A Partnership Between Weelunk, Archiving Wheeling, and the Ohio County Public Library Archives
Do you recognize any of these people? These are all historic photos of Wheeling people, places, and things that need to be identified. Weelunk, Archiving Wheeling, and the Ohio County Public Library Archives have teamed up to reach out to Wheeling area residents or people that have lived in the Wheeling area at any time—we need your help identifying the individuals in these photos!
This is an ongoing monthly project to connect today’s Wheeling community to its historical resources and stories. To coincide with this year’s Fantasy in Lights parade in downtown Wheeling, November’s History’s Mysteries offers glimpses of a Christmas past. The more we know about the people in these photos, the more we can uncover important and sometimes forgotten histories of Wheeling. To learn more about crowdsourced history and unlocking history’s mysteries, check out Archiving Wheeling’s partner article here!
Check out the photos listed below—if you recognize someone, please submit your comment in the entry space below the specific photo! The more information you can give us, the more complete the historical record. Please help us by sharing this article far and wide on social media and directly with anyone you know from Wheeling—even if they don’t live here anymore!
These images come courtesy of a scrapbook put together by Joe A. Funk, the director of public relations and advertising for Stone & Thomas Department Store. This particular scrapbook, housed in the Ohio County Public Library Archives, documents the 1958 Stone & Thomas Santa Claus Train, Christmas Parade, and Open House held Saturday, November 22, 1958.
The Wheeling News-Register reported the itinerary for the day’s events:
The first train will depart at 11:30 a.m. Saturday for “Rendezvous X” where it will pick up Mrs. Santa and the jolly old gentleman’s helpers.
All photos are courtesy of the Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling, WV. For more historic photos of the Wheeling area, events, and residents, check out OCPL’s Flickr page, here.
To access previous months’ Solving History’s Mysteries projects, click here.
For more information or questions about this project, please email laura.carroll@ohiocountylibrary.org. This project is a partnership between Weelunk, Archiving Wheeling, and the Ohio County Public Library with additional support from Preserve WV AmeriCorps.
• Laura L. Carroll is the archivist at the Ohio County Public Library. Prior to joining the library in 2017, she processed the records of the Wheeling-La Belle Cut Nail Company with a grant project spearheaded by Wheeling Heritage. She earned her M.L.I.S. from Dominican University and her M.A. in Public History from Loyola University, Chicago. Before moving to Wheeling, she was a manuscript archivist in the Rare Book Library at Emory University. She also worked as an archivist for the American Medical Association. She is passionate about collecting, preserving and making the historical records of Wheeling and the Ohio Valley accessible to all.
