Local History

This book tells the story of a feisty labor leader - Mary Harris “Mother” Jones - who, at the age of eighty-one, was able to focus national attention on the coal miners’ cause in West Virginia. Jones, arrested with other civilians and tried by a military court on charges of murder during miners’ strikes in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek areas of Kanawha County, was imprisoned for several months.

Brand New! Upon the tragic death of Chief Cornstalk in 1774, the Shawnees followed Cornstalk’s daughter, Princess Aracoma, into present-day Midelburg Island in Logan County. This book aptly describes the settling of the Mountain State and explains how Princess Aracoma resolved a difficult conflict between the American Indian population and the region’s earliest settlers.

A state bestseller is now available in a handsome softcover format, and includes additional research, interviews and photographs.

One Saturday morning in February 1972, an impoundment dam owned by the Pittston Coal Company burst, sending a 130 million gallon, 25 foot tidal wave of water, sludge, and debris crashing into southern West Virginia's Buffalo Creek hollow. It was one of the deadliest floods in U.S. history. 125 people were killed instantly, more than 1,000 were injured, and over 4,000 were suddenly homeless. Instead of accepting the small settlements offered by the coal company's insurance offices, a few hundred of the survivors banded together to sue.

Now in its Second Printing. Revised and re-edited, Arch is available in Softcover!

"Arch Moore's decisions — both good and bad — are like boulders altering the course of a mountain river that is West Virginia. Brad Crouser rises to the challenge of chronicling the life of the enigmatic Moore." — Hoppy Kercheval, Metronews Talkine

This self-published title, by Mary Dingess Tabor Perry, is the first book under the World Literary Services imprint, a division of Woodland Press, LLC. It is a lovely memoir written and edited by 94-year-old Mary Perry, a respected woman from the City of Logan County, West Virginia. Here she shares some of the special and humorous moments from her fascinating and full life, including more than one story that will surprise and enlighten you. Many of the accounts inside are heartwarming and down-right funny. Other tales speak of a simpler time during the early part of the 20th century.

“As a scion of one of the feuding families of the Allegheny and Cumberland hills, and one whose forebearers began their trek westward from the Virginia coast, I offer the following for all who may be interested or desire to hear the facts from one who has first-hand knowledge of the people of whom he writes.” — Dr. Coleman C. Hatfield

A REGIONAL BESTSELLER --- This is the true account of a prominent, Depression-era woman from Southern West Virginia, who was found brutally murdered. Mamie Thurman was a member of the tight-lipped, local aristocracy that frequented a private club in downtown Logan, where they gambled, drank illegally, swapped wives, and the like. A local handyman was likely framed for her murder and spent the rest of his life in prison. However, new evidence points to several groups, from the mob to the KKK, to rumrunners and local merchants, as having a part in this gruesome account.

This fully illustrated book shows operations along the C&O in Southern West Virginia during the post WWII era. Included are detailed drawings of mining operations and hundreds of photos from the time period on the trains, coal operations, equipment, and the coal towns along the line.

In January 1897, a young woman named Zona Heaster Shue was discovered dead in her home in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, apparently of natural causes. Some weeks after the burial, Zona's ghost appeared at her mother's bedside, revealing to her that she had in fact been murdered. The case was reopened, Zona's body was exhumed, and ultimately her husband, Trout Shue, was convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.