty

In 1901 the bank building was extended in the rear by the addition of a two-story annex. Its design was for the first floor to consist of three, small glass-front business rooms, and for the second floor to provide additional office space.By the late 1920s, the bank’s volume of business again became too great for the space it occupied, so in 1927 the bank purchased the old Bailey House located a block north, and razed and replaced it in 1930 with the present Citizens Bank building.Numbers of businesses and professions have occupied the former banking rooms in succeeding years — among them, the Hope Gas Company bill payment office, a small loan company, a medical doctor’s office, an optometrist’s office, an accountant’s office, a bakery, an insurance agency, a wholesale glass sales company office, a taxi company, and, most recently, a gift and craft shop.

The Citizens Bank, the second such financial institution in Weston, opened for business on Monday, February 8, 1892, located in a rented room in Michael W. Dougherty’s recently constructed brick building on the site of 132-134 Main Avenue. But in 1893, needing more space, the bank erected next door this presently standing three-story brick building at 138 Main Avenue (on the southeast corner of Main and Bank Alley), and moved its operations there on December 30th. The new building incorporated a firewall on its south side, most wisely as it turned out, for about a year later, on a frigid night in late December 1894, one of Weston’s greatest fires broke out within the block. The blaze raced in two directions, south towards First Street and north towards the bank. The firewall did its job, however; the bank was saved. Except for a few outer brick walls, all other buildings between the bank and First Street (including Dougherty’s Shanty and the bank’s original home) were destroyed.

The First Citizens Bank Building

In 1890, in the wake of a huge business section fire on November 5, 1889 centered on the east side of Main Avenue and its intersection with Bank Street, Patrick J. Dyer replaced his destroyed frame hotel and Shadyside Saloon with a new, brick structure, at 144 Main Avenue. He called it The Phoenix, referencing the mythical bird burned in a fire that arose from the ashes, recreated. Three years later, in 1893, he erected on the northeast corner of Main and Bank (140 Main) a second building adjacent to the 1890 structure. Dyer’s intention was to make it the tallest building in Weston, with five complete stories. He ran out of money, however, and was forced to reduce the area of the upper floor to a small, square turret.

Patrick J. Dyer replaced his destroyed frame hotel and Shadyside Saloon with the current brick structure, at 144 Main Avenue at the corner of Bank Alley and Main Ave.

Dyer Buildings

The longest lived and perhaps best loved tenant at 158 Main was Talbott’s — and later Hardman’s — Pharmacy, whose soda fountain and lunch counter were popular attractions for decades. Talbott’s first occupied the space in July 1918, when it moved across the street from its original location at 157 Main. At that time, the owner was Orth Talbott, who previously (starting in 1905) had operated the business with his father, Charles W. Talbott.In 1926, however, financial problems overcame the pharmacy and it was placed in receivership; its assets were sold in early 1927 to a group of investors (that included Andrew Edmiston, Jr. and Gene Edwards) who formed a corporation, the “Weston Drug Company”, to occupy 158 Main and continue the business. Meanwhile, Orth Talbott became a pharmacist with the Hile Drug Company, located in the Camden Hotel building. But a year later the Hile store failed; its assets were purchased and a newly formed company, the Lewis County Pharmacy, entered the trade at the same location. Orth continued there as one of the pharmacists.With the advent of the Depression, the Weston Drug Company soon found its venture tough going too, and in 1931, it sold out to a partnership formed by a local resident, Joseph F. Hager, and a Buckhannon druggist, Oke S. Talbott. Initially, the business was called the Hager-Talbott Drug Store, but by 1933 Hager had left the partnership and it was again known simply as Talbott’s.In 1940, Oke sold the pharmacy to Mark Richardson (and others), who carried on at the same site, though under the new corporate and business name “Weston Drug Store”. But in 1943, apparently in some financial difficulties, Richardson conveyed the business back to Orth Talbott. Rejoined with its original owner and renamed “Talbott’s Store”, it essentially enjoyed yet another revival.In September 1949, Charles Hardman (who was Orth’s grandnephew) and his mother, Viola, took control of the business, and changed the name to Hardman’s. Over 30 years later, in the mid-1980s, he decided to retire and sold the store to Gerald Wood and Nick Linger. Still named Hardman’s Pharmacy, it continued for several more years, with Tom Law becoming a part-owner. But in June 1992, Rite Aid purchased the drug store, and its longtime life and location on Main Avenue ended. (Regrettably, the famed soda fountain had been discontinued back in the early 1970s.)On the night of January 6-7, 2000, the Edmiston Block burned in what was the worst fire by far to occur in the downtown business section since 1896. (More than 80 firefighters were called to the scene.) In the end, though successfully prevented from spreading farther, the fire gutted the building’s interior; its outside walls, while left standing, were later razed to avoid a possible collapse. The empty space now serves as a driveway, running to the rear of the respective buildings in between, and related parking spaces.

