Today in Wheeling History: August 15—First Lieutenant John R. Specht, a McMechen native and 1941 graduate of Wheeling Central Catholic, was killed when his B-24 Liberator blew a tire on takeoff and crashed at Lecce, Italy, while serving with the 98th Bombardment Group (1944).
 
John Robert Specht was born in McMechen, Marshall County, on November 7, 1923, son of John J. Specht and Martha Dolores Kelly Specht. His mother died in 1929, and his father remarried her sister, Esther A. Kelly, the following year. Specht graduated from Central High School (later Wheeling Central Catholic) in Wheeling in 1941 and went on to West Virginia University in Morgantown. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps at Wheeling on July 31, 1942, entering active duty February 2, 1943. He trained as a pilot at Nashville, Tennessee; Maxwell Field, Alabama; Clarksdale, Mississippi; Newport, Arkansas; and George Field, Illinois, earning his wings and a commission as second lieutenant in November 1943. Promoted to first lieutenant, he piloted a B-24 Liberator nicknamed "Specht's Wreck," with the 345th Bomb Squadron, 98th Bombardment Group, Fifteenth Air Force, going overseas in June 1944 to fly from the group's base at Lecce, Italy. On August 15, 1944, as the 98th Bombardment Group flew in support of Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France, Specht's plane blew a tire on takeoff from Lecce and crashed on what would have been his 31st mission, killing six of the eleven men aboard, including Specht; five crewmen survived. He was 20. His remains were returned to McMechen in 1949 for a High Mass of Requiem at St. James Church and burial, with military honors, at Mount Calvary Cemetery in Wheeling.
 
To learn more: Archiving Wheeling - High Masses of Requiem (https://tinyurl.com/39wn3d4m), Army Air Corps Library and Museum – 98th Bombardment Group Honor Roll Project (https://tinyurl.com/3cjvh8jp), Find a Grave - 1LT John Robert Specht (https://tinyurl.com/mvyz2rtu), USAF Serial Number Search Results (https://tinyurl.com/ms6ttkah), American Archive - 41-11819 - Raunchy (https://tinyurl.com/yvrw9apu), 98th Bombardment Group (https://tinyurl.com/5nxtf98y), Aviation Safety Network (https://tinyurl.com/2xrkkd65), WW2AIRCRAFT.NET (https://tinyurl.com/44jf4c22), USAAF Aircraft Serial Numbers (?), USAAFDATA - American Air Forces lives lost during WW2 (https://tinyurl.com/es3pxrk6), West Virginia GenWeb [Marshall County] - John R. Specht (https://tinyurl.com/55se8jyd), Wikipedia - Operation Dragoon (https://tinyurl.com/5car65mz)
 
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; Archives of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, Find a Grave

Today in Wheeling History: August 13--Pierre-Joseph Céloron de Blainville's French expedition buries a lead claim plate at Wheeling Creek, and Jesuit chaplain Father Joseph-Pierre de Bonnecamps celebrates the first Roman Catholic Mass in present-day West Virginia (1749).
 
On August 13, 1749, French Canadian military commander Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville arrived at the mouth of Big Wheeling Creek during an ambitious crown commissioned expedition down the Ohio River Valley. Ordered by the Governor General of New France, Marquis de La Galissonière, Céloron’s force of over two hundred French soldiers, Canadian militia, and Native American guides sought to reassert French imperial sovereignty against encroaching British colonial traders. At the strategic junction where Wheeling Creek meets the Ohio River, Céloron buried an inscribed lead plate claiming all surrounding lands drained by the river systems in the name of King Louis XV of France. Accompanying this historic expedition was Father Joseph Pierre de Bonnecamps, a Jesuit priest, mathematician, and official chaplain who charted geographic coordinates and recorded detailed observations along the journey. Upon camping along the shores of Wheeling Creek on August 13, 1749, Father Bonnecamps celebrated a formal Roman Catholic Mass for the assembled officers, troops, and indigenous allies. This religious service is historically recognized by regional historians and church scholars as the first Catholic Mass ever celebrated within the geographical boundaries of present day West Virginia. Today, Father Bonnecamps’ inaugural Mass is commemorated by a historical plaque at Heritage Port, a three-acre riverfront park along the Wheeling Heritage Trail.
 
