Tuesday 22nd September 2009 - Trains and Coal and Textbooks

          As I drove down to Glasgow Library from Charleston, I spotted a coal train stopped alongside the freeway.  Just for once I displayed some presence of mind, and looked at the tripmeter in the speedometer.  The train was more than a mile-and-a-half long. 

          Kanawha (Kan-oh-ah, they seem mostly to say, emphasis on the first sylable) County is a strange mix of Charleston, which is not only the county seat, but also the state capital, and all the little creek valleys that spill off the main Kanawha River valley.  This caused a lot of trouble in 1974.  The valley people, one imagines, were pretty isolated, relying only on family.  The only social glue they knew would be their churches and their pastors.

          One of the members of the School Board Textbook review Committee took exception to some of the books being recommended.  Given the liberalisation of the sixties, this was probably the end of a lot of people's tether.  Anyway, for what ever reason, the county exploded.  There were coal strikes (and if you read about them, you would think "come back, Arthur Scargill, all is forgiven"), and school strikes.  People were shot.  Organised Labor tried to stop workers' marches because everybody on them was armed.  Schools were burned down.  Men labelled "reverend" were jailed (for burning a school down).  The city slickers, having pushed too far, then retreated too far.  It is argued that this was the birthplace of the so-called New Right.

 

          It's not like that now.  The Glasgow Librarian was delighted to see me, and took me through her local history section.  While I was enjoying my read, she, unbeknown to me, was compiling a set of statistics about Glasgow and Kanawha County.

          There is not really much local history written, but there are quite a few pictorial histories.  It's quite clear that there was a glass factory before there were many houses:

[N0192] [N0191]

the caption has it that the dominating feature is the Thatcher Glass Factory.  It also has it that the place was informally known as "Glassco" before it was adapted to Glasgow.  There is certainly still a "Glass Fire Lane" [N0195]

          The town is now dominated by a coal-fired power station

[N0197]

what caught my eye was the unique West Virginia scene, where they have had to shave the mountains (no doubt continuously) to get the power lines out.

 

          The librarian said "have a nice journey (not 'day'!)" when I left.  The Town Clerk was keen to come by and say the same.  And the Mayor not only presented me with the proclamation of last night's council meeting (making me and Honorary Citizen), and a Police Department Arm Patch.  He also insisted that I have the Mayor of Glasgow's shield.   They were very genuine expressions of welcome for a stranger, ones that I shall treasure, and hopes that the rest of the journey went as well for me.  It could simply not have been further from any notions of "Deliverance".