| Mingo County |
|
|
| Monday, 14 May 2007 | |
|
Williamson stands on a hilly area along the north shore of Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River. It is the location for government offices for Mingo County. Williamson lies in the center of what is called the "Billion Dollar Coal Field." In the middle 1940s there were 100 mines in a 20-mile radius of the city. As a result the county seat is the commercial center for a very large region. It is interesting to note the influence that coal has on this part of West Virginia. The Tug Valley Chamber of Commerce building is constructed of 65 tons of bituminous coal. Williamson was incorporated in 1892 and chartered as a city in 1905. It is named for Wallace J. Williamson, son of a pioneer family, who was influential in community life and who amassed a fortune in time and real estate. [time??? -ch] Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River is named after an unfortunate happening during the Indian Wars in the middle 1750s. While fighting the Indians in 1756, Major (later General) Andrew Lewis and his men ran out of supplies. One of the things they did as a last resort against starvation was to boil to thongs or "tugs" from their boots. Helping to support the economy of Mingo County are natural gas, oil, timber, livestock, fruit farms, and tobacco. Mingo County was founded in 1895. It was founded because of a legal battle brought by a moonshiner. The accused challenged the jurisdiction of the Logan County court saying that his still was in Lincoln County, not Logan County. The county line had been in dispute for some years, so the judge in the case ordered a survey of the county line. It found that Lincoln County had been collecting taxes for years on a strip of land that was really in Logan County. Because Logan County was very large it was eventually decided to create a new county, called Mingo. New charges had to be filed against the moonshiner. Mingo County is the youngest county in the state. The county is named for the Mingo Indian tribe, which was an early and important tribe in the territory. During the early settler period, Logan was Chief of the Mingo. |
