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<div>One of the oldest congregations in South Charleston, what eventually became the First Baptist Church took root from humble beginnings in 1916 as a mere offshoot of the Baptist Temple across the river in Charleston. Reverend Erwin Hall organized a Sunday School that year in South Charleston with forty-two children attending. By spring of 1917, a new pastor had taken charge and attendance had grown to the point where an independent church was needed. In September 1918, the First Baptist Church was born.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1919, the year of South Charleston's incorporation, the new church received a clear deed for its property on D Street from the Baptist Temple and purchased still more land to expand the growing congregation's capacity. In only 3 years, the church had expanded rapidly, achieving a membership of 246 by 1922. It quickly became apparent that a permanent structure was needed to house the booming Baptist community, and work was soon begun.</div><div><br></div><div>Thus in 1925, the present structure was dedicated at the cost of $75,000 (over $1 million calculating for 2017 inflation). On February 7, 1943, then-Pastor H. Lloyd Parkinson, who had helped to lead the church out of debt from these land purchases and construction costs, publicly burned the mortgage which the congregation had finally paid off. The structure has since remained relatively unchanged, though the sanctuary interior was remodeled in the 1960s.</div>

First Baptist Church is one of downtown South Charleston's most distinctive landmarks. Photo courtesy of Farm9 Flickr account.

A closer view of the church's neo-classical facade and entryway. Courtesy of First Baptist Church.

View from the top of the Criel Mound looking southward along unpaved D Street, circa 1920. The Baptist Church would soon be built on the right hand side about two blocks away.

First Baptist Church in the 1920s, before the 1925 construction of the current church. 6th Avenue is in the foreground.

Official Facebook page of First Baptist Church.

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A landmark in the heart of South Charleston since just a few years after the city's incorporation, the stately First Baptist Church has presided over D Street since 1925, before the broad avenue was even paved. The congregation itself had been established on the site even earlier--since 1919--but was housed in temporary structures for several years before securing funds for their permanent home.

First Baptist Church of South Charleston

Official recommended walking tour of the South Charleston Interpretive Center! In only a few short blocks, you can witness a unique cross-section of the Kanawha Valley's history: from the ancient history of the Adena Indians and their mysterious burial mounds, to the raw industrial might of WW2-era Naval Ordnance Center. From migrant Belgian glassworkers to chemists with PhDs, South Charleston has been host to some of West Virginia's most unique history. The Interpretive Center offers exhibits on most of these subjects, so stop in to delve deeper!

Officially dedicated in 2003<sub>2</sub>, the Korean War Memorial Park in South Charleston, WV offers multiple monuments to honor those who served in the war. The arch, flags, and smaller monuments tie together to commemorate all who served as well as specific local veterans. As well as being clearly visible to passersby, the memorial offers multiple details for those who view it more closely. These include two plaques detailing the accounts of two West Virginians who served notably in the war.<br><br>One of the plaques commemorates Col Ruby G. Bradley. Bradley entered the army as a nurse on October 16, 1934. In 1941, she was head nurse at a camp in the Philippines where she was taken hostage by the Japanese army. Bradley remained a POW until Feb 12, 1945. She was the most decorated woman in the history of US military service when the plaque was dedicated in 2005. Another plaque on the monument details the actions of Darwin W. Kyle, a Medal of Honor recipient from WV. Kyle rushed an enemy position that was injuring and suppressing his allies, killing multiple enemy soldiers before being shot defending his men. Kyle was also a WWII veteran.<br><br>West Virginia's role in the Korean War was not insignificant. 112,000 West Virginians served during the war, 801 of whom died and 2088 of whom were wounded. Three WV National Guard battalions were called to service during the war, as well as one Air National Guard squadron.&nbsp;Four West Virginians received the Medal of Honor and Kenneth Shadrick of Wyoming County, WV was the first serviceman killed in action in&nbsp;the conflict.<sub>1</sub>

This Korean War Memorial Park is located near Montrose Drive in South Charleston, WV. It consists of a large brick and stone arch accompanied by several smaller memorials and the flags of America, West Virginia, and the POW flag. The memorials are visible passing by from either MacCorkle Avenue or 3rd Avenue, and also have multiple more detailed features upon closer inspection. The memorial was officially dedicated in 2003.

