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The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at www.wvencyclopedia.org.
Aug. 18, 1885: Artemus Ward Cox was born on a farm at Red Knob, Roane County. In 1914, Cox bought the George Ort Department Store on Capitol Street in Charleston. That store became the first in a chain of 21 A. W. Cox stores in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky.
Aug. 19, 1863: Union cavalry under Brigadier General William W. Averell destroyed the Confederate saltpeter works near Franklin.
Aug. 19, 1997: Fiddler Curly Ray Cline died. Born in Logan County, Cline was a member of the Lonesome Pine Fiddlers and Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys.
Aug. 20, 1851: The oldest statue in West Virginia, a nine-foot wood carving of Patrick Henry, was dedicated at the county courthouse in Morgantown.
Aug. 20, 2004: Eldora Bolyard Nuzum died in Elkins. While working for the Grafton Sentinel in 1946, she became the first female editor of a daily newspaper in West Virginia. For three decades, she was editor of the Elkins Inter-Mountain.
Aug. 21, 1861: Confederate troops under General John B. Floyd crossed the Gauley River at Carnifex Ferry, Nicholas County, and began to entrench their position. It was the beginning of what became known as the Battle of Keslers Cross Lanes.
Aug. 21, 1915: Singer Ann Baker was born in Pennsylvania. She later operated a popular Charleston nightclub, The Shalamar, and became known as “Charleston’s First Lady of Jazz.”
Aug. 22, 1872: Following the Constitutional Convention of 1872, the West Virginia electorate ratified a new state constitution by a vote of 42,344 to 37,777. In the same election, voters rejected a controversial convention proposition that would have prohibited Black citizens from holding public office.
Aug. 23, 1965: Sylvia Mathews Burwell was born in Hinton. She was U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (2014-17) under President Obama before serving as American University’s first woman president (2017-24).
Aug. 23, 1970: The Mormon Church established its first “stake,” or congregation, in West Virginia. The stake was organized in Charleston with a membership of nearly 4,000 people.
Aug. 24, 1918: Louis Bennett Jr. died of injuries sustained when his plane was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire. Bennett, with 12 combat kills, was West Virginia’s only World War I fighter ace.
Aug. 24, 1947: Joe Manchin III was born in Fairmont. He served in both houses of the legislature and as secretary of state before becoming the 34th governor in 2005. In 2010, he ran successfully for the late Robert C. Byrd’s U.S. Senate seat and stepped down as governor. In 2023, he announced he would retire from the Senate at the end of his term in 2025.