To learn more: Ohio County Public Library - Leaden Plate Buried at Wheeling Creek (https://tinyurl.com/yr6ch2k9), Historical Marker Database - First Mass in West Virginia Plaque (https://tinyurl.com/5cke3cn7), Weelunk: A Priceless Piece of Wheeling History Has Never Been Found (https://tinyurl.com/4f3kfr92)
 
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; The Historical Marker Database, Wikimedia Commons, Weelunk

Today in Wheeling History: August 11—South Wheeling residents Clyde R. Croson and Jacob W. Kindelberger file a patent application for a dust cap for tire valves (1922).
 
On August 11, 1922, two South Wheeling neighbors, machinist Clyde R. Croson of 39th Street and produce dealer Jacob W. Kindelberger of Jacob Street, filed a joint patent application for a "Dust Cap for Tire Valves." Croson, born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1885, had settled in Wheeling and worked as a machinist at the Riverside Mill of U.S. Steel; Kindelberger, a Wheeling native born in 1883 to German immigrants Samuel and Henrietta "Katie" Kindelberger, later became proprietor of the Musee Bowling Lanes. Their invention addressed a common problem with pneumatic tire valves: caps that could work loose or fall off. The design paired a specially shaped sheet-metal rim nut with a bell-shaped cap fitted with resilient, spring-like fingers, allowing the cap to be attached or removed without twisting while locking securely against accidental displacement. The U.S. Patent Office granted the men's design, U.S. Patent No. 1,455,080, on May 15, 1923, witnessed by G. O. Smith and H. E. Dunlap. It was Kindelberger's only patent, while Croson later earned two more, for a pipe-making machine (1951) and pipe-shaping apparatus (1952), after his Wheeling machinist career continued into the 1950s at the Bloch Brothers Tobacco Company. Both men are buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Wheeling — a lasting link between two nearby South Wheeling tradesmen and a small but enduring piece of automotive-era engineering.
 
To learn more: Google Patents - Dust cap for tire valves (https://tinyurl.com/2v7p2v6d), Google Patents - Clyde R. Croson inventions (https://tinyurl.com/yjxkpxz4), Find a Grave - Clyde R. Croson (https://tinyurl.com/y6atmk79), Find a Grave - Jacob William "Jake" Kindelberger (https://tinyurl.com/yckcxctp), Wheeling News-Register - Clyde Croson Entered into Rest (https://tinyurl.com/mwxf38kh), Wheeling Intelligencer - Obituary - Clyde R. Croson (https://tinyurl.com/3decae4r), Wheeling Intelligencer - Obituary - Clyde R. Croson (https://tinyurl.com/6dxsfam6), Wheeling Intelligencer - Entered into Rest - Clyde R. Croson (https://tinyurl.com/ym8vrua8), Wheeling News-Register - Obituaries - Jacob William Kindelberger (https://tinyurl.com/3chmf4ph), Wheeling Intelligencer - Entered into Rest - Jacob William Kindelberger (https://tinyurl.com/4e6jakdh), Dissecting Wheeling - Milner Hotel (https://tinyurl.com/ctxh47my), HeritageQuest by Ancestry - Clyde R. Croson (https://tinyurl.com/3smtcz5u), HeritageQuest by Ancestry - Jacob W. Kindelberger (https://tinyurl.com/4pcy4h4y)
 
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; U.S. Patent Office, Wheeling News-Register, Wheeling Intelligencer   

Today in Wheeling History: August 10—First stockholders' meeting of the American Legion Athletic Club, organized by 21 Wheeling Legionnaires to fund and operate Post #1 baseball (1938).
 