Where is now open space and an extended parking area on the east side of Main Avenue (152-158 Main) was the Edmiston Block, a three-story, red brick business building erected in 1893 by brothers Matthew and Theodoric Edmiston. Its upper two floors were occupied at different times by offices, clubs and apartments. Ground floor space provided for three separate storerooms over the years.

Edmiston Block

George Clinton Murphy, a former manager in the McCrory’s store chain (founded in 1882 by John G. McCrory, who was inspired by the Woolworth chain), inaugurated his own namesake enterprise in Pennsylvania in 1906. He died in 1911, when the Murphy chain had grown to only around twelve stores. But his successors, also veterans of McCrory’s stores, were able to expand the business more quickly. (Weston’s store was No. 22.) The enterprise prospered largely because its stores were located in small- to medium-sized towns, and were often the first such department stores to arrive there, though their comparatively lower prices further boosted their success against any competitors (especially during the Depression).In 1923, Weston’s “5 &amp; 10” was doubled in size in the leasing of the adjoining room at 160 Main, just vacated by the former Gaston &amp; Fultz grocery and dry goods store. In 1970-71, the entire location was renovated (including razing the former Masonic Hall building that occupied the corner space) and the current corner and extended building constructed; its grand opening occurred on July 15, 1971.In 1976, following the creation of a larger store format called a “Mart” and the establishment of numbers of such new stores, the Murphy company comprised over 500 stores. In 1985, the enterprise was acquired by Ames Department Stores Inc., with many of the Murphy Marts then becoming Ames stores. A few years later, and somewhat ironically, Ames sold most of the older Murphy chain — the so-called variety stores — to the McCrory company. Unfortunately, that company fell into financial difficulties and filed for bankruptcy in 1992, which resulted over the next several years in the closure of many Murphy stores, including Weston’s store in 1997. However, the McCrory company finally emerged from bankruptcy, and the Murphy store in Weston was restarted in March 1999. Unfortunately, it would continue only until early 2001, when it closed for good with the McCrory company itself finally going out of business.

One of Weston’s most popular and well-patronized businesses for over half a century, the G. C. Murphy store opened in Weston on August 23, 1913, originally in a narrow storeroom at 164 Main Avenue (located where is now the southern-most part of the modern store building that the Murphy store came to build and occupy in its later years).

