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Public utility tax reports on car lines, bus and airlines, oil and gas companies, telephone and telegraph companies, and railroads operating in West Virginia. The collection represents a portion of the microfilmed archives of the Auditors Office.

Official records on the appointment, resignation, and removal of state officers, railroad and special police, and corporate representatives. Archives include financial records of state agencies, executive meeting minutes, executive decrees, and documents relating to pardons, extraditions, and state convicts in county jails. Much information relates to charters and taxation of railroad companies. Also contains official state election returns and records concerning the reconstruction of the state capitol after the fire of 1921.

Correspondence, newspaper clippings, and financial papers of a lawyer and state senator from Kingwood, who was instrumental in the organization of the West Virginia Northern Railroad, and the Kingwood Coal and Coke Company. Subjects include state politics, 1888-1895, Virginia Debt Question, the tariff debate, land development, coal mining and railroads. Correspondents include J.M. Mason, W.E. Chilton, S.B. Elkins, and George C. Sturgiss.

Correspondence (including 6 volumes of letter books) relating to firms in which Barnum was an executive, including the Henrico Coal Co. and Kanawha Improvement Co., West Virginia, National Mining Co. and Wells Farm Land and Mining Co., New York. The collection documents mining and railroad promotion in Appalachia and the eastern midwest states. The collection was formerly part of the records of the Pacific Coast Coal and Oil Co. of which Barnum was chairman of the Board of Directors (ca.1900-1911). Unpublished inventory and guide available at University of Washington Libraries. (Originals at University of Washington Libraries.)

Papers of William Nelson Page, civil and mining engineer, who was manager of the Hawk's Nest Coal Company, 1877-1880; built and operated the Victoria Blast Furnace, Goshen, Virginia, 1880-1885; organized and developed the Gauley Mountain Coal Company, 1889-1917; served in the West Virginia National Guard for twenty years; and was mayor of Ansted for ten years. Subjects include the American Society of Civil Engineers, Deepwater Railway Company, Guy's Run Iron Land, Iron and Steel Works Association of Virginia, Loup Creek Colliery Company, Mt. Carbon Company Limited, Tidewater Railway Company, Virginia Railway, and the West Virginia Mining Association. Correspondents include Abram S. Hewitt and G.W. Imboden.

Papers relating to the Wilson, Lewis, and Ruffner families of Prince Edward County, Virginia, Kanawha County, [West] Virginia, St. Charles County, Missouri, and Fairfield County, Ohio. Correspondence between Nathaniel V. Wilson and Dr. Goodridge Wilson, concerning land purchases, preparation for the settlement of the family, care of livestock, employment of slaves, salt making and marketing, and the market price of salt. Other members of the family migrated to St. Charles County, Missouri, and to Fairfield County, Ohio, and land prices, suitable crops, settlement and railroad building in Missouri comprise much of their correspondence. A third generation member of the family, Virgy Wilson Hall and her husband, John G. Hall, were missionaries in Matamoras, Mexico, and Colombia, South America, and her correspondence with her mother comments on living conditions, progress of the missionary work, revolution in Colombia, and health and living conditions of the residents of the Barranquilla area. In addition there is a will of Col. Charles Lewis, a series of letters between two doctors concerning health problems and treatment of various illnesses, and two diaries by Mrs. Daniel Ruffner, 1846, and Elizabeth Ruffner Wilson, 1871-1872, commenting on family life and community activities in Fairfield County, Ohio, and Kanawha County, [West] Virginia. All are photocopies. Material covers the years 1774-1942.

The collection consists of ledgers, journals, and cashbooks of the Goodwill Coal and Coke Co., Greenbrier Coal and Coke Co., Gulf Coal Co., Louisville Coal and Coke Co., Winding Gulf Coal and Coke Co., and the Winding Gulf Colliery Co., with some material on the operation of company stores. There is also correspondence (1911-1915) between the managers of mines at Winding Gulf and Davy, West Virginia, discussing production levels, availability of railroad cars and freight rates, New River and Pocahontas Operators Organization, operating difficulties, labor shortages and working conditions, the Mabscott mine strike and German "socialists" at Mabscott, the Bottom Creek explosion at Vivian, the UMWA and a 1915 agreement, and the good roads movement in Raleigh County in 1915.