On August 10, 1938, twenty-one members of Wheeling American Legion Post No. 1 held the first stockholders' meeting of the newly formed American Legion Athletic Club, an independent corporation created to fund and operate the post's baseball program. The group voted to purchase the "Fulton Baseball Grounds" for $18,000, with six board members co-signing a loan to raise the money. The field, in Wheeling's Fulton neighborhood near today's PPG Paints building site, had belonged to the Holloway family, former owners of the semi-pro Wheeling Stogies; the grounds had once hosted an exhibition game in which Babe Ruth reportedly hit two doubles. For years afterward, the club staged a spring traveling carnival at the field to help finance the team.
 
The incorporators were a cross-section of Wheeling civic life: lawyers, farmers, machinists, a pharmacist, several World War I veterans, city councilmen, and Post #1's own head coach, pharmacist Walter Ray "Lefty" Hamilton, who had just led the team to its first state championship. Among them were future club president Thomas Y. Beckett; attorney and Post founder Edmund Lee Jones; Sheriff Harry T. Clouse, a WWI veteran who later also served in the Army in World War II and who helped bring the 1938 Regional Tournament to Wheeling; and C. Lee Spillers, a Washington & Jefferson College football player from the school's famous scoreless 1922 Rose Bowl squad. The club they founded still finances Post #1 baseball today, its Fulton Field sale in 1968 having funded a trust that continues to support the program.
 
To learn more: Wheeling Post 1 - Original Incorporators of the American Legion Athletic Club (https://tinyurl.com/4f2su7kj), Wheeling Post 1 - Important Dates In The History of The American Legion Athletic Club (https://tinyurl.com/muxsrc9a), Wheeling Post 1 - American Legion Athletic Club (https://tinyurl.com/2w2jxdmz), Weelunk - Wheeling's American Legion Post 1: Leading the Way in Service for 100 years (https://tinyurl.com/4rf6bhk7), Weelunk - Cracks, Whizzes and Cheers: Eight Decades of American Legion Baseball (https://tinyurl.com/feu34tff), Ohio County Public Library - American Legion Wheeling Post No. 1 Records (https://tinyurl.com/3c8pw94c), Ohio County Public Library - Bloomered, Be-Whiskered, & Barnstorming: Wheeling's Baseball Oddities (https://tinyurl.com/2rz9zy89)
 
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; Weelunk, Wikimedia Commons, Google Maps

​Today in Wheeling History: August 9--William A. List patented his "Machine for Joining and Rolling Sheets for Roofing" (1892).
 
William Alexander List was born February 8, 1849, in Wheeling, West Virginia, the son of Daniel Carter List and Ann Elizabeth Heiskell List. His family had deep Wheeling roots dating to 1806, when his great-grandfather John List emigrated from England aboard the ship "Science" and settled the family in Wheeling by 1808. List grew up alongside six siblings and, by 1870, was attending school in Wheeling's Third Ward. He never married. List went into the sheet-metal roofing business, operating William A. List & Co. in Alley 12, one of several Wheeling firms that made the city a national hub of "iron roofing" manufacturing, according to an 1886 Wheeling Daily Intelligencer feature. He held at least four U.S. patents, including devices for tinners' tongs (1884), a stove pipe (1888), a roofing material package (1891), and his most significant invention, a machine for joining and rolling roofing sheets (1892). List lived for decades at 944 Main Street before later residing at the Hotel Windsor, working as a broker before retiring around 1905. He died February 11, 1908, in Wheeling. Funeral services were held at First Presbyterian Church, and he was buried at Greenwood Cemetery. His will distributed his estate among siblings, cousins, and numerous Wheeling churches and charitable institutions.
 
To learn more: Google Patents - Machine for joining and rolling sheets for roofing (https://tinyurl.com/22fk4dw4), Google Patents - Patents by William A. List of Wheeling (https://tinyurl.com/6k6uynzr), Find a Grave - William Alexander List (https://tinyurl.com/4xptv934), Find a Grave - Daniel Carter List (https://tinyurl.com/9d8v8wvm), Wheeling Register - Obituary - William A. List (https://tinyurl.com/bdcmssk6), Heritage Quest by Ancestry - William A. List (https://tinyurl.com/32svjumb), Wheeling Daily Register - Two Wheeling Inventors (https://tinyurl.com/ypftxy6v), Metal Roofing Magazine - Flashback 2003: The Life, Death & Reinvention of Metal Shingles (https://tinyurl.com/f4a3t2kb), Ohio County Public Library - Iron Roofing Industry in Wheeling in 1886 (https://tinyurl.com/5n7px4wr), Wheeling Daily Register - List Will (https://tinyurl.com/zrpcmsze), Wheeling Daily Register - List Will (https://tinyurl.com/56bku53y), Wheeling Daily Intelligencer - Iron Roofing: Stove Pipes, Iron Measures and Similar Goods (https://tinyurl.com/2p9j5p35)
 