Korean War Memorial

<div>In 1917, five companies recognized their mutual interdependence and elected to merge. National Carbon, Prest-O-Lite, Linde Air Products, Electrometallurgical Corporation, and Union Carbide all relied to some substantial degree on calcium carbides (used to make acetylene gases for welding and carbide lamps, which were then needed in portable lights for automobiles and other applications), and each company was seeing a drastic rise in demand as the American economy industrialized with its entry into World War 1. Since many of the company's key ingredients could be extracted from Appalachian natural gas, a small existing refinery was purchased in 1920 in Clendenin, West Virginia.</div><div><br></div><div>The plant there became the birthplace of the petrochemical industry (synthetic materials derived from petroleum or natural gas extracts), pioneering highly efficient commercial practices in the extraction of ethane, butane, and propane for use in UCCC products. However, the need soon became apparent for additional facilities, and the right opportunity floated to the surface in South Charleston, where the Rollin Chemical Company had made a number of poor business decisions at the end of World War 1 and was teetering on the edge of insolvency. Union Carbide swooped in and purchased the property, which lay between several other chemical companies (Barium Reduction Plant and Warner-Klipstein) which produced materials Carbide would need for their production processes. Plentiful water from the adjacent Kanawha River and a cheap lease from Rollin soon clinched the deal. Construction and preparation commenced at the site in 1923, and Union Carbide's new facility was ready for operations in November 1925.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Carbide's entry into the area was a much-needed boost for South Charleston, which still struggled with the post-World War 1 lull in jobs. The nearby Naval Ordnance Plant had gone dormant, manned only by a skeleton crew, and many of the local chemical plants which had grown fat on contracts to produce chemicals (particularly chlorine) for ammunition and weapons were now starving for business. Carbide's arrival heralded new demand for their products.</div><div><br></div><div>Despite (or perhaps because of) supply issues during the first year of production, Carbide soon needed more space. Early in 1927, they purchased one of the Kanawha River's most iconic features, the 80-acre Blaine Island. The decision would alter the Kanawha Valley landscape forever--transforming the island, which had for over a century sported only melon patches and more recently a bathing beach, into a fortress of chemical production.</div><div><br></div><div>Carbide's facilities in South Charleston expanded rapidly over the next several decades. The world's first successful commercial plant for synthetic alcohol production was added on one end of Blaine Island in 1930. In 1939 Carbide bought Bakelite and became a titan in the plastics industry. During World War 2, Carbide's production of polyethylene was in high demand to insulate radar cables, with the U.S. Bureau of Ships reporting that tests "indicate a general superiority of Carbide polyethylene for radar insulation..." By the end of the war, Carbide had commercialized over 100 new chemical products.</div><div><br></div><div>Carbide's expansions perpetuated a ravenous need for new space. Across MacCorkle Avenue from the main production facilities, the 11-story Building 82 office was built to house engineering department personnel, along with a huge 700-acre campus southwest of the plant called the Technical Center, which was an essential part of Carbide R&amp;D until the company's sale in 2001. Up the river in Institute, the company also purchased from the U.S. government a synthetic rubber plant it had built and operated on the government's behalf to support the war effort.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>As technology progressed, fewer people were needed at the South Charleston plant and more manufacturing moved out to satellite facilities. Raw materials in West Virginia were running low, and pollution from the plant had taken its toll on the region. Tolerated in wartime, the outflow of poisonous materials could not be sustained in peacetime. Over 40 years of painstaking regulation and cleanup was required to make the Kanawha River recreationally safe and shepherd the return of some of the local fish population. Thus the South Charleston site shifted emphasis to specialty production, and by the 1980s made over 500 such products despite scaling back on the number of employees.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Though the South Charleston plant had been non-union since its inception, attempts had been made to unionize it by the AFL-CIO as early as the 1930s. World War 2 put any such ambitions on hold, and labor unions were unable to gain much foothold in the corporation until the early 1960s, when several years of draconian layoffs and transfers resulted in a high degree of employee dissatisfaction. The plant was successfully unionized in 1965 by the International Association of Machinists (Local 598). After the first union contract with the plant expired, however, a 76-day strike was necessary to negotiate favorable terms for the workers. Relations improved from that point forward, and Carbide was generally known for possessing a uniquely strong corporate structure: working communities featured bowling clubs and sports teams. Union Carbide maintained a corporate publication, "The Carbide News" through most of its existence, which circulated highlights of employee life and company news.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>The early 1980s brought disaster to the $10 billion company, however. In addition to increasing competition in the petrochemical industry, an industrial accident at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India released poisonous gas into the atmosphere, killing 3,000 people and injuring thousands more while exposing some 500,000 people to hazardous materials. It is considered to be the worst industrial disaster in history, and like the Hawk's Nest Tunnel tragedy in the 1930s (also related to a Carbide project). The company at first falsely claimed that the accident was caused by sabotage; the claim was later dropped. Even today, descendants of those injured at Bhopal experience grave medical consequences from the chemical fallout, and point out that the financial restitution to the victims was a tiny fraction of what was paid by BP for the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.</div><div><br></div><div>As financial and public fallout continued following Bhopal, Carbide began selling assets. Finally, in 2001 the company was acquired by Dow Chemical, which operates the old (reduced) plant in South Charleston to this day. Building 82, which originally connected to the main plant campus by a tunnel underneath MacCorkle Avenue, was sold to the University of Charleston and eventually demolished in March 2009. Raffle tickets were sold for the opportunity to trigger the demolition explosives, signaling an end to the nearly century-long Carbide era in South Charleston. The Tech Center nearby was also sold, and now houses the Charleston extension of Marshall University.</div>

In the first two decades of the 1900s, advancements in industrial manufacture and the growing demand for automobiles set the stage for a revolution in synthetic materials. A new industrial powerhouse soon emerged: Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation (later shortened to Union Carbide), which resulted from the merger of five different companies that shared a need for carbon and calcium carbide in the products they made for other industrial manufacturers. After beginning with a small refinery in Clendenin, West Virginia, UCCC acquired land along the Kanawha River in South Charleston in 1925 and began 50 years of exponential growth. Before a decline in the 1980s, Union Carbide was one of the United States' ten most profitable companies, with 80,000 workers worldwide at more than 100 plants. Their headquarters remained in South Charleston until Dow Chemical purchased the company in 2001 amid legal woes and declining profits. Dow maintains a large plant on the original Union Carbide site, though some properties have been sold or demolished, most notably the engineering headquarters in Building 82 across MacCorkle Avenue from the main campus, destroyed with dynamite in 2009.

