By Jody Brumage

​The small communities of Kearneysville and Leetown in Jefferson County, West Virginia have been a center of scientific research for over sixty years. One of the laboratories centered in the area is the Appalachian Fruit Research Station, a part of the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture. Opened in 1979, the laboratory was the result of over fifteen years of efforts to secure land, funding, and a mandate for the institution.


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Image to the Right: Senator Byrd's 1963 proposal for the scope of research to be conducted at the Fruit Research Station.

By Jody Brumage

​Anyone driving through West Virginia today will see yard signs and billboards expressing support and opposition to the construction of pipelines in the state. The current debate centers largely on pipelines built to transport natural gas, but fifty-six years ago, a similar battle was fought in the state over coal slurry pipelines. The technology for these overland transport systems was developed in the early-1960s. Slurry pipelines operate in one of two ways: the coal is pulverized and mixed with water or it is pressed into logs which are floated through the pipelines to their destination. Soon after this technology became available, West Virginia’s mine operators began exploring ways that pipelines could open new markets for coal extracted from the Mountain State where exportation had always relied primarily upon railroad and river barge transport.

By Jody Brumage

​“The destruction from this storm goes beyond anything we’ve known in recent years. It will test the resources of all volunteer organizations, private sector help, and state, local, and federal governments.” President George H.W. Bush delivered these grave remarks in the White House briefing room on August 26, 1992 as the nation was realizing the horrific damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew. Florida and Louisiana were among the hardest hit areas. Two days prior to his statement to the press, President Bush toured Florida. He planned to visit Louisiana in the next few days to assess damages there too. The recovery effort that lay ahead was a daunting one as communities dealt with the loss of human lives and billions of dollars in damage.​

By Jody Brumage

Early in his senatorial career, Robert C. Byrd recognized the potential benefits of expanding the role of the U.S. Forest Service in West Virginia as both a means of supporting conservation, recreation, and the state's timber industry. While the forest service had been a presence in the state since 1915 when the first tract of land was purchased for the future Monongahela National Forest, the agency's activity in the state greatly increased in the early-1960s. In an earlier blog post, we discussed the Forest Products Marketing Laboratory built during Senator Byrd's first term in the U.S. Senate in Princeton, West Virginia. This week's blog looks at a second laboratory, built in Morgantown in 1967.

​By Jody Brumage

The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives each hold large collections of portraits depicting influential and power members of each body. Among the portraits preserved by the Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives is one of West Virginia Congressman Harley O. Staggers, Sr. The protrait was commissioned in 1976 by a resolution of the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Congressman Staggers becoming chairman. Attributed to Charles J. Fox, the oil portrait measures 30 by 40 inches and portrays its subject seated at the edge of his desk, surrounded by papers with the flag of the United States in the background. On April 6, 1976, the portrait was unveiled by Congressman Staggers' wife, Mary, in a ceremony in the committee's hearing room.

​By Jody Brumage

In December 1961, four members of West Virginia's congressional delegation made visits to soldiers at Fort Meade in Maryland and Camp Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia. Their visit came after President Kennedy called for several West Virginia units to be moved from reserve to active duty in response to escalating tension in Germany between the Soviet Union and the western allied powers. The "Berlin Crisis" raised fears of a new explosion of violence in the Cold War when the Soviet Union ordered the withdraw of western forces from the city of Berlin in June 1961. By the end of the year, the crisis resulted in the partitioning of the city between east and west, divided by the formidable Berlin Wall.

By Jody Brumage

This Friday marks the fiftieth anniversary of the tragic collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, a historic city along the Ohio River in West Virginia. On December 15, 1967, in the middle of the evening rush, the forty-year-old bridge suffered a catastrophic fracture in one of its steel suspension chain links, causing the full length of the roadway to collapse into the Ohio River in a matter of 20 seconds, taking with it 46 victims who lost their lives. The horrible accident struck hard at the close community of Point Pleasant, but it also had vital ramifications for the entire country. ​

By Jody Brumage
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On May 29, 1961, Mr. and Mrs. Alderson Muncy became the first recipients of food stamps in the United States. McDowell County, located along West Virginia’s border with Kentucky in the south-eastern part of the state, was the first designated location for a pilot food stamp program established by an executive order signed by President John F. Kennedy. While the first program for providing assistance to lower-income families for purchasing food was launched at the end of the Great Depression, the program of which the Muncy’s became the first recipients was the precedent for our nation’s current program, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

By Patrick Gregory, a public history major at Shepherd University and student intern at the Byrd Center.

Since the end of WWII, members of the Senate and House of Representatives have often gone on trips abroad called congressional delegations, or CODELs. These delegations provide opportunities for members of Congress to gain firsthand knowledge of the nations that the United States has diplomatic relationships with, develop personal and professional relationships with foreign officials and dignitaries, and to negotiate important policy matters. Senator Byrd went on numerous CODELs across the world during his six decades in Congress, including two trips to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) following the opening of diplomatic relations in the 1970’s.​