G. C. Murphy 5 & 10

Lewis’s store occupied this site from at least 1870 (though he began his business in Weston as far back as the mid-1840s). He also came to own the site, purchasing it in 1877. And following the 1896 fire, he erected and then occupied the currently standing building. (It should be noted, however, that in contrast to its single entrance and first floor design today, the building was originally constructed as two storerooms, each with its own doorway, such that the building’s formal physical address was 143-145 Main.) His store carried a broad assortment of goods — for example, ladies’ and men’s clothing, hats, shoes, boots, stoneware, cotton yarns, muslin, machine thread, iron nails, and many other items, and also an assortment of basic groceries, like sugar, salt, coffee, and syrup. Lewis died in 1902. He left no will, so for that reason and due to certain outstanding claims that had to be satisfied, first his store’s goods and later his building and property were auctioned off by court decree.In the meantime, a few other businesses came to occupy the building (among them D. M. Timberlake &amp; Co., a men’s clothing store). Then, in July 1904, a fairly new department store, The HUB — operated originally by brothers Michael and Alexander Blumberg, then by just the latter, and later on by another brother, Henry, all natives of Baltimore — moved in. (The HUB had first opened for business in Weston in May 1902, located at a site near the Second Street bridge, and in 1903 relocated to Main Avenue near the Citizens Bank, which was then on the southeast corner of Main and Bank Alley.)In November 1904, legal title to Lewis’s building and site finally passed to the well-known farmer and cattleman, Colonel Asa W. Woodford. He also purchased part of the adjoining lot to the north (then 147 Main, but today designated 145 Main, specifically that portion that now constitutes part of Roshell’s Antiques store). In 1905, Woodford renovated the total of these sites, in particular making additions to the rear of the buildings, and formally named his holdings the Woodford Block. In late 1906, the HUB Store expanded (into then 147 Main) to occupy the total property.Like the Lewis emporium before it, the HUB Store continued a mostly successful business at this general site for decades, closing in 1964.

The several two-story brick business buildings on the west side of Main Avenue, address numbers (most recently or currently) 139 through 155, were all constructed in the period 1896-97, their predecessors having been destroyed in the terrible March 29, 1896 fire. But before and after, stretching for many years from the 19th into the 20th centuries, the site at 143 Main (where today’s Roshell’s Antiques store resides) comprised, in turn, the A. A. Lewis store (a dry goods emporium) and The HUB Department Store.

A. A. Lewis-The Hub Store-Woodford Buildings

At the 165 Main address was first located the John Adams Barnes grocery and general merchandise store, later converted to dry goods only. (He had been in business since 1870, in a frame storeroom across the street.) A son of Weston physician Newton B. Barnes, he was active in the Methodist Episcopal Church and a passionate prohibitionist. The striking home he built in 1886 still stands on the southwest corner of Main Avenue and East Fourth Street. In 1892, he was a founder of the Citizens Bank and served on its board of directors for many years.In his co-owned building, jeweler Er Ralston picked for himself the space at 167 Main, next door to the Barnes emporium, for his new storeroom. Born in Ohio, he came to Weston in 1856, at age 22, and opened his jewelry trade in the Strickler building, a small shop located on the property that was later designated as 221 Main Avenue, and now serves as part of the Citizens Bank’s customer parking lot. Overnight, Ralston became one of the town’s most highly regarded citizens.The next-door room in the Ralston-Edmiston building, at 171 Main, was initially occupied by the Jufer &amp; Zobrist tobacconist’s shop. They rolled their own cigars as well as purchased for sale factory-made ones. (Lewis County produced 26,840 pounds of tobacco, valued at $3,760, in 1890.)In April 1881, James B. Finster took over the space with his newsstand, book and stationery store. Finster, originally an employee of the Weston Democrat as a journeyman printer, was a young man of considerable ambition and a fascination for business of any and every kind. Of meager means, he got his entrepreneurial start in 1878 by selling, from a corner in the Democrat’s printing shop, out-of-town newspapers and magazines, which required a minimal inventory investment. Holding on to his profits, he was able to open his own store at this address, with a broadened line of merchandise. Besides papers (about a hundred sold daily) and magazines, he stocked a few books (Bibles, dictionaries, dime novels), sheet music, chromos (color prints), both cheap and quality writing paper, pens and ink, school supplies, sports and leisure items such as croquet sets, baseballs and bats, hammocks, cigars, pipe and chewing tobacco, candies, and similar sundries.Finster sold the store to Minter Alvin Bailey (grandson of the Bailey House Minter Bailey) in 1893. He, in 1898, sold the business to T. (for Thomas) P. Wright. Under Wright’s ownership and management, and after his death under the direction of Miss Julia Burr, assisted by Miss Vieva Stewart (who became the owner in 1956), the Bookstore, as it was commonly called, was a Mecca for Westonians. More than any other business (except possibly the Camden Theatre), it made Weston a cosmopolitan town.When the Bookstore went out of business, the Edmiston half of the building was purchased, in 1971, by jeweler Dick Smith. The space housed his business until 1993. In 1995, he sold the site to Charles and Janet Lester, who in early 2007 sold it to Enzo and Roberta Cardelli, the present owners. For a time, the store “Heritage Antiques” occupied the site; now the Weston Sanitary Board is located there.Occupying the fourth storeroom (which later became a part of Wright’s Bookstore space described above) in the Ralston-Edmiston building, at 173 Main in 1879, was the Star Clothing House, a branch of a Parkersburg firm, Rauch &amp; Greenstein, managed locally by Adolphus Greenstein, a partner in the business that was sometimes described by an old-fashioned word, haberdashery. An 1883 Democrat article put it this way: “. . . a large clothing store opened in May 1879 . . . doing a fair square business . . . commanding a fair trade . . . keeping a full line of furnishing goods, from the cheapest to the best, and the farm hand or teamster can get his coarse working clothes, while the dandy can be equally well supplied with a wedding outfit of the finest fabrics.”