Union Carbide Corporation 

Despite the rapid growth of the city of Charleston following its designation as the West Virginia state capital in the 1870s, the land across the Kanawha River that would later become South Charleston remained relatively undeveloped. Prehistoric cultures inhabited the area for about 12,000 years (one sign of which can be found in the impressive Adena burial mound in South Charleston) and European explorers discovered the area in the 1780s. Even as industrial salt operations spurred the economic growth of the area, little of this commercial expansion traveled across the river to what would become South Charleston.<br><br>The history of the modern city of South Charleston dates to the arrival of immigrant glassworkers and their families in 1907. Enticed by free land and free natural gas—a key resource in glassmaking, and one which had run out in their erstwhile hometowns in Indiana—a thriving community of Belgians relocated from Indiana to ply their trade in the Kanawha Valley.<br><br>Around the turn of the 20th century, the Kanawha Land Company, headed by former West Virginia Governor William A. MacCorkle, perhaps prescient of the industries that would later thrive in the area, had acquired most of the bottomland on the south side of the Kanawha River, just west of Charleston. MacCorkle, however, was having trouble attracting residents.<br><br>Increasingly desperate to return more on the substantial amount of land they'd invested in, MacCorkle convinced his business partners to incentivize: free real estate and two years of natural gas would be granted to any company willing to relocate to the still-hypothetical town of South Charleston. <br><br>MacCorkle was in luck. Two glassmaking companies in Indiana were in need of exactly what the Kanawha Land Company was offering. In the spring of 1907, Felix Dandois, Aimer Lefevre, and Alfred Gilbert, representing Banner Window Glass of Shirley, Indiana, accepted MacCorkle's offer.&nbsp; Having first inspected potential sites in Huntington, Milton, and Clarksburg, approximately 40 Belgian and French families made the trek southward to the Kanawha Valley. They arrived to find their new hometown consisted of a mere twelve houses.<br><br>The Banner Window Glass factory was built near the Kanawha River, beside an ancient Adena burial mound. (Today, a Rite-Aid store stands at the entrance to the former plant.) It took three weeks after construction was completed for the furnaces to achieve the necessary temperature for glass production. On December 12, 1907, Banner Window Glass manufactured its first piece of flat glass. The celebration was short-lived, as the factory burned down the next day. Somehow the Belgians rebuilt the plant and restarted production eight months later.<br><br>Banner Window Glass was a cooperative derived from the European guild system, where laborers held an active stake in the operation of the factory. From the perspective of a pre-Henry Ford world, where mass production did not yet hold unshakeable sway over manufacturing processes, this produced a more cost-efficient product and generated greater pay for the workers. <br><br>The guilds included a strong tradition of apprenticeship, wherein young men trained with more experienced workers for years to perfect particular skills within a trade. With such tightly-controlled membership, guilds often developed into fraternity-like entities where invitation was the only means of entrance and in many cases, family members were the only aspirants allowed to join. Crafts like glassmaking became family secrets, allowing companies like Banner to maintain control over portions of the market. <br><br>But in 1917, commercial competition in the area heated up as the Libby Owens Glass Company built a more modern, mechanized facility across the Kanawha in Charleston. Mechanization allowed workers to be trained faster, and products to be manufactured more quickly. The Belgians and their more craftsmanlike approach were soon unable to keep pace with Libby Owens' assembly-line methodology.<br><br><blockquote>"Glass blowing went down in history and the block and blowers' pipe were laid away. A glass cutter could still follow his trade, but his fellow workers had to learn a new trade."5<br></blockquote><br>Despite the absence of Banner Glass and its nearby Belgian sister company, Dunkirk Glass Company (which sold to Libby Owens in 1928), the presence of Belgian tradition continues to impact the South Charleston community--many local residents are descended from those original Belgians from Indiana, and a Belgian Festival was celebrated annually into the 1990s. Near the old site of Banner Glass, the South Charleston Interpretive Center currently hosts a vivid exhibit from the South Charleston Museum about Belgian glass manufacturing and the lives of the early Belgian workers.<br>

From 1907 to 1917, Banner Window Glass Company and the Belgian immigrants who founded it were instrumental in the development of South Charleston. Prior to the Belgians' relocation from a factory in Indiana, former West Virginia governor William MacCorkle's land investment along the banks of the Kanawha River had lain mostly empty. Luring the hardworking glassmakers to Kanawha County with the promise of free land and two-years' worth of natural gas for their new factory. The glassmakers' arrival spurred the development of the city and set South Charleston on the path to industrialization.

Banner Glass Company

The Blue Star&nbsp;Vietnam Memorial in South Charleston, WV is located between MacCorkle Ave and 7th Ave. It was erected on Veterans Day, Nov 11, of&nbsp;2005 and honors all veterans of the war as well as local soldiers who died.<sub>1</sub>&nbsp;The monument was of special importance to the mayor at the time, Richie Robb, who was a Vietnam veteran himself. Names of the soldiers are listed on a granite slab at the edge of the memorial.<br><br>The inscription on the war victims' memorial states, "The city of South Charleston, West Virginia, gratefully acknowledges the ultimate sacrifice of the above individuals who gave their lives for the cost of freedom. May we ever remember that all gave some and some gave all."&nbsp;West Virginia played a significant role in the United States' participation in the Vietnam War.&nbsp;2,709,918 Americans served in Vietnam,&nbsp;36,578 of whom were West Virginians. Many received awards and those not on active duty made a difference in domestic service.<br><br>Nine West Virginians were awarded Medals of Honor including Thomas W. Bennett, who served as a medic and died saving others on the battlefield. Domestically, Charleston&nbsp;Ordnance Center built armored vehicles for the Army. However, not all West Virginians were supporters or participants. Many student demonstrations took place at colleges such as West Virginia University, even though the school was generally considered conservative. Rallies were also held elsewhere in the state including in&nbsp;Charleston.<sub>2</sub>

The Blue Star Vietnam Memorial is a war monument located in South Charleston, WV. The memorial includes three stone monuments, the flags of West Virginia, America, and the POW flag, and a description of the memorial. The monuments are directly adjacent to the local Adena Indian Mound and are visible from Route 60, a main road. The monuments honor soldiers from the local area who died in the war.

