I am very happy to see someone like you taking an interest in McDowell
County. So far, the web site is wonderful You may be a novice, but you
are doing a great job.

People from outside the region have no idea what McDowell County was
like. They think it was rural with lots of corn liquor and Scots-Irish
hillbillies like me. (You know we are called hillbillies because we are
descended from supporters of William of Orange).

They don't realize that few people were farmers, and there was almost no
place to farm. They also don't realize the ethnic mix we had. In that
respect we were more like New York City than the rural south.

As much as I love the place, there are certainly negatives, and I am glad
you are not glossing them over. When I was a little kid, my aunt and
uncle had a contract to supply medicine for members of the United Mine
Workers. Everyday we wrote out by hand a log of all the prescriptions
filled . I often did the log. Sadly, before age 12,  I  knew the name and
correct spelling for every drug then on the market that was used to treat
respiratory diseases.
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I have a number of old photos of Welch I will can send to you.
One of the War Memorial building was published by Blue Ridge Magazine a couple of years ago as the mystery photo.

Basically, the history of my grandfather is as follows: He was a Wade
from Floyd County, VA. Everybody farmed, but he was a restless soul and
left to become a railroad detective and Baldwin Felts agent.

My grandmother, Nora Caldwell was first married to Samuel Ferree, a mine
inspector. He died suddenly while she was pregnant with their fourth
daughter. She named that daughter "Sammie" after her husband. (I am named after that daughter, my aunt).
She ran a boarding house for railroad people to try to support the
family. At some point she met and married my grandfather, A. M. Wade, in
Mcdowell County. They lived part of the time near Bluefield, but A.M. was
not much of a family man. My aunt, Irene Ferree, born in 1904, was sent
to live with the Felts family because there were too many mouths to feed,
and the Felts family were attached to her. She loved them and remembered
them fondly until her death in 1985.
By the time my mother, Ethel Wade, was born, the family was living in
Davy, WVA, in dire poverty. My grandfather was off working for the
Baldwin Felts agency. When my grandmother delivered, she asked the Felts family to send 8 year old Irene to Davy on the train to help her.
Irene (nicknamed Iney) said that when she arrived there was no food at all
except one potato, which she cooked and gave to my grandmother.
Nonetheless, my mother was named Ethel Felts Wade, because A.M. wanted to honor the Felts family.
A.M. is mentioned in several newspaper articles. One involved a robbery
of a coal company office by some Italians rumored to be members of the
Black Hand. The newspaper carried a photo of the posse that hunted down the Italians and shot them. The posse included A.M. and an Anse Hatfield. I am not sure whether it was Devil Anse or a namesake.  The paper also carried a photo of the hapless Italians in coffins leaned up against the wall as if they were standing up.
There were other mentions of him in newspapers. One I remember mentioned that he threw dynamite down on some men who were firing at him from a ravine.
Some of these stories were in the Bluefield paper and some in, maybe??
the Welch paper.
At any rate, A.M. finally abandoned the family. Nora moved to Welch (I
have pictures of the house). Her two older daughters left home. Irene met
Sam Harris, who had come to Welch to be an apprentice pharmacist at the
Flatiron and the Citizen's. (I have old photos of the drugstore.)
Irene went to Marshall College to get her teaching credentials. I have a
scrapbook she kept while there with pictures and notes about her friends,
many of whom were from Welch.
When she finished, she and Sam married at the Episcopal church in
Roanoke, VA. I have pictures taken of their wedding outfits. They settled
in Welch and eventually bought the Citizen's. Irene taught first grade at
Hemphill for twenty years, then worked many years in the drugstore.
She died at my house in Ocala in 1985 of lung cancer. My mother grew up basically fatherless. She was bounced from her mother's
house to her grandfather's in Floyd County. Many years later we
reestablished contact with A.M.  He had remarried and returned to the
area where he had grown up. I am very close to my Wade cousins there. He was a good shot, a pro, and he taught me to shoot.
My Mom met and married another Wade, James. He had grown up in Thurmond, WVA. His mother, in fact was a Lewis from Hinton. My Mom died in 1984, and I lost my Dad recently at age 87.
I will look through the pictures and for any  you might be interested in.

Sammie