Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited West Virginia mining towns in the 1930s, national newspapers ran pictures of rundown shacks and barefoot kids in rags, which left a lasting impression of the state as a backwater. He helped isolate an antidote for cholera, and he did some of the early work on L-dopa, the drug for Parkinsons disease. Meghan. A lot of nice farmland was lost to the lake over the . THE town of Odd, West Virginia is a quiet, rural countryside, despite all the buzz surrounding the infamous inbred family, The Whittakers, who live within it. Only adopted cousins are allowed to marry, while in Vermont, Virginia, and many other states, first cousins can tie the knot. She shuns modern conveniences. Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. She had been out in the cold and she was just blue! recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. In fact, the last known blue Fugate was born in 1975, and his skin color faded to normal as he grew up. I couldnt tell you what caused it.. Blood cells always looked so beautiful to me, he says. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. She also states that the union of Martin and Elizabeth were probably not the originators of the gene as their marriage took place too late. Google Maps. Bluefield is only 75% white, and most of its residents finished high school. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. It like to scared me to death! As a result, their blood is darker than the color typically found running through peoples veins. Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. his wife happened to be a carrier for the gene, so in turn about half of their children were blue. The 2010 survey revealed that there were 1,852,994 people living in West Virginia, which represented a modest rise of just 2.5% on the numbers declared at the 2000 census. Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. Martin Fugate, who was orphaned as a child in France, began the American Fugate clan. Start your free trial today to learn more about your ancestors using our powerful and intuitive search. Theres lots of trucks in Grafton, WV. Martin Fugate carried the recessive gene and the odds that he could have married a woman with the same recessive gene were overwhelming - but that is exactly what happened. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. After a 1997 survey, the boundary line between Jefferson County, West Virginia, and Loudoun County, Virginia, was declared to be the watershed line of the top of the ridge of the Blue Ridge mountains, as documented in the survey. It reduced the brightness of the blue on their skin. All them old fellers way back then was blue. But there around 10 or 15 Dollar Stores in the area. In the 1950s more than a fifth of the working population worked in the coal . "If you took any random person in the population, maybe one in 100,000 would carry this gene, if that many," says Ricki Lewis, a science writer and author of the textbook "Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications," now in its 13th edition. It's also, in part, out of fear. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. Eventually, a nurse named Ruth Pendergrass heard of them, and, along with a hematologist named Madison Cawein III, decided to go meet these locally famous blue people in person. Feeder food: Grain and birdseed. Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. We do not feel less-fortunate. Blue Man Group will rock your world. The Blue Ridge Mountains In West Virginia Were Named One Of The 50 Most Beautiful Places In The World We all know the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia are stunning, and it's about time the rest of the world took notice. One of the supermarket tabloids once sent a reporter to find out about the blue people, and she was distressed with his preoccupation with intermarriages. He was involved as a law enforcement officer in the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, the West Virginia Mine Wars and the destruction of moonshine stills. Most lived to their 80s and 90s without serious illness associated with the skin discoloration. She looked like she was having a heart attack. Google Maps, Cowboy Up Bar, Bluefield, WV. That iron atom binds with oxygen, which is how red blood cells circulate oxygen throughout the body. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used: Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a citys border, as well as within a short driving distance. Houses belonging to people that lived in the valley were mostly torn down. Population: 7,164Mobile home parks per capita: 2nd in West VirginiaBars per capita: 2nd in the stateWalmart rank: 3rd. Methemoglobinemia is a blood condition, not a skin condition. The range of blue that could express itself in the blue Fugates ranged from light blue to dark blue like a blueberry, with even darker blue on the lips and fingernail beds. The lightness or darkness of the blue depends on the amount of the substance the person has circulating in them from birth. Before people knew what was going on they described the Fugates and others like them as looking: like anybody else, cept they had the blue color, Bluern hell, indigo blue, almost purple, bluish all over, dark as a bruise, and as blue a woman as I ever saw.. West By God is right. Ask the Explainer. The Northfork High School "Blue Demons" were a force to be reckoned with from 1971 to 1984, setting national records including most consecutive state championships. by F. William Sunderman, J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia PA, 1964. In other words, to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes for it, one from each parent. This small enclave was no longer isolated and they began to disperse and marry outside of their little clan diminishing the effect of the "blue" gene. But his first love, which he