Photo credits: U.S. Patent Office, Find a Grave, Wheeling Daily Register, Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

Today in Wheeling History: August 8--Henry Stifel Schrader, whose philanthropy helped create key Oglebay Institute facilities, dies in Wheeling (1996). 
 
Henry Stifel Schrader (1909–1996) was a Wheeling-born attorney whose career and philanthropy left a lasting imprint on the city’s legal and cultural life. Educated in Ohio County public schools, he enlisted in the United States Army after graduating high school, gaining early experience in discipline and public service. After his initial military service, Schrader attended West Virginia University, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1931 and a law degree in 1934. That same year he joined the Wheeling firm founded in 1925 by Carl Schmidt, Wright Hugus, and Albert W. Laas, becoming the key bridge between the original partners and later generations of lawyers. His practice was interrupted when he returned to the Army during World War II, reflecting his continued commitment to national service. Schrader practiced law into the 1980s and became widely respected for his skill, integrity, and civic engagement. Upon his death on August 8, 1996, he bequeathed much of his estate to the Oglebay Institute. That gift funded the Henry Stifel Schrader Environmental Education Center at Oglebay Park, as well as the Stifel Fine Arts Center’s dance and art studio and improvements to Towngate Theatre, ensuring that arts and nature education would flourish in Wheeling for future generations. Schrader is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Wheeling, among many of the city’s civic leaders whose work helped shape community life across generations.
 
To learn more: Ohio County Public Library – Henry Stifel Schrader (https://tinyurl.com/e86yk366), Flickr – Ohio County Public Library – Henry Schrader (https://tinyurl.com/3ztws4sc) (https://tinyurl.com/2e2ey3d8), Schrader, Companion, Duff & Law firm history (https://tinyurl.com/22vkyaaf), Clio – Schrader Environmental Education Center (https://tinyurl.com/mpb9ce6x), Oglebay Institute – Schrader Environmental Education Center (https://tinyurl.com/y2spb4au), e‑WV – Stifel Fine Arts Center (https://tinyurl.com/mfmvm8hk), Almost Heaven WV – Schrader Environmental Education Center (https://tinyurl.com/3u49vjyy), Find a Grave – Henry Stifel Schrader (https://tinyurl.com/h5rd36se), FamilySearch – Henry Stifel Schrader (https://tinyurl.com/53k6merp), Wheeling News‑Register – Characters Bring Wheeling History to Life (https://tinyurl.com/4eypjnvc)
 
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; City of Wheeling, Oglebay Institute, Find a Grave, The Clio, Google Maps

​Today in Wheeling History: August 7—Charles W. Ebeling, Wheeling machinist and inventor whose patents trace an arc from local industrial machinery to Hollywood's sound-film revolution, filed a divisional patent for his "Reciprocating Motor" (1913).
 
Charles W. Ebeling was a mechanical inventor based in Wheeling, West Virginia, in the early 20th century, credited with a string of patents that trace an unusual arc from industrial machinery to the birth of sound film. His earliest known patents, filed between 1910 and 1912, covered an enameling table, a sand-blast apparatus, and a dredger for pulverulent material — practical devices suited to Wheeling's pottery, glass, and steel industries. On August 7, 1913, he filed a divisional application, later granted as U.S. Patent 1,129,964, for a "Reciprocating Motor" that refined the tilting mechanism of his earlier enameling table, using cushioning chambers to soften the piston's stroke. That same year, Ebeling joined fellow Wheeling residents T. A. Westmyer, H. H. Dunlevy, and George E. House in incorporating the R. & E. Singing Picture Company, capitalized at $250,000 to manufacture phonographs and talking and moving-picture machines — an ambitious, and short-lived, local venture into the emerging entertainment technology business. Through the 1910s, working out of Wheeling and nearby Elm Grove, Ebeling patented stylus-guiding attachments, sound-reproducing machines, and film-synchronization devices, often assigning half-interest to his Wheeling backer Harrison W. Rogers. By the mid-1920s Ebeling had relocated to New York, continuing to develop sound-on-film technology for Harrison W. Rogers, Inc. and later General Talking Pictures Corporation, patenting motion-picture screens, synchronous motors, and sound-head mechanisms into the early 1930s — carrying Wheeling's early machine-shop ingenuity into Hollywood's sound revolution.
 
