Local History

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.

Purpose and Passion: Bobby Pruett & the Marshall Years is the authorized biography of Marshall University former head football coach Bobby Pruett. From the 1996 season up through his retirement in 2005, Coach Pruett led Marshall's Thundering Herd to victory in six Mid-American Conference divisional titles, five Mid-American Coference championships and won five out of seven bowl games, establishing the record along the way as the winningest football coach in Marshall University's history.

John Brown was born 24 years after the 13 colonies declared independance and died a tragic death by a hangman's noose, just 16 months before the United States was torn apart by civil war.

His life, which paralleled the rapid growth of the new country, was filled with business reversals, personal tragedies and a fervent moral conviction about the intitution of slavery that consumed his later life. It would lead to his and many others' deaths, including several of his sons. Some say he was the spark that ignited the Civil War.

Coal Towns of West Virginia, Volume 2, Mary Legg Stevenson's most recent work chronicles - through photographs - the history of many of West Virginia's southern coal mining towns. For a time coal was king in West Virginia. Today, most of the mines have closed, and many of the towns are gone. To tell the story of generations of hard working West Virginians - both coal miners and enterprising businessmen - we have mainly fading memories and old photographs.

"I sometimes tease my northern friends that I wish I collected northern material. It is so much cheaper -- but not nearly so interesting." -- Dr. Rosanna A. Blake

"The Rosanna A. Blake Library of Confederate History is one of the best Confederate collections in the country." -- Dr. Richard Harwell

Afflicting the Comfortable: Journalism and Politics in West Virginia is a historical record intimately told. A former investigative reporter with The Raleigh Register and The Charleston Gazette, Thomas F Stafford gives a candid account of the political corruption and scandal that racked the state for decades.

"Stafford's book offers fascinating memories of secret meetings at the old Charleston Press Club, of hours searching through government file cabinets and of trips to Florida's richest beach resorts to expose greed, corruption and hypocrisy.

This important volume describes many of the disasters which have occurred in the Mountain State, as reported by reporters from many of the state’s most respected newspapers: The Beckley Register-Herald, The Fairmont Times West Virginian, Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Coal Valley News, The Logan Banner, Point Pleasant Register, and Gallipolis Daily Tribune. Along with rare photographs, these state newspapers have researched their archives and have come up with many of the most horrifying moments in history.

- Silver Bridge Collapse
- McDowell and Wyoming Floods
- Bluefield Snowstorm

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Providing more than a narration of the events, Altina L. Waller tells the real story of the Hatfields and McCoys instead of perpetuating the myths surrounding them. At the same time, she analyzes the fundamental social and cultural tensions underlying the feud. She argues that it was not an outgrowth of traditional mountain culture but rather a contest for social and economic control between local people and outside industrial capitalists.

This is the true story of heroic Mary Draper Ingles. In 1745, Mary moved with her parents to Draper's Meadow in the Shenandoah Valley. Here they hoped to finally have rich farmland and the freedom to worship freely -- far from greedy landlords of their native Ireland and the partisan rules of Quaker Pennsylvania. As more settlers moved into the area, tension between the settlers and the Native Americans increased. Raids and killings by both sides became common.

This significant book is a pictorial recollection of a bygone era - quaint coal camps and coal towns. This book is a collection of hundreds of antique photographs documenting these mine-owned villages, tipples, and camps of southern West Virginia. Counties included: Fayette, Raleigh, Wyoming, Boone, Logan, and Mercer Counties. This book needs to be on the bookshelf of every Mountaineer and Appalachian citizen.