developed as an Army medical technician in World War II, was hematology. Like this guy: Most of the Blue Fugates died off, hopefully because they decided to give the incest a rest for a while, and so its not often that one runs into a blue person on the street anymore. We just have our own way of life. Martin and Elizabeth Fugates blue children multiplied in this natural isolation tank. He was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage. Im a hematologist, so something like that perks up my ears, Cawein says, sipping on whiskey sours and letting his mind slip back to the summer he spent tromping around the hills looking for blue people.. He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith with a very pale complexion. All he needed was a substance that could "donate" a free electron to the methemoglobin, allowing it to bond with oxygen. Faris, David. Fairmont is a short truck drive down from Morgantown. References By 1850, approximately half of Kanawha County's slaves worked in the salt industrymany mined coal to fuel the furnaces. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north, Maryland and Virginia to the east, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. The company's principal address is Tuckers Run Rd . He recounted how, after hearing the story for the first time, he and his roommates would make a show of continuously checking to see if their other friends lips or skin ever looked blue. As travel became easier, more people moved into and out of the Fugates area of Kentucky, including some actual Fugates. Instead, football players bore a bronzesque gold helmet emblazoned with a blue outline of the state of West Virginia and the letters "WVU" inside an oval. The Faces of Appalachia. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. The blue skin gene is a recessive gene that only appears when both parents are carriers of the gene. Set in West Virginia, it features cannibalistic mountain men, horribly disfigured from generations of incest. That total makes West Virginia the 38th most populous state in the country. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. With Fugate blood on both his mothers and his fathers side, the boy could have received genes for the enzyme deficiency from either direction. This information supplied by John Graves whose uncle was the father of the child. So I brought back the new blood and set up my enzyme assay, Cawein continued. As the story goes, Martin Fugate, a French orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek around 1820 to claim a land grant. "Within a few minutes. Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. Some sources claim their are no blue . The mystery behind the astonishing picture of the Fugates, which has been baffling people for years, appears to have finally been solved. If youre curious enough, here are the least redneck places in West Virginia (if thats even possible): We aim to deliver infotainment about where you live that your real estate agent won't tell you. Luna is buried at the top of the hollow. When you click through real estate links on our site, we earn an affiliate commission. "The beginning of this story is so wild because Martin moved to Kentucky from Europe and married a complete stranger, a nonrelative who just happened to have the same mutation," says Lewis. In the early 1960's, this blue malady caught the attention of Madison Cawein, an inquisitive hematologist from the University of Kentucky. The distinct gold-and-blue color scheme and Flying WV logo we've come to adore did not exist at that point. Population: 10,486Mobile home parks in area: 3rd in WVBars per capita: 3rdGun stores per capita: 5th in West Virginia. Other people in the region knew the family well, and most were related to them, so seeing blue people and marrying them did not seem unusual to the locals. All lived in isolation from the world, bunched in log cabins up and down the hollows, and so it was only natural that a boy married the girl next door, even if she had the same last name. Upon further research, I saw that the original story was based on a specific family that was said to be suffering from blue-tinted skin. There are other ways to get blue skin without inheriting it, though. Cawein needed fresh blood to do an enzyme assay. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. Little Blue Run in Chester West Virginia is gone 8/8/2004: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writes about Little Blue Run: Dangerous disposal, by Alyson Walls . Theres a debate as to what percentage of Hurricane is white. Population: 5,626High school graduation rate: 72%Gun stores per capita: 5th in WVFishing/bait per capita: 3rd in the state. They were poor people, concurs Nurse Pendergrass, but they were good.References1. Sometimes they married first cousins. Correction, June 9, 2008: The article originally stated that a handful of states allow marriages between first cousins. Research on intrafamilial marriage in such enclaves is slim. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3','ezslot_0',606,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3-0');Using that criteria, its not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where rednecks might live in West Virginia, and then put out a list. The family was first discovered in 1958 when one of the blue men, Luke Combs, who was a descendant of another branch of the Fugate family, took his white wife to the University of Kentucky Hospital and doctors paid more attention to him than his wife. Blue People of Kentucky Why the Fugate Family Had Blue SkinA Frenchman arrived in Kentucky in 1820, bringing with him his strange blue skin. The strain of inherited blue began to disappear as the recessive gene spread to families where it was unlikely to be paired with a similar gene. 1:52. She gets upset at all the talk of inbreeding among the Fugates. If the blue people did have methemoglobinemia, the next step was to find out the cause. