Brent Carney

Wheeling Brent Carney

When most people think of Wheeling they remember Independence Hall and the birth of West Virginia, but Wheeling's history goes back even further to the frontier legends of Lewis Wetzel and Maj. Samuel McColloch. Images of America: Wheeling includes photographs of both Wetzel's cave and Major McColloch's smoke house, as well as a multitude of historic photographs depicting the way life used to be in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Famous visitors such as Babe Ruth, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles Lindbergh, President John F. Kennedy, actress Sarah Bernhardt, and Buffalo Bill are featured. Within these pages memorable snapshots document some famous moments in the history of the 20th century, such as when President Eisenhower decided to keep Senator Nixon on the ticket at the Ohio County Public Airport and Sen. Joseph McCarthy's famous speech about Communists in the State Department at Wheeling's McLure Hotel. However, the real stars of this book are Wheeling's own buildings, industries, and people, from machine workers on the job to millionaires at play. A chapter devoted to the African-American experience in Wheeling includes Center Market's slave auction block as well as an image of the great jazz saxophonist Leon "Chu" Berry. This collection highlights some of the horrific natural disasters that occurred at the turn of the century as well as Wheeling's Victorian architectural treasures, which were erected during the same era.