Gauley Bridge was once called the city of the walking dead. The lost souls of men who worked and died there are all but lost from memory. A WV undertaker was paid per person of the African-Americans that died there to bury them by the company. Later when part of a major highway years and years later went through his farm, excavators discovered their mass graves where the bodies had been put. This certainly could have been a Phill Oakes protest song.
And coincidentally a fact is that the government of WV did little to go after the company that built the tunnel under governor Homer Holt. Isn’t it odd after his term he joined the law firm of Jackson and Kelly, later called Jackson, Kelly, Holt and O’Farrell, who represented the companies in chain of title that owned the power plant. Even the Senate hearings in the 1930’s under FDR, did little to compensate the victims other than create a base of statistics. Silicosis is a gruesome death. The dust in the lungs hardens up the lungs till no breath can be taken.
Gauley Bridge was once called the city of the walking dead. The lost souls of men who worked and died there are all but lost from memory. A WV undertaker was paid per person of the African-Americans that died there to bury them by the company. Later when part of a major highway years and years later went through his farm, excavators discovered their mass graves where the bodies had been put. This certainly could have been a Phill Oakes protest song.
And coincidentally a fact is that the government of WV did little to go after the company that built the tunnel under governor Homer Holt. Isn’t it odd after his term he joined the law firm of Jackson and Kelly, later called Jackson, Kelly, Holt and O’Farrell, who represented the companies in chain of title that owned the power plant. Even the Senate hearings in the 1930’s under FDR, did little to compensate the victims other than create a base of statistics. Silicosis is a gruesome death. The dust in the lungs hardens up the lungs till no breath can be taken.
The poet Muriel Rukyeser wrote eloquently and passionately about the lives lost in this terrible disaster. It is called "The Book of the Dead".
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