Share Media File

Transcript

Outside corporations controlled the timber industry in West Virginia. Non-residents owned three-quarters of the timber land in Wyoming County, two-thirds in Logan and over half in Mingo County.

“The state is rapidly passing under the control of large foreign and non-resident landowners. In a few years we will occupy the same position of vassalage to the north and east as Ireland does to England.” William MacCorkle

Ronald Eller: Because of absentee ownership of the state’s resources, the dollars that could have built better schools and better roads and better health services in the early part of the century flowed out of the region, and we got what we call growth without development. We got a short period of immense growth and expansion and boom period of jobs, but we didn’t get the development of those aspects that will sustain a community over time and provide a quality of life.