Iron Road: the Rise of Huntington, West Virginia, 1870-1920 Brooks Bryant [email protected]
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Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar Theses, Dissertations and Capstones 2018 Iron Road: The Rise of Huntington, West Virginia, 1870-1920 Brooks Bryant [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://mds.marshall.edu/etd Part of the Appalachian Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Bryant, Brooks, "Iron Road: The Rise of Huntington, West Virginia, 1870-1920" (2018). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. 1144. https://mds.marshall.edu/etd/1144 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. IRON ROAD: THE RISE OF HUNTINGTON, WEST VIRGINIA, 1870-1920 A thesis submitted to the Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of the Arts In History by Brooks Bryant Approved by Dr. Daniel U. Holbrook, Chairperson Dr. Robert C. Deal Dr. Kevin T. Barksdale Marshall University May 2018 ii © 2018 Brooks Bryant ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS With my sincerest gratitude, I want to thank the faculty of the History Department for everything I learned from them, their invaluable teaching, and their wonderful sense of humor. Thank you for giving me the honor and privilege to have worked with you! To Dan Holbrook, thank you for your wisdom, patience, and advice throughout this work. To Montserrat Miller, thank you for the words of comfort at times when I struggled. Also, I would like to give my warmest thanks to the amazing staff of the Marshall University Special Collections & Archives. To my fellow graduate students, John, Seth, and Mike, it was an honor to have worked with you all, and I am grateful for all the historical discussions we had. To my amazing wife, who encouraged, supported, and helped more than she will ever know, I love you. To my goofy sons, I love you so much, and thank you for always making me laugh. I dedicate this work to my family, especially my parents, thank you from the bottom of my heart. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………….iv Contents......……………………………………………………………………………………….v List of Pictures....……………………………………………………………………………...…vii Abstract.…………………………………………………………………………………………viii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1: City Building, The Media, and the Birth of Huntington ............................................... 7 This Road Leads To A New City…………………………………………………11 What’s Going On With Huntington ...................................................................... 21 Conclusion…………………………………………….…………………………29 Chapter 2: A Community of Relative Strangers............................................................................32 Seeking Middle Ground in the Mid-Atlantic…………………………………….32 People on The Move.…………………………………………………………….35 Say, They Are All the Rage, Benevolent Societies That Is!..................................38 African Americans In Early Huntington…………………………………………44 A Need for Public Education.……………………………………………………49 Conclusion……………………………………………….………………………58 Chapter 3: Crime and the Media: Criminal Activity in Huntington’s Early Years……………...60 Manifestations of Urban Criminality…………………………………………….62 A Certain Class of Inhabitants…………………………………………………...66 The First Jury Trial in Huntington……………………………………………….68 Summertime and The Living Ain’t Easy..……………………………………….70 Shameful Conduct, Indeed……………………………………………………….72 Rising Tensions.………………………………………………………………….74 We Are All Americans Here.…………………………………………………….77 When the Circus Came to Town...……………………………………………….81 v Highwaymen, The Law, and Lynching………………………………………….83 Lynching in the Historical Memory of Huntington.……………………………..92 Conclusion.……………………………….……………………………………...98 Chapter Four: Private Residents Modernize Huntington.………………………………………103 Urban Public Works in the U.S.………………………………………………...104 Telephones.……………………………………………………………………..108 Stepping Away from the Frontier.……………………………………………...110 Huntington by Gaslight..………………………………………………………..112 Blinded by The Light..………………………………………………………….119 It’s Muddy Here, But We Have Electric Streetcars…………………………….125 I Don’t Drink Muddy Water……………………………………………………133 We Cry for Help.……………………………………………………………….140 Conclusion…………………..………………………………………………….147 Conclusion: A Forgotten Gilded Age City……………………………………………………..150 Bibliography………….………………………………………………………………………...158 Appendix A: Office of Research Integrity Approval Letter……………………………………172 vi LIST OF PICTURES Huntington Crowd In 1873……………………………………………………………………….6 1871 Rufus Cook Map of Huntington…………………………………………………………...13 Map of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad and its Connections in 1873…...…………………...15 Mary McVay’s Boardinghouse, 1880…...……………...………………………………………..20 City Hall, circa 1870s…...……………………………………………………………………….61 First Electric Streetcar In Huntington, 1888…….....…………………………………………...126 The Huntington Electric Light & Street Railway Station, 1889…..……………………………130 City Water Works, 1889……….……………………………………………………………….138 vii ABSTRACT The city of Huntington, West Virginia, did not occur gradually, nor did the city grow organically. Collis P. Huntington’s purchase of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in the winter of 1869 led to the conception of the first new city of a State born out of the Civil War. Collis Huntington specifically chose the future site of Huntington for the terminus of the C&O Railroad to reach areas rich in coal, timber, and agriculture in West Virginia, providing natural resources a way to market. For Collis P. Huntington to profit from shipping natural resources out of West Virginia, he needed a city to ship coal, timber, and produce to markets. Likewise, for the city of Huntington to thrive, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad needed a steady source of revenue and a population. City founders promoted bipartisanship and residents quickly aligned with that political sentiment as commercial harmony took precedence over sectional conflict. As migrants formed the city’s first population and brought with them their social and cultural practices, they helped shape the beginnings of city identity. This study examines the years from 1870 to 1920 and seeks to fill a major gap in urban history by examining Huntington within the Ohio Valley. Additionally, the examination of Huntington through an Appalachian perspective also fills a major gap in that historiography. Neglected by Appalachian history, and virtually nonexistent in urban history, Huntington offers a unique study of a new nineteenth-century American city east of the Mississippi. viii INTRODUCTION “There is very great promise for the commercial future of West Virginia if an outside population can be induced to enter and improve the country.”1 New York Times, July 7, 1873. Founded in March 1870 by Collis P. Huntington, the City of Huntington, West Virginia significantly impacted the state’s politics, economy, labor industry, and culture by opening the southern coalfields, accessing virgin forests, and shipping agriculture. So where does the city of Huntington fit into American history? A typical nineteenth-century American city, Huntington remains almost wholly unexamined by urban historians.2 Appalachian historiography, which tends to focus on rural areas, also ignores Huntington.3 The city’s founding and development coincide with that of western cities following the Civil War, although it is east of the Mississippi. Major themes of the Gilded Age converge in the city’s creation; while mid-western and western cities were springing up as the frontier pushed west, Huntington emerged in the Mid-Atlantic 1 “The Two Virginias,” New York Times, July 07, 1873. 2 For works on American urban history, see David Goldfield, Encyclopedia of American Urban History. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 2006. Jon A. Peterson, The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). Raymond A. Mohl, The Making of Urban America, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). Raymond A. Mohl, The New City: Urban America in the Industrial Age, 1860-1920, (Arlington Heights: Harlan Davidson, Inc.,1985). Eric H. Monkkonen, America Becomes Urban: The Development of U.S. Cities & Towns, 1780-1980, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). John William Reps, The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965). Jon C. Teaford, The Unheralded Triumph, City Government in America, 1870-1900, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984). 3 For works on Appalachian and West Virginia history, see Ronald L. Lewis, Transforming the Appalachian Countryside: Railroads, Deforestation, and Social Change in West Virginia, 1880-1920, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). Mary Beth Pudup, Dwight B. Billings, and Altina L. Waller, Appalachia in the Making: The Mountain South in the Nineteenth Century, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000). Henry D. Shapiro, Appalachia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1920, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986). Andrew Slap and Ken Fones- Wolf, Reconstructing Appalachia: The Civil War's Aftermath, (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2010). John Alexander Williams, Appalachia: A History, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,