The extraordinarily historic Ralston-Edmiston building, erected in 1879 at 165-173 Main Avenue, was the joint venture of jeweler Er Ralston, I, and the Judge Matthew Edmiston family. It replaced in part a number of large and small frame buildings (including Ralston’s home) on and near the southwest corner of Main Avenue and Second Street that were destroyed by fire on November 1, 1877. Now the oldest business-professional building in Weston, it originally incorporated four separate storerooms, each of which has its own interesting story to tell. Needless to say, their facades and interiors have been renovated or redesigned over their many years.

Ralston Edmiston Building

The property effectively came under the control of the Edwards family beginning in 1866, with the marriage of Thomas A. Edwards to Mary Olivia Hoffman, daughter and heir of pioneer merchant Weeden Hoffman, who originally came to own the property starting from the time of Weston’s founding. (He died in 1853.) In fact, the “Edwards Block” was such more in name than right, for Mary continued to own the property pursuant to a trust agreement signed the day before her marriage in order to prevent her husband from obtaining any legal interest should the marriage not work out. Despite such precautions, Thomas Edwards proved himself worthy and successful, becoming President of the Lewis County Court (which granted him the honorary title of Judge) and, from 1876 until his death in 1890, the owner and editor of the Weston Democrat. The property’s original structures were frame ones that had, almost miraculously, escaped all the business section fires of the late 19th century (with brick structures only starting to replace them). In that earlier era, different rooms were occupied by H. H. Smith’s leather goods shop, a butcher shop, Harrison &amp; Warren hardware store, several different groceries, and a barbershop, the latter owned by a rarity, West Virginia’s only lady barber, Mrs. Fannie Bruder, who also sold cigars on the side. In 1903, the old and dilapidated frames along with a few brick structures were razed and replaced by a large, two-story brick building of several storerooms that was completed in 1905. Among the Main Avenue first floor tenants of the Edwards Block in the mid 20th century were Murphy’s 5 &amp; 10 cent store, the J. C. Penney Department Store, and Ralston’s Drug Store. On the second floor were the offices of attorneys Mapel Brannon, Robert and Charles Bland, and John S. Holy. Radio station WHAW’s original studios were also located on the second floor, beginning in 1948. On the Second Street side of the building were the Bank of Weston and the Monarch Pool Room. On the Second Street second floor at different dates were the offices of Dr. Okey L. Hudkins, Dr. Karl A. Dillinger, dentist John Francis Riley, Edwards &amp; Edwards Insurance, attorney William L. Fury, civil engineer Mathew S. Holt, the New York Life Insurance office, Davis Studio and accountant Claude W. Rinehart.