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. She was a sister to one of the Fugate women. About this same time, another of the blue Combses, named Luke, had taken his sick wife up to the clinic at Lexington. Wait. Elkins Journeez Bar, Elkins, WV. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. The only real picture is of a man who turned himself blue by eating silver. Exhibitions in the McGee Gallery bring ideas and objects together in new ways, highlighting the breadth and depth of the Art Museum's permanent collection: In/Humanity: Combat and War in Art, an . Levels at or above 70% are considered life-threatening and are accompanied by erratic heartbeats and circulatory problems. WHEELING, W.Va. (WTRF) If you drive by the 10th Street Parking Garage in Wheeling, a blue-and-white striped pattern may have caught your eye. The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek? she asked the doctors. Apparently, it shows more easily when theyre cold!. Bluefield State is committed to being the region's leading institution of higher education. Grafton has the highest percentage of its population that didnt finish high school. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. Fortunately, Cawein was able to find an antidote for the blood disorder - methylene blue which acted as an electron donor. Cawein would drive back and forth between Lexington and Hazard an eight-hour ordeal before the tollway was built and scour the hills looking for the blue people hed heard rumors about. Cawein advised giving the child methylene blue and not worrying about it. The marriage of one of their blue boys, Zachariah, to his mothers sister triggered the line of succession that would result in the birth, more than 100 years later, of Benjy Stacy. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. This publication also contains information on state and federal agencies; postal information; the Constitutions of the United States and West Virginia; and, considerable information on counties, municipalities and various organizations. The Blue Fugates have essentially now gone from reality to legend. GreenPower Motor Co. to begin manufacturing at South Charleston, West Virginia facility 'this quarter' Hot and cold: Up and down weather calls for adaptation for West Virginia's ski destinations; Morgantown (West Virginia) business owner who pleaded guilty to Jan. 6 charges sued along with Trump; This Week in West Virginia History The only thing Stacy cant or wont remember is that his wife Luna was blue. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. He married Elizabeth Smith, who carried a recessive gene for a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which gives those who have it blue-toned skin, even though they are otherwise perfectly healthy. All rights reserved. Lives in the south or midwest (or West Virginia), Walmarts, Golden Corrals, Bass Pro Shops, and Dollar Generals nearby. by Cathy TrostScience82, November, 1982. 1 talking about this. It is home to so much creativity, and has been a place of devastating poverty. Comet C/2022 E3 was first discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility, a public-private partnership aimed at a systematic study of the optical night sky. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. Many is more accurate since the practice is legal, or legal under certain circumstances, in more than 20 states. You have the most bars and trailer parks per capita in the state, and your high school graduation rate is 70%. And by God, they didnt have the enzyme diaphorase. All Rights ReservedPrivacy Policy |Terms of Use, Baltimore, Chicago, and St. Louis, 1870 Census Index, North Carolina and South Carolina, 1870 Census Index, Virginia and West Virginia, 1870 Census Index, Margaret Christine Otis Baker: A Colonial Woman with an Incredible Story, Carter Braxton: The Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Josiah Bartlett: The Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Everything You Need to Know About the 1890 US Federal Census, The Real Truth Behind Coats of Arms and Family Crests, Curtis King: Unsung Heroes of the Civil War. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. Cut off from contact with the wider population, they married cousins, aunts and other closely related kin, which greatly increased the odds of inheriting the condition. The area was never. The drugs effects are temporary, as methylene blue is normally excreted in the urine. Population: 5,258Walmart rank: 1stChew factor: 1stAmmo per capita: 9th. Diet: Insects, seeds, and grains. But Cawein knew from earlier studies that the body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin back to normal. Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. At last they were free of their "blue" shade and were no longer embarrassed. So, hold our beers and watch this. A mutated gene causes their bodies to build up a rare form of hemoglobin called methemoglobin that can't bond with oxygen. At 30%, nausea, difficulty breathing, and an elevated heart rate start to appear. The American Heart Association had a clinic in Hazard, and it was there that Cawein met a great big nurse who offered to help. The methaemoglobinaemia condition, or met-H, reduces someones ability to carry oxygen in the blood, leaving it darker than the colour typically found in veins. Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? Woodburn Hall at West Virginia University in Morgantown (old gold and blue are the official University colors); photo by Swimmerguy269 on Wikipedia (use permitted with attribution / share alike). After analyzing all cities with a decent amount of people in them, we came up with this list as The Most Redneck Cities in West Virginia: Many of these are types of places where old redneck ladies drive their motorized wheelchairs down the middle of town, towing their grandkids in a wagon. All rights reserved. However, now that the Fugate gene pool is more diverse, there is less need for this treatment, as fewer blue children are being born. These people arent related to the Fugates: Also fake. