Combing Digital Archives to Map the History of South Wheeling

The South Wheeling area has been host to many important histories, especially within the labor rights movement and industrial field with the significant nail making, tobacco, pottery, and glass industries. Its landscape tells the story of a multi-ethnic working class immigrant neighborhood that operated these many factories and formed new communities and a cultural melting pot that contributes to the identity of Wheelingites today. Unfortunately, due to the industrial and working class nature of these histories, the stories and structures have not been historically deemed of importance to monitor, preserve, and save, and as such many great buildings have been lost in South Wheeling. This combined with a lack of foresight to document these buildings and histories makes it difficult to find what these buildings looked like, where they were, and when they were lost.

As a part of my term with Ritchietown Renaissance Inc., I was asked to help track down these lost structures and histories to compile into a map. The map will be available as a resource both to the organization and community to provide education on the changes the neighborhood has experienced and what it has lost. This research has included referencing Sanborn maps, examining newspaper articles and ads, and referencing other written accounts of the neighborhood’s recent lived history.

Much of the demolition and loss of historic buildings in South Wheeling has occurred in recent decades; with the major highway construction that demolished entire streets of buildings and redevelopment of large areas into residential lots. However, earlier demolition/lost buildings are acknowledged as well, like the redevelopment of several blocks into Pulaski Field or the loss of the Alhambra Palace rolling rink, which was destroyed in a fire in the early 1900’s. Loss and changes in the landscape cannot be imagined as a single instance but rather a progression of redevelopment in usage of the landscape as the community’s needs changed or disaster struck.
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This mapping has been recorded both in an active digital file to be completed in the future, and a MapHub page that offers pinpoints on properties and larger lots of industrial complexes, remembering the past uses of buildings that still exist today, and the places of those that have not survived. This resource is hoped to provide education on the histories of the area and what’s at stake, and influence future property owners and government officials to be more thoughtful of what properties are deemed unnecessary or removable, and to preserve the unique histories and identity of the neighborhood for future generations. 

Griffin Nordstrom

Griffin served with Ritchietown Renaissance Inc. during the 2023-2024 Preserve WV AmeriCorps service term.