Blue Star Vietnam Memorial

<p>In Kanawha River Valley in South Charleston, West
Virginia, is the second largest Native American Burial Mound in the state.
Second only to the Grave Creek Mound in Moundsville, West Virginia, the Criel
Mound stands 33 feet tall and around 157 feet in diameter&nbsp;in the middle of the town. The mound gets its name
from the Criel family who used to own the land where the mound is located.
Archaeologists have determined that at one time the mound was part of a complex
of several miles of earthworks and other mounds. However, over time these have
been destroyed by the construction of buildings, roads, railways, etc… It is
believed that the mound was constructed by Native Americans living in the
Kanawha Valley between 1000 and 200 B.C. Archaeologists call these Native
Americans the Adena Culture.</p>

<p>It is
important to note that “Adena” is not the name that these prehistoric Native
American called themselves. It is only the term by which archaeologists refer
to them based on their material remains and cultural practices. The name
“Adena” comes from the estate of Governor Thomas Worthington in Chillicothe,
Ohio. On his estate there was a large mound which was one of the first Adena
mounds to be excavated. It is very likely that we will never know what these
peoples truly called themselves.</p>

<p>The Adena
culture thrived in Southern Ohio, Western West Virginia, and Kentucky from 800
B.C. to around 1000 A.D. The predecessors and ancestors of the Adena peoples
(known as the Archaic Culture) were highly mobile hunter-gatherers who
subsisted primarily on hunting wild animals and finding wild plants to eat.
They would travel in relatively small groups and live in temporary campsites
throughout the year. However, around 800 B.C. these peoples began to become
less mobile and created new technologies. Around this time is when scientists
begin to refer to the prehistoric Native Americans of the area as the Adena
Culture. The fact that they were the first people in the region to settle in
small villages,&nbsp; cultivate crops, make pottery, establish trade over long
distances with other Native Americans, and they began creating mounds and other
earthworks to bury their dead and use for ceremonies is what differentiates the
Adena Culture from their ancestors.</p>

<p>It is believed
that the reason the Adena peoples gave up their highly mobile hunting and
gathering lifestyle is because they learned how to farm and they began creating
pottery. Adena peoples lived in small villages near their gardens and
cultivated a variety of native plants, including squash, sunflower, sumpweed,
goosefoot, knotweed, and maygrass. They used the pottery vessels they made to
cook these crops and also to store crops for future use. Having a stable food
source nearby and the ability to store and save food made it possible for the
Adena to stay in one place for longer periods of time.</p>

<p>After becoming more sedentary, the Adena
began building mounds and earthworks near their villages. These monuments
ranged from small conical burial mounds to large and elaborate geometric
earthworks which were used for special rituals and ceremonies. As stated
earlier, the Criel Mound was once part of a larger system of other mounds and
earthworks in the area. </p>

<p>The Criel mound has been extensively
studied by professional archaeologists over the course of many years. It was
first investigated by Col. P. W. Norris working with the Smithsonian
Institution in 1883. He excavated a 12 foot wide shaft from the top of the
mound to the ground surface. In the first three and four feet he encountered
human burials. However, the artifacts he found associated with the burials
proved that these particular individuals were not Adena, but likely buried in
the top of the mound much later by a different group of Native Americans. He
continued excavation and at 31 feet found the original burial chamber of the
mound. The skeletal remains of 11 individuals were found, 10 of which were
surrounding a central individual. They were all laid on a bark platform that
had been covered with ashes. It is likely that the central individual was one
of great importance to the Adena people and that the other 10 individuals were
buried around him at the same time he was interned. Archaeologists found shell
beads and copper remains of a headdress around the head of the central individual.
</p>

<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In
1970, the mound was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in order
to protect this cultural landmark for future generations. Today the mound is
part of a small park in the center of South Charleston. Visitors can see the
mound, read informational displays about the mound and the Adena culture, and
even walk a paved pathway to the very top of the mound. Also, <br></p><p>Only a block away from the Mound on D Street is <a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://www.theclio.com/web/entry?id=45655">the South Charleston Interpretive Center</a>, which offers wide variety of artifacts and information on the Mound and the Adena culture. <br></p>

In South Charleston, West Virginia is the second largest Native American burial mound in the state. The mound stands 33 feet tall and 157 feet in diameter in the center of a small park in the city. The mound was built by the Adena Culture sometime between 1000 and 200 B.C. Once a part of a more elaborate earthwork complex, the mound was excavated in 1883 by Col. P. W. Norris working for the Smithsonian Institution. Norris excavated numerous burials within the mound including the main burial chamber in which were buried 11 individuals. Today the mound is situated in a small park where visitors can see the mound and read more about it and the Adena peoples who constructed it. 

Criel Burial Mound

<div>Generous funding from a Federal grant and the City of South Charleston in 2008 helped create the South Charleston Interpretive Center, which seeks to contextualize the diverse history of the city and the Midland Trail as a whole through exhibits and a wide variety of artifacts.<br><br>The history of the Midland Trail extends far deeper than its current incarnation as US Route 60, an interstate highway that began construction in 1926 and extends east-west through seven states from Arizona to Virginia (though the route originally terminated in Los Angeles). In West Virginia, Route 60 follows a road far older: settlers knew these rough-hewn byways as the Kanawha and James Turnpikes, which allowed their wagons to follow the rivers westward from the young Commonwealth of Virginia to the dangerous frontier in Ohio and Kentucky. And these thoroughfares, in turn, merely formalized pathways previously well known to Native American tribes and migratory animals in the epochs before European colonization.<br><br>Charting the evolution of the Midland Trail in West Virginia through six counties provides a cross-section of America's development through history. From Paleolithic hunting peoples following in the footsteps of their nomadic prey to the Archaic settlements of the Adena Mound-builders (who built 50 massive burial mounds in the Kanawha Valley alone); from Shawnee raiding parties to pioneers pushing westward; from early captains of industry to the massive chemical and weapons manufacturing complexes of the 20th Century that belched forth everything from medicines to implements of war. Within this monumental framework lived and toiled glassworkers, coal miners, slaves, settlers, soldiers, natives, immigrants, politicians, engineers, and people from every other imaginable walk of life.</div><div><br></div><div>Through rotating exhibits the Interpretive Center gathers and contextualizes this collective past, allowing visitors glimpses into the many eras of the Midland Trail. At present the Center features collections about Union Carbide, Blenko Glass, the coal industry, Belgian glassworking in the early 20th Century, and the prehistoric Adena peoples.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>For researchers and visitors alike, the Center has books, CDs, and a wide variety of print records on these various subjects, plus a vintage film of the Midland Trail in 1929 which can be checked out by teachers. Schools also exhibit their work in the Center. Programs are offered to churches, schools and organizations.</div>