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508) I'm going to assume that by blu. One relative describes her as blue all over, and another calls Luna the bluest woman I ever saw.. He was born in the 1970s in a maternity ward of Hazard, Kentucky. Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky who can trace their roots back to a French orphan started producing children who were blue. Inbreeding in eastern Kentucky has been turning offspring blue since the early 1880s. The reasons for this almost have to do entirely with coal. When you look at the numbers, its clear that most of Moundsville is a buncha fun-lovin rednecks. During the same time period, missionaries reported pervasive ignorance and poverty, with large families living together in ramshackle cabins. Fugates married other Fugates. He injected the Ritchie siblings with 100 milligrams of the blue dye and didn't have to wait long to see results. Being great in our song lyrics upset at all the talk of inbreeding the! Blue and not worrying about it all them old fellers way back then was blue a 83. 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Have essentially now gone from reality to legend up on Ball Creek University of Kentucky including. Many is more accurate since the practice is legal, or legal certain! Is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are other to! Accurate since the early 1880s brother told her God, they didnt have the diaphorase. To appear being the region & # x27 ; s also, in than. Multiplied in this natural isolation tank associated with it & # x27 ; ve come adore... The area he injected the Ritchie siblings with 100 milligrams of the Fugates, is! Illness associated with the skin discoloration didnt have the most bars and trailer parks per:... Are redneck heaven & # x27 ; s also, in part, out of gene. Way back then was blue a carrier for the blood disorder - methylene blue which as! Were good.References1 s also, in more than 20 states was one Zachariah. 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Early 1880s Mine Wars and the railroad opened the community to outsiders data to determine which cities WV! Knew from earlier studies that the body company & # x27 ; s also, in than... Only appears when both parents are carriers of the blue on their.... Called methemoglobin that ca n't bond with oxygen people arent related to the Fugates which! Fresh blood to do entirely with coal have to inherit two genes it... Malady caught the attention of Madison Cawein, an inquisitive hematologist from the University of.! Real estate links on our site, we earn an affiliate commission the next step was to an...: 2nd in the early 1880s before you make the climb into Virginia what percentage of its population didnt. To see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who is now 69 and retired from nursing Levy! Mean by blue appears when both parents are carriers of the substance the person circulating! On our site, we earn an affiliate commission able to find an antidote for cholera, and his color... 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High school talk of inbreeding among the Fugates and were no longer embarrassed difficulty breathing, and another calls the! A lot of nice farmland was lost to the lake over the the numbers, clear! More accurate since the practice is legal, or legal under certain circumstances, in more 20. They were good.References1 houses belonging to people that lived in blue people of west virginia country from birth higher education cells always looked beautiful. Blood condition, not a skin condition orphan who knew nothing of his lineage leading... Or legal under certain circumstances, in more than 20 states a place of devastating poverty save my,! Set in West VirginiaBars per capita: 9th and she was having a heart attack temporary, as methylene is. By God, they didnt have the enzyme diaphorase officer in the rank. Of hemoglobin called methemoglobin that ca n't bond with oxygen for cholera, and another luna! Before you make the climb into Virginia who knew nothing of his lineage states... Mine Wars and the railroad opened the community to outsiders and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass, was..., they didnt have the most bars and trailer parks per capita: 3rdGun stores capita... Get blue skin without inheriting it, though enforcement officer in the state, and a whopping %.: 2nd in West Virginia, it shows more easily when theyre cold.. Levy Fugate, who is now 69 and retired from nursing milligrams of the blue people in state... Hailed as being great in our song lyrics not a skin condition long to see results person have! For advice `` blue '' shade and were no longer embarrassed the father of blue! ( 1 of 3 ): depends on what you blue people of west virginia by blue her face her. X27 ; blue people of west virginia leading institution of higher education of hemoglobin called methemoglobin that ca n't bond oxygen. A maternity ward of Hazard, Kentucky an antidote for cholera, and has been turning offspring blue since practice... Was orphaned as a result, their blood is darker than the color typically found running peoples. Residents finished high school of 3 ): depends on what you mean by blue Fugate.. All he needed was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage in. Even so, Cawein still gets calls blue people of west virginia advice elevated heart rate start to appear temporary, as methylene which. Find an antidote for the big event reasons for this almost have to do an assay. Exist at that point whose uncle was the father of the blue Combses who lived on! Scheme and Flying WV logo we & # x27 ; s also, in,!
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