Some of Weston’s most popular business addresses for the last part of the 19th century and almost three-quarters of the 20th century were store rooms in what was collectively called the Edwards Block, being most of the site (with the exception of the corner space itself) where is now the onetime G. C. Murphy building and comprising a range of addresses (most now defunct) — 160 through 176 Main Avenue and 108 through 112 East Second Street.



Edwards Block 

In time, Mr. Hoffman would associate in business with others at several Main Avenue locations, and when he died, in 1853, he was Weston’s wealthiest man. A longer lived business at this site, from shortly before the Civil War until near the beginning of World War I, was the W. (for William) L. Dunnington dry goods store, in its later years the partnership of Dunnington &amp; (James W.) Dennison. The present building was constructed by B. (for Barney) Kaplan in 1916 and housed his department store, until the beginning of the Depression in 1929. Meantime, Dunnington &amp; Dennison had moved next door, to 165 Main. Later tenants included the W. T. Grant company, which opened in May 1930, followed by Kroger’s, the Fountain Cut Rate store, Rite Aid, the Main Avenue Youth Center, and Roshell’s Furniture store.

Weston’s first store of any type — in this case a general store, one selling merchandise of a hundred kinds — was established where is now 161-163 Main Avenue. Its owner was Weeden Hoffman, who previously, and perhaps concurrently for a short time, had a store at Westfield.

Weeden Hoffman Store - Circa 1820 - B. Kaplan Store

The M. L. Hunt company, which opened on George Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1910. A few years later, in 1913, the G. C. Murphy store arrived at 160-164 Main.

Located at 116 Main Avenue, where have been the law offices of Robert M. Morris and the late John S. Holy, was located Weston’s first 5 &amp; 10 cent store.

Weston's First Five & Ten Cent Store

A motion picture was first seen in Weston on April 14, 1897, in the then brand new Camden Opera House (later Camden Theatre) at 115 East Second Street. Projected onto a white sheet by an Edison Vitascope, it was little more than a few-minute demonstration of the marvel, presented as part of a vaudeville troupe’s otherwise live stage presentation. Admission was 25 cents for children, 50 cents for adults, who willingly forked over to witness such a wonder. Included in the film were scenes of Niagara Falls, a comic dance, pictures of traffic and pedestrians in New York’s Herald Square, a flame and smoke-filled fire rescue scene, and a watermelon eating contest.The Camden was, in fact, a stage and not a movie theatre when it opened; it would not show films on a regular basis for another fifteen or so years. In the meantime, in March 1907, Weston’s first nickelodeon, The Electric Theater, was opened by the Ottawa McEwuen family two doors east of the Camden, in a former storeroom on the northwest corner of Second Street and Post Office Drive (119 East Second), the building now razed and replaced by a small section of the United Bank parking lot.Later that year, a second nickelodeon opened, located in the 1896-built Morrison Building, at 139 Main Avenue. The Fairyland Theatre, with a seating capacity of 330, was owned and operated by Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania native James W. Ferry, who advertised: “Open afternoons and evenings. Clean, cool and comfortable room. Our picture does not hurt the eyes. Program changed daily.” Admission was a nickel, hence this type of theater’s common name. The Fairyland sign can still be seen high up on the side of the building facing Bank Alley.A third nickelodeon, the Grand, owned by John Hindenach, was in operation from 1909 until 1913 (then renamed the Hippodrome) in the Malloy building, which occupied the northwest corner of Main Avenue and First Street. (The building was razed in 2008.) Finally, in the next-door room, from 1919 until 1922, was the short-lived New Theatre. In the coming years, nickelodeons would give way to larger, full-fledged movie theaters.