From the Paleolithic migrations of the Ice Age to revolutions in the 20th Century chemical industry, the Interpretive Center features a variety of exhibits telling the story of West Virginia's Midland Trail and South Charleston's role in this pivotal history. Built in 2008, the Center continues to host detailed exhibits on the Archaic Adena peoples and their impressive burial mounds, European settlement along the Midland Trail, and later massive industrialization and weapons manufacturing in the Kanawha Valley, for civilization's march along the Midland Trail in many ways has paralleled the United States' growth as a nation.

South Charleston Interpretive Center

<p>The LaBelle Theatre was
built by Walter B. Urling, a South Charleston transplant and veteran. theater operator.&nbsp;Born in Pennsylvania, Urling operated movie theaters in Ohio and northern West Virginia before moving south to Charleston. Before opening the LaBelle, he was involved with the Mound/Martin Theater on 7th Street in South Charleston.&nbsp;</p><p>In October 1939 he purchased a parcel on D Street with the intention of constructing a theater of his own. Though 7th Street was then South Charleston's main thoroughfare, Urling anticipated that D Street's greater width would prove advantageous for customer parking. The investment proved sound, as Urling was able to construct a second theater in 1941-42 (optimistically named the Victory Theater in hopes that the United States would emerge victorious from World War 2, which it had just entered when the theater began construction).<br></p><p>The LaBelle,&nbsp;named after Urling's&nbsp;mother and
daughter, both Isabelles, carried the name until Urling's death in&nbsp;1965, when it&nbsp;was renamed the Cinema South and operated by the Urling and Dill families. The first movie shown at the theater was <i>One Foot in Heaven</i>.&nbsp; <i>The
Graduate </i>had the longest run. <i>Gone
With the Wind</i> had the largest attendance: attendees lined up around the
block for tickets. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Sold in 1979, besides a brief reincarnation as a neighborhood theater from 1982-1990, the Labelle was occupied by&nbsp;a succession of&nbsp;churches who&nbsp;used the building as a&nbsp;meeting place until&nbsp;2002, at which time the&nbsp;the City of South Charleston bought the theater from the Lighthouse Worship Center for $85,000. &nbsp;The building now houses the South Charleston Convention
and Visitors Bureau, and is a much-beloved venue for high-profile events in the city.&nbsp;</p>

The historic LaBelle Theatre opened its doors in 1940 and operated as a movie theatre until 1979. With the support of the city of South Charleston and the South Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the theater has been restored and continues to operate as a center of cultural and community activity. Originally built by Walter B. Urling, who also owned a second theatre in the city, the LaBelle was named in honor of his mother and daughter-both of whom were named Isabelle. Between 1979 and 2002, before the city purchased the building, the old theater was home to several churches. 

LaBelle Theatre and South Charleston Convention & Visitors Bureau

When Walter "Gus" Evans founded South Charleston Lumber along with several other stockholders&nbsp;&nbsp;in 1929, he and his business partners selected the former site of Superior Lumber and Supply Company, which had been vacant for several years. As of 2008, on one wall of&nbsp;the original main lumber shed,&nbsp;the "Superior" brand name could still be seen painted on the side.&nbsp;The central&nbsp;location at D and 2nd Streets&nbsp;would prove fortuitous: Evans's company&nbsp;would occupy the site for the next 83 years&nbsp;until closing in 2012.<br><br>When the Great Depression hit in 1929, the rest of the lumber company's investors dropped out and Evans was able to buy out the remaining stock of the company. He and his three sons (Everett, Pat, and Leslie) kept the business running through the Great Depression, and after passing through this crucible, the name of the business was officially changed to Evans Lumber in 1940. Evans was no stranger to South Charleston--born across the river in Charleston in 1892, he'd gotten his start working&nbsp;in one of South Charleston's original industrial endeavors: the Dunkirk Glass factory.&nbsp;<br><br>The 1940s saw upgrades and expansions for Evans Lumber, with the addition of a sawmill on the premises (which later moved up the Elk River north of Clendenin) and a remodel to their office building late in the decade. They soon began to acquire timberland in several counties, accumulating roughly 6,000 acres to service the sawmill and supply the store. Most of the land has since been sold to the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources.&nbsp;<br><br>As the city's&nbsp;major retail&nbsp;supplier of building materials, Evans Lumber was at the heart of the development of South Charleston, and involved either directly or indirectly with the construction of many of its present-day homes--all while still under the ownership of Gus Evans's sons. Eventually, grandson Don Evans also joined the family business.<br><br>Time and circumstance caught up with the iconic business, however, as large nationwide hardware chains like Home Depot and Lowe's began to soak up much of the retail hardware market in the 1990s and 2000s. Despite joining the Do-It Best franchise to expand its retail options, Evans Lumber shuttered its doors in 2012, and its remaining stock of lumber was donated to a non-profit charity, Storehouse West Virginia.&nbsp;The landmark paint can sculpture atop the retail building, which had been in place since 1963, remained for another 3 years, eventually being removed after new tenant Ferguson Waterworks occupied the building in 2015. The paint can is currently in the possession of the City of South Charleston.&nbsp;

This family-owned and operated lumber and hardware store witnessed most of South Charleston's first century of development, becoming a city landmark and pillar of the local business community. Known since 1963 for the giant paint can model that perched atop the hardware store's roof, it was often referenced by locals for giving directions. The paint can was removed in 2015, three years after the business and building were sold.