To learn more: Google Patents - Reciprocating motor (https://tinyurl.com/5n82ppxp), Espacenet - US1129964A Reciprocating Motor (https://tinyurl.com/yc5zfwpp), Google Patents - Charles W. Ebeling (https://tinyurl.com/ymmt3nhe), Phonozoic - U. S. Phonograph Patents Issued in 1918 (https://tinyurl.com/3uj584a5), Google Books - The Iron Age (https://tinyurl.com/bdzkbx35), Electrical World [February 13, 1915] (https://tinyurl.com/a6z3h5n5), Wheeling Intelligencer - News Briefs (https://tinyurl.com/2hjumwms)
 
Photo credits: Wheeling Intelligencer, U.S. Patent Office

​Today in Wheeling History: August 6—Wheeling Jesuit University mourns the passing of Dr. Benjamin Stout, Professor of Biology and environmental advocate (2018).
 
Dr. Benjamin Mortimer Stout III was born on December 21, 1957, in Morgantown, West Virginia. A lifelong West Virginian, he graduated from Morgantown High School in 1975, earned a B.S. in Agriculture and Forestry from West Virginia University in 1980, and completed his M.S. in Biology at Tennessee Tech in 1982. He later earned a Ph.D. in Biology from Virginia Tech in 1990. Dr. Stout joined Wheeling Jesuit University in 1992, where he taught biology and environmental science for 26 years, mentoring students and conducting groundbreaking research in sustainability and watershed ecology.
 
Known for his work on coal slurry contamination and mountaintop removal mining, Stout was a fierce advocate for environmental justice. His research led to tangible improvements in water quality for communities in southern West Virginia, including connecting over 500 families to municipal water systems. He served as an expert witness in federal court cases, including the landmark Spruce Mine No. 1 injunction, and appeared in documentaries such as "Burning the Future: Coal in America." Stout was honored with numerous awards, including the Don Gasper Science in the Public Interest Award and induction as a Fellow of the Society for Freshwater Science. He passed away from cancer on August 3, 2018, at his home in Wheeling. His legacy lives on through his students, research, and the communities he empowered.
 
To learn more: West Virginia Public Broadcasting tribute (https://tinyurl.com/5n6enwpr), Appalachian Voices remembrance (https://tinyurl.com/bdrde3mm), Find a Grave memorial (https://tinyurl.com/4m5jy4sd), FracTracker tribute (https://tinyurl.com/535b386d), YouTube: Bad Water documentary clip (https://tinyurl.com/mr8mt3dv), Wheeling University Timeline (https://tinyurl.com/7928bbvc), The Intelligencer/Wheeling News-Register - Wheeling Jesuit University Professor Ben Stout Recalled as an Environmental Hero (https://tinyurl.com/32xa6kyc), Grissell Funeral Homes - Obituary (https://tinyurl.com/34yauxvz)
 
Photo credits: West Virginia Public Radio, Grissell Funeral Homes, Find a Grave

​Today in Wheeling History: August 6—Wheeling's heat wave peaks at 110 degrees, the hottest day in the city's recorded history (1918).
 
On Tuesday, August 6, 1918, Wheeling recorded its hottest temperature on record, as the government thermometer on Wheeling Island reached 110 degrees in the shade, according to a recap published two days later in the Wheeling Intelligencer. The reading topped the previous day's record 107 degrees, which the Wheeling Register reported as shattering the city's prior high of 104 degrees, set on August 22, 1916, per weather observer Miss Bessie Forsythe. Thermometers in the business district averaged 115 degrees.
 
