Iaeger, WV, celebrates 100 years, looks to its future

By RICK STEELHAMMER

Charleston Gazette-Mail

IAEGER, W.Va.  — The McDowell County town of Iaeger has seen better days since it was incorporated 100 years ago this week. That’s not stopping those who still hold onto home here at the confluence of the Dry Fork and Tug Fork rivers, as well as those who’ve moved away to pursue opportunities elsewhere, from getting together to celebrate the community’s past and consider its possibilities for the future.

Musical performers at the centennial celebration include “Some Kind of Wonderful” writer and performer John Ellison, of Soul Brothers Six, who grew up in nearby Landgraff and will perform Saturday, the Kentucky Headhunters on Friday and the Jaguars on Thursday.

The town’s 100th birthday bash was organized by mayor and former police chief Joe Ford, who has lived in Iaeger since early childhood, except for a four-year tour in the U.S. Army that included the closing months of the Vietnam War and time spent studying criminal justice at Fairmont State University and Bluefield State College.

In the months leading up to the celebration, Ford has been posting items about the town’s history on his Facebook page and on flyers posted around town.

“I’ve really enjoyed doing the research,” he said. “A lot of interesting and positive things have happened here over the years, and I wanted people here — especially the kids — to know about them and make them feel proud.”

Present-day Iaeger was the site of an encampment established in September 1774 by Gen. Andrew Lewis and his army of 1,100 Virginia militiamen on their way to Point Pleasant from the Lewisburg area to dissuade Chief Cornstalk and his alliance of American Indians from attacking settlers in the Greenbrier Valley.

Col. William G.W. Iaeger, a native of Pennsylvania and a veteran of the Mexican-American War, arrived in McDowell County in the late 1870s, established a farm and began acquiring vast tracts of coal and timber land here and in neighboring Mercer County.

Before his arrival, “he was a warm friend of President Lincoln” and, during the Civil War, became “a blockade runner in the West Indies and along the Gulf,” where his exploits “attracted attention the country over,” according to his obituary in The Washington Post.

After arriving in McDowell County in the 1880s, “he became one of the most extensive land owners in West Virginia,” accumulating wealth “computed at $4 million” at the time of his death, according to the obituary.

Although the town of Iaeger wasn’t incorporated until 1917, Iaeger’s son, Dr. William Iaeger, began drafting plat maps for a new town in the valley surrounding the confluence of the two rivers as early as 1885, according to Ford’s research. The elder Iaeger and his wife made plans to leave the townsite in 1903 and move to Gloucester County, on the Virginia coast, after selling some of their land holdings. But in July of that year, Iaeger developed a severe ear ache and traveled to Huntington for treatment and ended up succumbing to a severe infection between treatments while staying at the Florentine Hotel.

Ford said early pioneers called the site of present-day Iaeger “Forks in the River,” and after Iaeger’s arrival, the unincorporated community was briefly known as “Williamsburg,” apparently stemming from Iaeger’s first name. With another community of the same name having been previously established elsewhere in the state, postal officials insisted that a new name be given to the town, resulting in Iaeger becoming its formal name.

With rail service and coal mining activity blossoming in the early 1900s, Iaeger rapidly grew. By the 1920s, the town had three banks, three hotels, a theater and more than 30 other businesses. The town’s population topped 1,000 from the 1930s through the 1950s, when it peaked at nearly 1,600, according to U.S. Census data. By the time 2010 census numbers were compiled, the population had dropped to 803.

Probably no one in town is more aware of the population drain than its mayor, the only one of his mother’s 21 children who still lives in Iaeger.

“The rest of them scattered to the winds,” Ford said. “At least I don’t have to stay at a motel whenever I take a trip.”

“It’s kind of sad, now,” Austin said, “but we’ve got something a lot of other places don’t have — friendly, connected people who care about each other. We’re rich in other ways.”

“We walked into a place that felt like a community,” said Paul Dick, who is affiliated with the Young Life outreach ministry and works as a substitute teacher.

Before arriving in Iaeger, Dick said he suspected he would find a sense of despair among those living in the economically depressed community.

“But the people hold each other up,” he said. “Just because they have problems, it doesn’t mean they have to despair.”

Muralist and American realism painter Tom Acosta, a native of Iaeger, lived and worked in North Carolina for many years before returning to McDowell County.

“It turned out, this is where all of the inspiration for my painting comes from,” he said.

While his hometown has seen better days, he said he is hopeful for its future.

“We need to come up with some good ideas, get some help getting them started, and then stick with them once the grant money’s gone,” he said.

Art has proven to be an economic driver in revitalizing distressed small towns in other states, he said.

“I think we can grow again,” Ford said. “The coal business will pick up some, but it will never be what it once was. We have all kinds of other things to work with here,” including beautiful mountains and colorful history to set the stage for heritage-tourism development.

The Tug Fork and Dry Fork rivers already support fishing, and could host mild-water kayaking and rafting, if they are kept clean.

“We’re surrounded by forests, and there is some logging activity,” Ford said, “but why do we have to ship our wood out of state to be made into furniture? We could be making furniture, paper, even toothpicks here, instead of somewhere else.”

Ford said part of the reason for the 100th-anniversary celebration is to “get people who live here to appreciate what they have,” as well as to reconnect with friends and neighbors from the past.

“I can see a future for this place,” he said. “It’s home. When you see a place you love going down, you want to build it back up. If people back you up, it will happen.”

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