Evans Lumber Company

As South Charleston grew from a quiet migrant town of a few dozen Belgian glassmaking families (the city's first major industry was window glass manufactured at the Banner and Dunkirk Glass Factories) to the "king of Charleston's industrial suburbs," a need became apparent for a high school within the budding municipality. Prior to 1925, the children of South Charleston had been required to trek several miles across the river into Charleston by foot and ferry, then later by streetcar when it extended into South Charleston by 1909.<br><br>The prayer for more localized educational facilities was answered in 1925 with the construction of Louden District High School. When the school's football team was born in 1926 under the tutelage of Coach Roy Price, however, the school lacked a football field on which to play; instead they drilled and played in an open field across MacCorkle Avenue&nbsp;from the massive Charleston Naval Ordnance Plant, which by then lay mostly dormant after the end of World War 1.<br><br>This state of affairs persisted&nbsp;even after the school&nbsp;changed its name to South Charleston High School in 1931. The town continued to grow through the Great Depression thanks to a burgeoning chemical industry--thus Mayor L.H. Oakes spearheaded a drive to partner with the Roosevelt presidency's Works Progress Administration (WPA) to construct South Charleston's first dedicated athletic complex. The WPA, a Federal organization designed to &nbsp;improve American infrastructure while creating jobs for those affected by the Depression, completed construction of the Oakes Field Gymnasium and adjacent South Charleston Recreation Center&nbsp;in 1939, and soon began clearing ground for Oakes Field itself, which would occupy the space between the Gymnasium and the Ordnance Center on 3rd Avenue.<br><br>The Gymnasium contains a basketball court and kitchen facilities, as well as the Oakes Field bathrooms. The Rec Center contained additional facilities and South Charleston's first public&nbsp;library, but as South Charleston expanded the city outgrew the Rec Center's capacity. A new library (which still serves the city today) was built a few blocks away in 1968, and the new massive Community Center was constructed in 1982 with prodigious athletic facilities. The WPA's old Rec Center was soon afterward sold and converted into residences, but later torn down.<br><br>The Gymnasium and Oakes Field have served the South Charleston community since 1941--and perhaps South Charleston High School's Black Eagles football team received a shot in the arm from the impending upgrade to their facilities, for the 1940-41 schoolyear was their first undefeated season. They would become West Virginia State Champions in 1945-46. All through World War 2, the Black Eagles practiced and played in the shadow of the Charleston Naval Ordnance Plant, which ran 7,400 workers in round-the-clock shifts producing weapons for U.S. Navy ships.&nbsp;<br><br>Though the Ordnance Plant shut down after World War 2&nbsp;and was not reactivated during the Korean War, the marching bands, majorettes, cheerleaders and football players practicing at Oakes Field were once again greeted by the specter of war from 1962 to 1969, when FMC (Food Machinery Corporation)&nbsp;purchased the plant and produced M113 armored personnel carriers there, as the United States became increasingly entangled in Vietnam. From the top of the Oakes Field bleachers, students could look over the wall and witness the armored vehicles being tested on a new track behind the Ordnance Plant.<br><br>By 1970 the armored vehicles were gone--the Ordnace Center had sold again--and the high school was soon to depart as well, when they moved to a brand-new facility nearby in 1971. The venerable original high school became South Charleston Junior High, which continues to use Oakes Field for football and basketball. Much of the field remains at was originally constructed, including the original stone wall surrounding the complex. <br><br>The only major upgrade to the Oakes came in 1951, when local citizens campaigned relentlessly for funds and support to install night lighting at the stadium, as Oakes was "one of the few remaining high schools in the Valley whose football stadium is not lighted for night games." Their task of raising the necessary $18,000 for six lighting towers was complicated by the fact that, by 1951, the question had not been fully settled as to who held ownership of Oakes. Twice the issue had been taken to the West Virginia State Supreme Court by the Kanawha County Board of Education and the City of South Charleston, the two entities disputing the case. Though the final decision on the issue was "expected soon" in January 1951, the results are not publicly known today. Nevertheless, Oakes Field remains as an enduring testament to the lasting legacy of the WPA and the strength of the South Charleston community that has rallied around Oakes Field through the decades.<br><br>

Built in 1941 by the Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA), this football field originally belonged to South Charleston's first high school, Louden District High School--which had lacked a sports field since it was first built in 1925. Louden later became South Charleston High School (and South Charleston Junior High later still) and the field, which retains many of its original features and the towers for its 1951 lighting upgrade, continues to serve South Charleston Junior High and the rest of the community as an active sports complex and event venue.

