Charleston WV – 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. 19, 1863: Union cavalry under Brigadier General William W. Averell destroyed the Confederate saltpeter works near Franklin. It was the first of a series of Union raids in West
Virginia led by Averell that month.
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, 1794: The Americans’ victory over a tribal coalition at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, in Ohio, and subsequent treaty, ended the frontier-era’s Indian Wars in Western Virginia and brought peace to the region for the first time in generations.
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. 21, 1946: Gerry Milnes was born in Pennsylvania. After moving to West Virginia in 1976, he became one of the state’s most prolific folklorists, musicians, and filmmakers. His five decades of documenting and preserving Appalachian traditions earned him the prestigious 2026 Bess Lomax Hawes National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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. 22, 1874: John Kee, the patriarch of a powerful political family, was born in Glenville. He relocated to Bluefield in 1910 and was first elected to Congress in 1932, eventually chairing the House Foreign Affairs Committee. After his death in 1951, his widow, Elizabeth, filled his seat (1951-65), followed by their son James (1965-73).
Aug. 23, 1949: John Chambers was born in Cleveland but spent much of his formative years in Ravenswood and Charleston. He is best known as the former CEO and chairman of the Cisco Systems technology company.
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. He retired from the Senate in 2025.
Aug. 25, 1903: Soprano Susanne Fisher was born in Sutton. Fisher was the first West Virginian to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.
Aug. 25, 1921: Miners began to arrive at Blair Mountain near the border of Logan and Boone counties. Sheriff Don Chafin, a hated symbol of anti-unionism in southern West Virginia, met them with a combined force of deputies, mine guards, civilian volunteers and others.
Aug. 25, 2000: The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope was dedicated. It is the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope.
