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KANAWHA CITY PANORAMA CIRCA 1925
This series of photos comes with a mystery. First, look at the full sized image of the photo above HERE.
If you blow this photo up, you will see a most beautiful house with a wonderful bridge:
That house is as far as I can tell, the only house in Kanawha City with it's own bridge. The house itself was top quality in both construction and design. A very well-known person lived there at one time. We'll get to that in a minute.
Some years ago I visited that property and took the photos below:
This is the steel reinforced concrete bridge that you crossed from Kanawha Ave.
The house had a large sunroom with French doors on both sides
Showing more detail...
The house itself was in excellent condition, however the grounds were getting pretty seedy. But there were other problems as well....
I don't want to go into detail, but I knew that the person living in the house was in trouble. I called the authorities to check on the old owner, in the hope that they might be helped in some way. The owner refused any intervention.
About two years later.....
The house burned, and the owner died of his injuries.
Today....
There is nothing left but an empty lot. I'm sure a beautiful home will soon be built here.
Now for the mystery....
On the left you see the address plaque that was embedded into the concrete bridge. This is viewable from Kanawha Ave. Yet, the house is in the 5200 block, and the actual address was clearly posted on the mailbox. The only thing I can come up with is that at the time of the house's construction, that WAS the 2200 block of Kanawha Ave. Looking at the old panorama, that would make sense. PS: I have purposefully blurred-out the name on the plaque.
FINALLY.... I'm not positive who built or owned the house first, but a very well-known lady and her husband lived there for many years, and I believe that they were the first owners...
Can you imagine such a refined young lady from a very wealthy background living in Belle WV in 1920 ??
1954
The house was for sale in 1960
If anyone has something to add or change about this story, contact me at wvskyguyATaol.com
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