Spooky Stories

Ghostly Campfire Tales for Halloween

For thousands of years, storytelling has played an integral role in connecting one another and building communities. We engage in storytelling all the time, whether it be at work, through social media, or while...

The Griffith Files: Nick’s Music

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Nick’s Music was a Cradle of the Folk Music Revival of the 1960s and it Vanished – or did it? Before he could expand upon his fading memories about growing up in Wheeling for the brief stories he wrote for ...

My Town: Kid Catholic

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May Devotions were held at 7:30 in the evening and were charming.  The grade school kids would bring flowers they had picked and file up the side aisle to place them before the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mar...

Hamburger Man

I have got to remember, it is a fine memory, that soft naked lady God meant her to be. That is how the song goes, but this is a different memory.  A thousand, maybe two thousand years ago I worked at the Bu...

Leo the Barber

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Leo was the McColloch Street barber. His was a single chair shop. Nothing remarkable, but perhaps it's worth a few minutes to tell how a barbershop worked in the '60s. Simple things, like how to get a haircu...

McColloch’s Leap

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In East Wheeling in the mid 1960's there was a 'bar' on almost every corner. But the word 'bar' isn't all they were, they were also community centers. Places that glued the small neighborhoods together. Plac...

Romantic Wheeling: August 21, 1990

August 21, 1990 Dear Meg, My platoon and I are stationed at Camp Casey in Korea for now and no one knows for how long. It feels like forever since I’ve been home, I can hardly remember what yall look like...

Simple Twist of Fate

This piece of paper may seem insignificant but I assure you that it tells an interesting story with a very important lesson for me. Rehanging a door last summer, I found this slip of paper being used as a sh...

just another Warwood brat

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just another Warwood brat, son of Clyde and Vera, running the streets with Moe, Rudy, Mario, Bill, and Ray near North 20th pacing the courts at the YMCA under his dad’s skeptical eye lettering in three...

Growing Up At 2 Laurel Ave.

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I don’t think I am different from anyone else in that I thought everyone was raised like I was. It wasn’t until I moved out of my neighborhood and got a little life experience that it began slowly to dawn on m...

Postwar (Woodsdale) Rascals Conquer The Hill

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World War II had ended. Soldiers returned to our beloved country. Those soldiers settled down and immediately started reproducing. That meant that there would be another generation born to pick up arms. Woodsda...

Napping On The Porch

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Growing up in Wheeling was like coming from a special planet.  Wheeling seemed to specialize in cultivating unusually eccentric people.  Wheeling suffered from a disease called acute prosperity.  The prosperity...

The Mostly True Story of “Betsy” Zane

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  Just about every school child knows the story of how a 17-year-old girl named Elizabeth Zane saved Fort Henry by running to the cabin of Ebenezer Zane and returning with an apron full of gunpowder...

Lowell Windfree’s Bobsled Run

Note: This is a fictional tale. Rich Knoblich, WV storyteller and a regular winner of the Liar Contest at the annual Vandalia Gathering hosted by the WV Dept. of Arts and Culture, likes to add some dr...

Harshman Brings Santa To Mountain State

His ideas arrive at moments sometimes unexpected, and on occasion the plot lines are delivered by a friend or a colleague. Such was the case with Marc Harshman’s latest children’s book, “Mountain Christmas.”...

Wheeling’s Haunted Confluence

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Note: This is a fictional tale. Rich Knoblich, WV storyteller and a regular winner of the Liar Contest at the annual Vandalia Gathering hosted by the WV Dept. of Arts and Culture, likes to add some dr...

Captain Samuel Brady: Part 3, Conclusion

Brady’s Rangers were very effective in their pursuit of the Indian raiding parties. Numerous times, they rescued women and children who had been taken captive by the Indians. When Brady’s Rangers encountered an...

Captain Samuel Brady: Part 2

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After living in a cabin in Wellsburg for a period of time, Sam and Drucilla obtained property in West Liberty, with assistance from Van Swearingon, where they built a large frame house. One of the photos with t...

Captain Samuel Brady: Part 1

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Captain Samuel Brady – Hero of the Revolution Part 1    During the Revolutionary War, the most well-known and respected individual in the Upper Ohio Valley was not named McCullough or Zane or Wetz...

The Mostly True Story of Simon Girty

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By Earl Nicodemus Weelunk Contributor Even though I am a storyteller rather than a historian, I have attempted to find out the real story of Simon Girty. Other than Benedict Arnold, no other individual as...

Storytelling: Court Day in West Liberty

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by Earl Nicodemus To the reader: I must preface this document by informing the reader that I am a storyteller rather than a historian. Until radio took over the storytelling role about 100 years ago, Americans...