Oakes Field and Gym Complex

<p>When Congress passed an act in 1916 providing for the construction of a government-owned armor and projectile plant, the Charleston Chamber of Commerce acted quickly to donate a 205-acre site for the cause. The site was chosen due to proximity to railroads, safe distance from the coast, and ample access to water, power and gas.</p><p><br /></p><p>The decision to construct the plant was itself the result of a drawn-out battle between Congress, the behemoth steel corporations of the early 20th century, and President Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels. A debate had raged for two decades about the cost of producing armor plate for the new heavily armored warships that were then the pinnacle of naval firepower, and Josephus Daniels claimed the only way to hold the steel monopolies to a fair price was for the government to construct its own plant to use as a "yardstick," by which the true cost of production could be measured. Daniels eventually got his way and the construction of one the U.S.'s largest weapons and armor plants began.</p><p><br /></p><p>Ground was broken on Aug. 30, 1917, but despite producing some naval gun components in summer of 1918, most of the plant's major facilities were not operational until February 1921, well after the First World War had ended. Operations were suspended in February 1922, when the United States became a signatory of the Washington Naval Treaty, limiting production of new large warships such as battleships and aircraft carriers. Between the wars, a skeleton crew was retained to keep the plant in working order, but its usefulness was often treated skeptically. A 1931 New York Sun article blasted the Plant as a mere "lump of steel," and a gross mismanagement of taxpayer money. A U.S. Representative from West Virginia even proposed Congressional legislation that it be sold in 1937. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, however, personally stated that in light of world affairs, it should be kept open, and in September of 1940 he personally toured the plant and allotted money for it to become fully operational. Roosevelt also had a personal connection to the Naval Ordnance Plant (NOP), as he had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Josephus Daniels, and had helped to bring its construction about. Roosevelt ascribed to the "yardstick" philosophy of Daniels and applied it to many large-scale New Deal constructions, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority.</p><p><br /></p><p>By the end of World War II, the plant contained 47 buildings, including a school for workers' children, greenhouse, and recreation center. Adjacent to the plant were 65 houses and 42 bungalows, and off the reservation were nearby federal housing developments at Ordnance Park (St. Albans), and Kenna Homes. The entire Kanawha Valley boomed with wartime production, with several nearby chemical factories, a synthetic rubber plant, and numerous other facilities producing war materials. Over 11,000 workers worked at the NOP during the war--more than fifty percent of them women at the height of its production in 1944-45, due to manpower shortages as the invasion of Western Europe and fighting in the Pacific took male workers off the production lines and into uniform. Nevertheless, the NOP's production record was unmatched--with over 130,000 gun barrels produced, it completed more naval ordnance than all other plants in the U.S. combined. It introduced several revolutions in large-scale tooling technology, including the pioneering use of tungsten carbide boring bits.</p><p><br /></p><p>Production came to a halt at the end of the war, and the facility was converted for storage. Several plans to convert the facility into another industrial use that would create badly-needed postwar jobs fell through, making the NOP a sore subject for many Kanawha Valley citizens. Then-candidate John F. Kennedy addressed the problem head on in a speech in South Charleston on the Presidential campaign trail in 1960:</p><p><br /></p><blockquote>"Here, in South Charleston, you have one of the most demanding and important examples of the need for new industry. Your once dynamic and expanding Naval Ordnance Plant - a plant which once employed more than 11,000 men - has been slowly closing down as the government prepares to abandon it completely. In time of war this vital plant contributed strategic materials - vital supplies and important armor plate - to the great American victory - your factory was the pride of the nation. But today - in a time of unprecedented peacetime prosperity - the Administration has decided that it has no more use for South Charleston. It offers no hope of new jobs or new business. It has condemned thousands of workers to economic hardship, unemployment and despair. It has forgotten how much South Charleston contributed to America in the past - and it just doesn't care what happens to you in the future."9</blockquote><p><br /></p><p>The NOP continued to store military munitions and vehicles until it was sold by the newly elected Kennedy Administration to FMC (Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation) in 1961. After FMC retooled the facility, it was was used to manufacture M113 armored personnel carriers from 1962 until 1969, one of only two facilities in the U.S. to do so. But labor strife and contract losses soon convinced FMC to sell the plant. By the early 1970s, roughly two-thirds of the facility had been sold to Ray Park, a private businessman, much of whose fortune was made by apportioning and leasing out large facilities like the NOP to other businesses. In 1974, the short-lived American Motors Corporation leased the giant former Machine Shop to stamp components for Pacers and other automobiles--but was forced to give up the operation during its bankruptcy and purchase by Renault. By 1979, Volkswagen was leasing that portion of the plant to stamp parts for its popular Rabbit cars. </p><p><br /></p><p>Today the South Charleston Industrial Park is still owned by Ray Park and houses Gestamp, a metal and automotive component manufacturer, a UPS facility, electric utility Appalachian Power, ClearOn (a chlorine bleach producer), and a number of other manufacturing companies. The largest component of the industrial park is Gestamp's metal stamping plant, a massive facility of approximately 922,000 square feet, in the former Carnegie-Illinois armor plate machine shop, which at the height of World War 2 could produce 7,000 tons of armor plate per month. In 2012, NBC's Today Show filmed a segment about "Rosie the Riveters" in the Plant, hosted by Ann Curry.</p><p><br /></p><p>Beginning on September 3, 2018--the day Roosevelt visited the Plant in 1940--the South Charleston Interpretive Center hosted a large-scale pop-up exhibit adjacent to the former Naval Ordnance Plant with the support of the City of South Charleston. Entitled "Century Strong," the exhibit featured hundreds of never-before-published photographs and significant new research on the NOP's hundred year history. The physical exhibit closed on October 27 (Navy Day, which was the traditional annual date when the NOP opened its doors to the public), but as of 2019 the Interpretive Center is in the process of making all photographs and resources available to the public on a new website, NavalOrdnancePlant.org.</p>

Constructed during World War I to house a naval ordnance plant, this massive facility near the banks of the Kanawha River in South Charleston has been home to a variety of industries over the past century. Construction of the original facility began in 1917, but only a small number of gun forgings were completed in time for World War I. Put into a state of hibernation by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, the plant was reopened and expanded in 1939 and contributed significantly to the Navy Department's efforts to produce weapons in the second World War. At its peak of production, the Ordnance Plant employed 11,000 workers in around-the-clock shifts. The plant built over 130,000 gun barrels for U.S. warships along with Tiny Tim rockets, armor plate, and many other items that aided the Allied war effort. During the 1960s, manufacturer FMC purchased the plant from the Navy and used it to build over 15,000 M113 armored personnel carriers and related vehicles. The facility is now home to several shipping and manufacturing companies. 

