Zetta Barker Hamby was born in the Blue Ridge of Appalachia and, during a rich, rural mountain life, experienced the advent of the telephone, the automobile, electricity, radio, television and the airplane. To set down what life was like in...

In 1972, two pilots -- one a federal career engineer, the other the pastor of a prominent church in Washington, D.C. -- discovered a common passion for flying airplanes and serving people. One day over lunch, the men conceived a...

After the Civil War, Capt. Isaiah Welch, a Doddridge County, West Virginia, native, took a job as a surveyor with Maj. Jed Hotchkiss of Staunton, Virginia. Hotchkiss had served as Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson's mapmaker and charted Jackson's famous Valley...

The colorful history of Petersburg is a story rife with tragedy and perseverance. Petersburg, a city 25 miles south of Richmond, was devastated by the effects of the Civil War. By 1915, the city had rebuilt itself into a vital...

In 1893, a few businessmen purchased some land just west of Huntington, West Virginia, to develop a new community. Eventually, Central City-- as it was called-- bustled with industry, thriving on the five major factories that became the nucleus of...

The charming town of Abingdon is nestled in southwestern Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and situated along the Holston River. Originally known as Wolf Hills-a name bestowed upon the town by Daniel Boone-Abingdon was renamed in honor of Martha Washington's...

In 1837, the people of Guyandotte, then a village on the Virginia frontier, resolved to open a school for their sons and daughters. Tradition says local lawyer John Laidley convinced his neighbors to name the school for his friend,...

Established in 1809, Cabell County is located in West Virginia's Mid-Ohio Valley. When rail tycoon Collis P. Huntington pushed the tracks of his Chesapeake & Ohio Railway across the mountains from Virginia into Cabell County, he founded the town...

Hancock County, West Virginia, located in the Upper Ohio Valley, was first settled during the Revolutionary War. Over the next century, it transformed from a frontier forest into rolling fields, pastures, and orchards. In the 1830s, investors began building brickyards...

Located between the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, Smyth County has had a profound effect on many aspects of local, state, American, and world history. In Images of America: Smyth County, take a journey back through time...