SENATE RESOLUTION 4

(By Senators Blair, Trump, Sypolt, Williams, Stollings, Laird and Unger)

Acknowledging Mineral County’s 150th anniversary on February 1, 2016, as a day to celebrate the county’s rich history and the many fine accomplishments by its citizens.

Whereas, Mineral County was created on February 1, 1866, by an Act of the West Virginia Legislature; and

Whereas, From its verdant low valleys to the towering backbone of the Allegheny Front, three thousand feet above the North Branch of the Potomac River, Mineral County lies a stone’s throw from Maryland and just a three-hour drive from Washington; and

Whereas, Home of Potomac State College and named for its vast mineral resources, Mineral County was a railroad and coal center at the beginning of the 1900s. The county has an area of three hundred and twenty-nine square miles and an estimated 2012 population of 27,000, nine hundred and fifty-six. Keyser is the county seat; and

Whereas, Located in the Eastern Panhandle, Mineral County was part of Hampshire before the Civil War. Local residents were more pro-union than those living in the eastern part of Hampshire County. Following the war, in 1866, the new county was created. West Virginia had become a state just three years earlier; and

Whereas, There were skirmishes during the Civil War, and towns changed hands several times, usually only briefly. New Creek Station, now Keyser, was a training camp for Union soldiers from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Mineral County’s Y-junction, where the Northwest Turnpike intersected the New Creek road  -- now U.S. 50 and U.S. 220 --was strategic for troop and supply movements into the Shenandoah Valley; and

Whereas, The present Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia was well-known to George Washington. He had crisscrossed the region as a young surveyor and commanded frontier defense during the French and Indian War. In 1755, he ordered a stockade and fort erected in present Mineral County as a defense against incursions by Delaware and Catawba Indians. The original log blockhouse still stands at Fort Ashby; and

Whereas, Many immigrants in the 19th century worked their way across the coalfields of Pennsylvania, down through Maryland, and settled in Mineral County. The area’s population reflects a diverse mixture of Mennonites, German Swiss, English, Scots, Italians and Jews. Even Chinese immigrants found their way to Keyser in the early 1900s. Elk Garden became home for many Irish, including Flanigans and Faheys, McIntires and McDonoughs, Kilroys and Keegans, Conlons, Kenneys and Joyces; and

Whereas, Perhaps the most prominent historic figure was the industrialist Henry Gassaway Davis, who began as a brakeman for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad at age twenty and later associated with U.S. presidents. He lived in Piedmont early in his life, as a storekeeper and railroad agent. Davis later was elected to the U.S. Senate and ran for vice president in 1904, when he and Democratic presidential candidate Alston Parker lost to Teddy Roosevelt. Davis founded Elkins and owned his own railroad; and

Whereas, Davis’s purchase of the famous ‘‘Big Vein’’ of coal atop the Allegheny Front at Elk Garden led to a local industrial boom from the 1880s into the early twentieth century. From 1881 to 1923, three hundred and fifteen acres of coal was mined and two thousand miners worked at Elk Garden. High-quality semi-bituminous coal from Davis’s Big Vein was displayed at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1893 and powered Admiral Dewey’s fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay; and

Whereas, The arrival of the B&O Railroad, which reached the northern part of present Mineral County in 1842 and arrived at a point across the North Branch from Piedmont a decade later, had a major impact. The railroad increased the population in northern Hampshire County, and contributed to the political differences within the county that led to the creation of Mineral County on February 1, 1866. Keyser, named for a vice president of the B&O, was a key railroad point from which coal and produce were shipped. Keyser was selected as the county seat as a compromise between Elk Garden and Piedmont. Keyser earlier had been known as Paddytown, named for Patrick McCarty of County Tyrone, Ireland, who had settled there in the mid-1700s; and

Whereas, Keyser today is the region’s hub. Once home to a B&O roundhouse, its citizens now work in education, agriculture, retail, vocational training, the arts, health care, and at small industrial parks. Major employers include Verso in both Mineral County and in nearby Luke, Maryland, and Allegheny Ballistics Laboratory at Rocket Center. The opening of Jennings Randolph Lake on the North Branch holds potential for attracting tourists from nearby Baltimore and Washington; and

Whereas, Potomac State College, beautifully situated atop a small hill that once had Fort Fuller, a branch of West Virginia University. Most of the approximately eighteen hundred students complete their last two years at WVU in Morgantown; and

Whereas, Several other Mineral County towns have rich histories. Piedmont, closely associated with the nearby Maryland communities of Westernport and Luke, is the hometown of Henry Louis Gates Jr., of Harvard University, a prominent African-American scholar, frequent commentator, author of many books and host of a PBS television show. Piedmont once had a roundhouse and machine shops of the B&O, and its people are closely tied to MeadWestvaco at Luke; and

Whereas, Ridgeley was Fort Ohio, and Fort Ashby, a frontier post, and Doll’s Gap is said to be the birthplace of Nancy Hanks, mother of Abraham Lincoln; therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate:

That the Senate hereby acknowledges February 1, 2016, as a day to celebrate Mineral County’s 150th anniversary and the many fine accomplishments by its citizens; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the Clerk is hereby directed to forward a copy of this resolution to the appropriate representatives from Mineral County.