South Charleston Industrial Park (Formerly Naval Ordnance Plant)

<span><p>When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, the United States remained diplomatically neutral. President Woodrow Wilson’s isolationist policies reflected the popular sentiments of the nation, though American exports and bank loans favored the Allied British and French. Sentiments slowly began to change, however, as pro-Allied propaganda of German atrocities in Belgium, and the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915 began to align American opinion with the Allied cause. Political and business interests began to recognize the unpreparedness of American armed forces to wage a large-scale international conflict.</p><p>Thus in 1916, when Congress voted to provide funds for the construction of a government-owned armor and projectile plant, the Charleston Chamber of Commerce jumped at the chance, offering 205 acres free of charge for the endeavor. The resulting U.S. Naval Ordnance Plant (often known as the Charleston Ordnance Plant) began construction in 1917, but by the time it was finished it was no longer in Charleston; the donated land lay across the Kanawha River from West Virginia’s capital, in a sparsely-populated settlement of 2,000 people (Charleston itself had roughly 40,000 residents) that had steadily grown from humble beginnings in 1906. The city of South Charleston was incorporated by a special West Virginia state charter in 1919, while the Ordnance Plant and some of the surrounding facilities were still being built.</p><p>South Charleston was an ideal place for the massive facility (one building of which is more than 900,000-square feet), located near ample supplies of coal, oil, clay, natural gas, and the budding petrochemical industry. The Ordnance Plant, however--along with the nearby ammunition factory in Nitro--would require thousands of workers the local area could not supply, as many of the existing industrial enterprises in the Kanawha Valley were also essential to the war effort. With the inevitable influx of workers, “it being evident that there would not be by any means sufficient housing for its prospective employees, the Navy Department called upon the Housing Corporation…[to provide] housing in connection with this plant.”1</p><p>The United States Housing Corporation was a newly-minted Federal agency designed to handle governmental needs of this sort, though it would pass out of existence like many other such agencies created specifically to enhance America’s response to the war. Since the plant itself did not require all 205 donated acres, the Housing Corporation elected to build the workers’ new homes adjacent to the plant. It allowed the employees to walk to their place of work, and was near existing transportation to Charleston and the Kanawha Valley, though the Corporation helped the local trolley company obtain more cars to meet demand.</p><p>Upon seventeen acres in two parcels near the plant, homes for 85 families were constructed--all two-story structures, ranging in size from five to eight rooms. The two parcels soon became known respectively as Armor Park and Bungalow Park, with the former being located north of MacCorkle Avenue on the site of the present-day Riverwalk Mall; the latter was south of MacCorkle Avenue adjacent to the plant.</p><p>The Ordnance Plant did not manufacture its first weapon until 1921, three years after World War I ended. It was soon manned only by a small skeleton crew, and its fate was heavily debated by Congress over the following two decades (at least one of West Virginia’s own Representatives wished to sell it, citing the expensive upkeep). The houses of Armor and Bungalow Parks were rented to families in the meantime, but remained government property.</p><p>President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose to reactivate the plant in 1939, seeing war break out in Europe once more as Hitler’s armies swept across Poland, Belgium, and France. On September 3, 1940, he personally visited the plant to inaugurate its reopening. Armor and Bungalow were soon bustling with many of the plant’s 7,400 workers (half of whom were women), the majority of which brought families with them. Anticipating this, the development as originally built encompassed a school (Armor Park School, administered by the US Navy), recreation center, park, and pool. Military Police patrolled the area to keep the plant safe from enemy sabotage, and city police had no jurisdiction within the housing developments themselves.</p><p>Great care seems to have been put into the construction of the developments, as the Housing Corporation’s only official regret in its 1920 report to the Department of Labor was that “the first impression which the houses give is that of too great similarity and a certain barrenness. Had there been a greater variety of types and color the appearance would have been improved.”1 Later recollections from residents were largely positive, and a reunion was held in the 1980s to celebrate their collective experiences living in Armor Park from 1940-1946.</p><p>Wartime residents were given ninety days to vacate in 1946 so the homes could be given to returning veterans. Unfortunately, no trace of the homes, school, pool, playgrounds or sports fields remains. Armor Park was later destroyed to make way for the Riverwalk Plaza shopping center, and further developments replaced Bungalow Park. The Ordnance Plant, however, and nearby Depression-era Oakes Field, remain to testify to South Charleston’s tremendous role in World War 2. Nevertheless, Armor and Bungalow Parks represented a watershed in South Charleston’s development, leading to a surge in population, infrastructural development, and industrial capacity--the legacy of which would sustain economic momentum in the Kanawha Valley for decades to come.</p></span>

Built to provide crucial housing for workers at the new U.S. Naval Ordnance Plant when it began construction in 1917, Armor Park was designed as a self-sufficient township, complete with its own school (run by the U.S. Navy), recreation center, pool, and sports fields. The U.S. government also paved nearby roads and purchased additional trolley cars to cut commuting time into Charleston across the river. Workers lived within walking distance of the Ordnance Plant as it churned out naval weapons around the clock during World War II. For decades, Armor Park (and its sister development, Bungalow Park) helped spur the growth of South Charleston until it was demolished for the Riverwalk Plaza Mall and other economic projects. Nothing remains of the site today, but a short walk reveals its relationship to the Ordnance Plant (which still stands) and the development of South Charleston's identity.

Historic South Charleston Walking Tour

First Baptist Church of South Charleston

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information