The heat took a deadly toll. The Intelligencer reported one local woman died of heat prostration, and two infants passed away in a local hospital, their deaths attributed to the hot weather. A Warwood resident, Mrs. Samuel Delaplaine of 2009 Main Street, was stricken while shopping downtown, collapsing unconscious in front of the Kennedy Tea store at Eleventh and Market streets. She was carried inside, treated by Dr. Frank H. Ikart, and taken to Ohio Valley General Hospital, where her condition remained critical for several hours before recovering enough to return home that evening.
 
Even amid the suffering, some Wheelingites sought relief at Wheeling Park, where crowds flocked to the freshly cleaned swimming pool, along with free vaudeville, roller skating, dancing, and bowling. Wheeling's record heat was part of a historic heat wave that gripped the eastern and central United States from August 5 through 9, 1918, driven by a stagnant high-pressure "heat dome."
 
To learn more: RecordTemps.in – "10 highest recorded temperatures at Wheeling Area, West Virginia" [HLGthr] (https://tinyurl.com/yc6n2vvs), U.S. Department of Energy - Office of Science - "War Pandemics and Climate the 1918 El Niño" (https://tinyurl.com/2drbhbhu), Farm Progress - Remembering the drought and fires of 1918 (https://tinyurl.com/3tu3zk3h), NBC Philadelphia - Philly's Hottest Ever Day Happened 100 Years Ago, the High Temp Hit 106 (https://tinyurl.com/uzpfjjtz), Wheeling Intelligencer - "Hottest Summer Jobs of All in This Section" (https://tinyurl.com/3tyjsj4u), Wheeling Daily Register - "Wheeling Experiences Record Hot Wave—107 in Shade" (https://tinyurl.com/56jd4jhc), Wheeling Daily Register - "Cooling Off at Wheeling Park" (https://tinyurl.com/56jd4jhc), Wheeling Intelligencer - "Woman Stricken by Hot Weather" (https://tinyurl.com/yjx7ch4c)
 
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; Wheeling Intelligencer, Wheeling Daily Register  

Today in Wheeling History: August 4 — Ground is broken for a new brick Elm Grove Methodist church building on Kruger Street (1911). 
 
Elm Grove United Methodist Church, at 125 Kruger Street in Wheeling’s Elm Grove neighborhood, traces its beginnings to 1896, when Rev. Kelly led a small Methodist Mission meeting in Hands Hall above a store. Services moved among homes, schools, and rented halls, showing the determination of a modest but growing congregation. In 1906, the church purchased two lots for $1,400, securing the site that still anchors the congregation. A plain wooden “Tabernacle Church” was built in 1908 and dedicated on September 2, 1910, but rapid growth soon demanded a more substantial building. Ground was broken for a new brick church on August 4, 1911, and the cornerstone—containing a Bible, New Testament, Wheeling Intelligencer copy, and member names—was laid on October 22, 1911. The sanctuary was dedicated on July 21, 1912, and Elm Grove received a full “station appointment” with its own pastor. Membership climbed to 536 by 1929 and surpassed 1,000 by the early 1960s. A parsonage was purchased on Marshall Avenue in 1921, later replaced by a new parsonage on Hurst Avenue in 1966. The sanctuary was renovated in 1936 and 1973, and a major educational wing was dedicated on January 25, 1959, followed by Newmeyer Hall and new Sunday School rooms in 1984. Youth ministries, including Epworth League and a Boy Scout troop organized in 1913, and ongoing outreach such as food assistance and community meals, continue to define Elm Grove’s mission.
 
To learn more: Ohio County Public Library – "Elm Grove United Methodist Church: 100 Years of Service 1896–1996" (https://tinyurl.com/mr7px738), Elm Grove United Methodist Church (https://tinyurl.com/4njdp74c), Facebook - Elm Grove United Methodist Church (https://tinyurl.com/2sn63ymr)
 
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; eBay