Fairyland Nickelodeon painted wall advertisement located at 139 Main Avenue is home to a 90 year old painted advertisement on the brick wall of Bank Alley. This signage is painted on the upper wall of the 1896-built Morrison Building. This mural stands as a quite reminder of the silent movies first shown here in 1907 by Weston's second nickelodeon owner, James Ferry. The alley is home to other painted advertisements including two Coca-Cola murals below the fairyland mural.

Fairyland Nickelodeon Movies

From 1855 until 1896, this address (135-137 Main Avenue) was the site of the Tierney House, an A frame hotel with 15 or so rooms and also a saloon, owned by Irish immigrant Patrick Tierney. The building was destroyed in the fire of March 29, 1896. (Also lost was the saloon’s substantial inventory of whiskey. As the fire spread up Main Avenue, the liquor was hurriedly carried back to Water Avenue and stuffed in every nook and cranny of the hotel’s two-holer privy, which hung out over the riverbank on a rickety foundation. The weight was too much for the support poles, however. They buckled, the outhouse crashed onto the malodorous ground below, and every bottle was broken.) For the next 14 years, the former hotel site remained vacant ground. In 1910-11, Mr. Tierney’s daughter, Sally, erected this three-story retail store and office building. (Weston’s electric power system, already 20 years old, was so unreliable that, as a precaution, Miss Tierney had her building plumbed for gas as well as electric lights. (See #79.)) The first tenant of the Tierney Building was the B. Kaplan Department Store. When Mr. Kaplan built his own store farther up Main in 1916, Adler’s Store moved into the Tierney Building and remained until 1986, when it ceased business. Today the building’s owner is optometrist Daniel D. T. Farnsworth, great-grandson of West Virginia Governor D. D. T. Farnsworth.

The stately Tierney Building was erected in 1910-11 by Sally Tierney Bennett, whose Irish-Immigrant father, Patrick, operated here the Tierney House hotel and saloon that were destroyed in the great business section fire of March 1896. The building is situated on the corner of Bank Alley and Main. 


Tierney building

Kane’s, which began business in the early 1900s, occupied the presently standing storeroom until September 1993. A successor to the business, B &amp; E Hardware, operated there for a time. More recently, the site was home to a restaurant — Kane’s Grub and Pub — and currently houses another restaurant — Thyme Bistro.

At 125 Main Avenue were located two of Weston’s best known businesses: in the late 19th century, Egan Hardware; and for much of the 20th century, E. J. Kane Hardware. The building that housed Egan’s was destroyed in the great business section fire of March 29, 1896.

Egan - Kane Hardware

The local mill, established in 1817 by town father Daniel Stringer, had many different owners and names during its century of operations. As well as a grist mill, it also sawed logs into lumber. Fires and floods plagued it, and, when there weren’t floods, often there were droughts. Several times the river came close to drying up in late summer, just when grain was being harvested and the mill was most needed. To solve that problem, steam power was substituted for the water wheel in the 1840s. The old mill, in its last reincarnation, was demolished in April 1921. Traces of the original stone milldam, beginning to fall away in 1919 and finally washed out in 1923, can still be seen a short distance upstream from the footbridge now crossing the river. Today the building is being re-envisioned as the "The Weston Town Hub" which will include a local craft beer tap room, butcher shop, book store and coffee shop. With apartments on the upper levels of the building.

This first bridge was destroyed by the great business section fire in 1896 and was replaced the next year by an iron bridge. The new iron bridge was put in place in 1983. A few yards south of the bridge on the east bank you can see the foundations of the Stringer grain mill constructed in 1818 and the remnants of the milldam.

The first footbridge to span the West Fork River in Weston at this location. The first bridge erected was a suspension  bridge in 1886-87. This bridge was put in place for a shortcut to downtown by the State Hospital employees and Weston Residence.

The City of Weston Historic Walking Tour

The Stringer and Weston Flour Mill

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information