The Buckhorn Portland Cement Company began operating its Manheim plant in June 1903. An earlier notice in the Preston County Journal of March 12 sought able-bodied laborers for the cement works near Rowlesburg at 15 cents per hour, directing applicants to Buckhorn at Manheim. A 1912 geological report described its original average daily capacity as 800 barrels and identified its raw materials as local Greenbrier limestone and shale. The cement works connected the Cheat River valley’s geology with a new manufacturing industry. Buckhorn operated with occasional interruptions until October 1907, when financial losses forced it to suspend business.
Research status: Verified to source
Additional source
Preston County Journal, March 12, 1903, p. 3, column 2: Buckhorn labor recruitment notice
By March 4, 1909, Alpha had purchased the Buckhorn Portland Cement Company’s plant at Manheim. That day’s Preston County Journal reported the completed transfer and plans for $250,000 in repairs before operations resumed. It described a daily capacity of 1,500 barrels and a payroll of 200 men, with further expansion contemplated. The purchase began a new chapter for the works following Buckhorn’s shutdown and receivership. Later National Register documentation connects Alpha with Manheim’s development as a company town providing employee housing, electricity, and water.
Research status: Verified to source
Citation / research lead
Preston County Journal, March 4, 1909, p. 2, column 1, “Buckhorn Cement Works Will Resume Operations.”
James J. Brown dates Oak Park’s opening near Masontown to June 9, 1909, although the exact opening date remains under review. Brown describes its entrance as facing the railroad tracks and says the amusement park generated excursion traffic for the M&K, including trains arriving from as far away as Pittsburgh. A July 22, 1909 newspaper notice advertised a Knights of Pythias basket picnic at Oak Park for August 26. The notice described cooperation with M&K Railroad officials, connections with B&O trains, and a special $1 round-trip fare from M&K Junction.
Research status: Captured · not verified
Citation / research lead
“Attention Knights,” The Preston County Journal (Kingwood, West Virginia), July 22, 1909, p. 1
West Virginia corporate records date Preston County Supply Company’s filing to November 12, 1910. A February 1912 newspaper notice places the business at Cascade, where it was gathering ice for the coming summer and filling a newly built icehouse larger than its previous one. The company changed its name to Preston Supply Company in 1973; state records document its voluntary dissolution in 1977.
Research status: Verified to source
Additional source
The Preston County Journal, February 15, 1912, p. 1 — Cascade company’s new icehouse and summer ice supply
A fire believed to have begun with an overheated furnace destroyed Masontown’s twelve-room high school. Built in 1914 for $25,000 by Kingwood contractor Charles Spindler, the building was insured for $15,000; the Preston County Journal estimated the total loss at more than $30,000. Masontown had no fire protection, and none of the school’s new furniture was saved.
Research status: Verified to source
Citation / research lead
Preston County Journal, January 10, 1918, p. 1, “Masontown School Building Burned”
Three days after the fire, residents gathered at the Methodist Episcopal church and pledged approximately $17,000 toward rebuilding Masontown High School. The surviving foundation was considered suitable for the new structure. With the subscriptions, $15,000 in insurance and the foundation’s estimated $5,000 value, the community had assembled about $37,000 toward a replacement expected to cost at least $45,000.
Research status: Verified to source
Citation / research lead
Preston County Journal, January 10, 1918, p. 5, “Masontown to Rebuild High School”
A West Virginia Northern freight train ran out of control while descending the grade from Jessop toward Tunnelton. Just south of the Marion water station, the locomotive derailed on a curve and overturned into the county road, with three coal-loaded boxcars piling up behind it. Engineer Frank Pugh, fireman Patsy Hohman, and N. B. Johns, a friend riding on the engine, were killed. Conductor Scott Wilson and two brakemen jumped clear and escaped injury.
Research status: Verified to source
Citation / research lead
The Preston County Journal, April 18, 1918, p. 1, far-left column, “West Va. Northern Railroad Wreck”
After fire destroyed Masontown’s 1914 high school building on January 3, residents immediately began raising money for a replacement. Later accounts date completion of the new three-story school building to 1918. It subsequently served as Masontown High School, Valley High School, West Preston Senior High School and, after Preston High School opened, West Preston Middle School.
Research status: Verified to source
Citation / research lead
Preston County Journal, January 10, 1918, pp. 1 and 5
Self-taught artist Lewis E. Stemple, born in Fairmont in 1910, lived and worked in Aurora for much of his life. He developed his art through his association with artists at the nearby Youghiogheny Forest Colony and spent several decades painting the hills, ridges, natural landscapes, and intimate small-town scenes of rural Preston County. Most of his work remained in private collections.
After Eleanor Roosevelt visited depression-stricken coal communities in northern West Virginia, the federal government acquired Richard Arthur's farm near Reedsville on October 4, 1933, for its first experimental subsistence-homestead community. The Preston County Journal reported the following day that the purchased farm comprised 1,017 acres and that the price was understood to have been $35,000. These figures refer to the Arthur farm purchase, rather than the larger project tract assembled through additional acquisitions. Initially called the Reedsville Experimental Community, the settlement was subsequently named Arthurdale for the former landowner.
Research status: Verified to source
Citation / research lead
Preston County Journal, “Government Buys Arthurdale Farm for $35,000.00,” October 5, 1933 — transcription, West Virginia Archives and History