If you are like me and around my age, you have walked by this location many, many times.
It is likely, too, that you thought the Wheeling Post Office on the corner of 12th and Chapline streets was in that location forever because that’s what it seems like.
Turns out that building was built around 1905.
That location, though, once was the home of the Oglebay family, but that house is gone forever.
Following are a few photographs of that home and the beginnings of the construction of the post office. In the construction photo, you can see that many of the buildings are still there. The McClure Hotel and a few small buildings remain standing today as is the Board of Trade building, a structure that once housed the Court Theater.
It has been a passion of mine to showcase and preserve Wheeling’s rich history with this series of historic photographs that highlight a business or building that is no longer here in the Upper Ohio Valley.
If you have suggestions on a favorite business or location that has vanished, please submit that to me at cre8m@comcast.net. I will do my best to search out and tell that story.
I hope with this series, “Gone Forever,” I will be able to show what made Wheeling the greatest city in West Virginia, and the large amount of business and industry that was here in the early ’30s and ’40s that attracted people from everywhere.
James Thornton has published several volumes of history on the city of Wheeling, and those interested in purchasing one of them can do so by contacting him at cre8m@comcast.net or visit the Creative Impressions website. The books can be purchased at the Wheeling Heritage Center, Kroger on Mount de Chantal Road, Miklas Meat Market, Nail City Records, the UPS Store in the Washington Avenue Plaza, VC Wares at Centre Market, Bower’s Decorating at The Highlands, and on the website www.wheelinghistory.net.
