Gilmer Free Press

Flashback: What Happened on May 22, ....

•  1922 Fire destroyed the Shop Unit of the West Virginia Industrial School for Boys in Pruntytown, Taylor County. The school operated without the use of a shop for eight years.

•  1928 A third coal mine explosion at the Yukon Mine at Susanna on Dry Fork Creek, McDowell County, near War, killed 17.

•  1933 The state legislature passed the County Unit act, replacing the state’s 398 school districts with county units.

•  1946 President Truman ordered that coal mines be placed under federal jurisdiction.

•  1946 The West Virginia Historical Society, organized in 1940, was chartered.

•  1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale campaigned in Charleston and the southern coalfields.

•  1992 Lydell Brooks, 16, and David Means, 18, were shot and killed in Kanawha County during a “skip day” outing for seniors attending George Washington High School in Charleston.

•  1992 Talks between Ravenswood Aluminum Corporation and the United Steelworkers of America broke off concerning the lockout at the Ravenswood Aluminum plant in Ravenswood, Jackson County.