There are few people living today who can say they attended Logan Senior High School at its former location at the East end of Stratton Street in Logan. In fact, thereÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s not a great many folks left who can even say they attended Logan Junior High School there, which it became after a new Logan High School was built at its current site on Midelburg Island.
The reality is that the three-story brick building that once was described as ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œthe most modern school in West VirginiaÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ when it opened back in 1923 is now just a parking area for PRIDE Inc. of Logan County. The PRIDE organization, which has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, had the former school razed in order to accommodate more employee parking.
Recently, however, workers there erected a memorial recognizing that the site once was that of both Logan Senior High and Logan Junior High at different times. HereÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s what the plaque, which displays a picture of the former school, says:
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œThis is the former site of Logan Senior High School, which opened during the 1923-24 school term following a population growth to over 42,000 residents in Logan County. When construction of the three-story concrete and steel building was completed, it was described as ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥˜the most magnificent school in the state.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
The school featured an auditorium with a seating capacity of 1,500 students and a gymnasium that was 40 feet by 100 feet.
The building was steam-heated by a large coal furnace for many decades. After a new Logan High School was opened in 1958 on Midelburg Island in Logan, this location became the home of Logan Junior High School.
After standing vacant for several years, PRIDE Community Services of Logan County purchased the property and in 2014 had it demolished.
One person who attended Logan High School when it was there is a guy nearly everyone in Logan County can identify with for various reasons ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥” Bill Davis of Chapmanville. Bill, now 83 years old, is a remarkable person in more ways than one, and his background is really a history lesson of sorts.
A former Logan County school board member, Bill was raised at West Logan near where his father worked for 27 years for C&O Railroad at the Peach Creek train yard. His father, who like BillÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s son, bears the same first name, did not possess an automobile and daily walked to work before employment slackened at the train yard and he secured a job with Harris Funeral Home, which is now Honaker Funeral Home in Logan.
At 16 years old, Bill was washing vehicles at the funeral home and accompanying his father when he took flowers to the various gravesites and to residences when the deceased were placed in homes for viewing prior to funeral services at the burial site. He also apprenticed as an embalmer for Bob Harris at the funeral home.
One thing that stands out in BillÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s memory of working at the funeral home is the snowy day he picked up and transported the last body to be brought out of the mine at 22 Holden after that disaster occurred March 8, 1960. The body was the last of the 18 men who died from asphyxiation, a result of the mine fire. The man was the father of a student Bill had gone to school with.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œI worked 30-some hours with Dad in helping to prepare those bodies,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Bill recalled.
In an odd twist of fate, Bill Davis remembers the Buffalo Creek disaster of February 26, 1972, although by that time, he was an employee of the local telephone company, having been hired in 1962.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œIt was the Saturday before the flood hit and I was delivering telephone books that were connected back then to pay phones,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ he explained. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œI was at Lorado, and it was snowing pretty hard.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ One week later, there would be no telephone service anywhere on Buffalo Creek.
Bill would go on to become a commercial representative of the company and retire there after 31 years of employment.
More recently, he was employed by Evans Funeral Home of Chapmanville and retired from there four years ago. Prior to that he operated his own successful company known as Davis Tele-Consulting.
One interesting thing he recalled is that a short time after the Buffalo Creek flood, an official traveled to Buffalo Creek getting people to agree to telephone service at the places that were not destroyed by the ravaging waters. However, when company officials returned some days later, all of the homes had been condemned.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œThe company lost a lot of money over that, and one guy got himself in trouble with the company over the situation,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Bill said.
One doesnÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™t live 83 years without developing a mental library of what he has seen and done in his life, and this newspaper would not contain all of BillÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s life experiences. Nonetheless, one memory of interest is the fact that Bill and his mother would regularly ride the passenger train from Logan to Huntington quite often to shop and then return on another train the same evening.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œEverything was booming back then in the 1940s,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ said Bill. ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œI remember there sure were a lot of restaurants in Logan.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œBack then,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ he continued, ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œthe train would bring the bodies of people who died elsewhere back to Logan, and the funeral home would pick them up just below where the train station was in LoganÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ (now City Hall). ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œIt was called the railroad express, and that is where any type of freight delivered by the train could be picked up by customers.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
Davis explained that Slabtown (Central City) in Logan was the original train yard, but because of the population and consequent business explosion in the county, the much larger Peach Creek location became the ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œtrain yard.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
He further said that there was a road from Slabtown to Peach Creek at the time and it was often used when Route 10 was closed for any reason.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œI also remember when there was a coal tipple located at Aracoma across from where GinoÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s Pizza is now. And there was a beltline that ran across the river that was used to load coal cars at Slabtown. The concrete piers are still there,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ Davis explained.
Another interesting tidbit Bill spoke about is the fact that the Appalachian Power plant at Deskins Addition used to utilize an eight-inch pipeline to dump cinders and ashes from its coal burning incinerator onto a section of Midelburg Island where the Logan Middle School is now located.
The school is having structural problems, which Bill Davis says are likely the result of the building being constructed at that location. On the other hand, he noted that Logan Senior High School, which most people do not realize has a basement underneath it, was built on solid ground and is structurally sound.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œIÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™m hearing, though, that it will take about $7 million to keep the Middle School from slipping toward the river,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ said Davis, who noted that when McDonaldÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥™s restaurant was built, contractors had to ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œdig all of that outÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ before they could build there.
A health problem that had him in a wheelchair for a considerable amount of time was eventually resolved after Bill made three trips to Cleveland Clinic. He noted that a neurologist from Man in Logan County by the name of Robert Lewis Jr., whose offices are located at Teays Valley, was a major contributor to his being able to walk again.
ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œI went from a wheelchair to a walker and now a cane,ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥ he said, adding that he utilized the swimming pool at Chief Logan Recreational Center as one part of his successful rehabilitation.
Overall, you might say that Bill Davis is more than just one of those familiar ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥œfaces in the crowd.ÃÛÁÄÖ±²¥
In fact, one might say the Crawley Creek resident has been and remains a remarkable and outstanding asset to Logan County.
