When you think of Wheeling Gone Forever, you don’t always think of people. But, one of my great friends, Chip West, along with The Point Museum, are gone forever from Wheeling’s rich history.
Chip, along with his wife, Sally, opened the Point Museum for Oglebay Tours in September 1992. And then they opened the addition to the Point, the Omni Center, in 1996, which was a reception hall.
Unfortunately, they had to close the museum in 2001.
I was the photographer at the Point for several years, and Chip and I worked on many projects together. Chip was a champion of Wheeling. I miss the museum and Chip.
The following are a few images from my time with the museum. Enjoy.
It has been a passion of mine to showcase and preserve Wheeling’s rich history with this series of historic photographs that briefly highlight businesses or buildings that are “Gone Forever” from the fabric of Wheeling life and the Ohio Valley. I hope with this “Gone Forever” series, I will be able to show the large amount of industry and commerce that thrived here in the early 1930’s and 1940’s, attracting people from many countries and all walks of life who all helped to make Wheeling the greatest city in West Virginia. If you have suggestions on a favorite business or location that is gone, please submit that to me at cre8m@comcast.net I will do my best to search out and tell that story.
