Thursday, March 2, 1922
MILLION DOLLAR FIRE
The big mill, storage house, planing mill and dry kiln of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company at Cass, was burned last Friday morning, February 24. The loss entailed will perhaps be a million dollars. There is some insurance.
The fire originated in the planing mill, spreading to the big band saw mill to the big storage house and then to the drying plant. After a time, the pumps were put out of commission by the fire, and the lumber in the immense yard was saved by hard and effective fighting. The cause of the fire is not known.
The plant is the largest industry of the Greenbrier Valley, and perhaps the biggest and best equipped wood working plant in the State of West Virginia. Around it the big and prosperous town of Cass has grown. The mill has been in operation day and night, but was not running at the time of the fire on account of a temporary shortage of logs.
In the storage house was about a hundred carloads of the finest kind of finished hardwood lumber, mostly flooring. This was one of the largest items of the loss.
The planing mill was equipped with modern woodworking machinery, all new, and a great deal of it only installed in the past few months. Some of it was put in just the day before the fire.
The dry kiln was a new building of steel and concrete construction and filled with the best of hardwood lumber. It was an immense structure and had been but recently completed…
The company has not made public its plans for the future as regarding the rebuilding.
The West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company owns about 200,000 acres of timber and coal lands in Pocahontas, Randolph and Webster counties. They operate a railroad system, the Greenbrier, Cheat and Elk Railroad; a number of coal mines, and supply the big paper mills at Covington with pulpwood from their holdings in Pocahontas and adjoining counties.
FAIRGROUNDS PURCHASED
The Executive committee of the Pocahontas County Fair has purchased the farm of Pat Gay, to be used for the permanent site of the fair. This is the old Levi Gay homestead. It consists of 127 acres of land, 67 of which is bottomland and as level as a floor. It lies on the west side of the river above Stony Creek, and is one mile and a half from the county bridge. The consideration was $12,000.
A more ideal site would be hard to imagine. For nearly a mile, it fronts on the Greenbrier River; it is convenient to the railroad; it is not far from a macadam road. There are houses and barns which will serve the purposes of the fair…
SITLINGTON
The President of Normalcy evidently got hold of a copy of the Times because the empty wood racks were taken away and the Local Freight stopped here again last week and unloaded so much freight that we were shocked, surprised and humiliated because we had to do some work after living the life of a Republican Officeholder for so long that we forgot to get the old Underwood out and peck off the Sitlington news.
Now we have made a statement that we will have to correct. We said we had been living the life of a Republican Officeholder, but we mean as far as the work end of it is concerned. If the said Republican Officeholder didn’t get anymore for his work than we do, he wouldn’t run around the country hollerin’ for votes.
Somebody over at Dunmore woke up last week long enough to write a few items, and incidentally show their jealously of Sitlington. About the only difference between Sitlington and Dunmore is three and seven tenths miles.
The last Legislature created so many new jobs they have to call an extra session of the Legislature to tax us to pay them. “Get the money, Boys.” Get it while you can, we will take ours in votes this fall.
NEW YORK
Permission is asked for space for another chapter on New York, mainly because we have nothing else to write about at this sitting. This thing of writing at regular periods whether one has anything to say or not is apt to prove a burden to the writer and a bore to the reader…
When we went to New York, we had hoped that it would rest the mind and clear the cobwebs out of the brain and the trip did do us some good, in that it made us more contented with home. The great trouble with traveling is that you take that same old mind with you and consequently do not have as good a time as you expect to have. “To me, high mountains are a feeling, but the hum of human cities is torture…”
We talked to several working persons about the employment question and according to them, there was work for the efficient, and that the unemployed were those who were not much good at work…
MARRIED
One of the prettiest weddings of the season was solemnized Monday evening at the Edray parsonage when Miss Robbie McCormick, of Marlinton, became the bride of George Smith. Only a few intimate friends and relatives witnessed the ceremony.
The bride was attired in a very becoming suit of brown duvetyne trimmed in gray fur with accessories to correspond. She wore a corsage bouquet of bride’s roses…
This worthy young couple has the congratulations and best wishes of their many friends for a long, successful and happy married life.
DIED
Mrs. Mary Warwick Gatewood died at her home at Linwood Friday morning, February 17, 1922. Her age was 75 years.
Mrs. Gatewood was the wife of the late Colonel A. C. L. Gatewood, and a daughter of the late Judge and Mrs. James W. Warwick, of Bath County. She is survived by her daughter, Mrs. John Dunlap, and her sons, Eugene, Massie, William and Andrew. Funeral service was conducted at Linwood, and she was buried in the Varner cemetery by the grave of her late husband…