WOOD, Walter S. Kanawha County, West Virginia Biography of Walter S. WOOD This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 215-216 WALTER S. WOOD has written some important chapters of the history of the coal industry in West Virginia during the past quarter of a century. From rather small and mod- est beginnings his name has come to be associated with some of the biggest coal corporations in the state. His active partner in many of these enterprises has been Mr. Quin Morton. Mr. Wood, whose home for a number of years has been at Charleston, was born in Mecklenberg County, Virginia, in 1874, son of John S. and Jennie (Scott) Wood. He grew up on the old homestead in Mecklenburg County, was edu- cated in the public schools of Clarksville, Virginia, and in 1892, at the age of eighteen, entered the claim department of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad at Cincinnati. While in that city he was also in the employ of the Carlisle Coal Company, subsequently merged into the Kineon Coal Com- pany, with which he remained a period of about four years. It was with this equipment of experience that Mr. Wood came to West Virginia in 1896 and engaged in the coal business with the St. Clair Coal Company at Eagle in Fay- ette County. He remained with that company until 1900. August 1st of that year he joined in the organization of the Falls Colliery Company at Glen Ferris, West Virginia. This company in 1901 he sold to the Kanawha & Hocking Coal Company. He returned to Eagle as general superin- tendent of the Gordon Coal and Coke Company, remaining in that capacity until the spring of 1904, when he acquired a controlling interest in the Standard Splint Gas Coal Com- pany on Paint Creek. Mr. Wood was closely identified with this enterprise and kept his residence at the Paint Creek properties until 1913, since which date his home has been in Charleston. In the meantime, with broadening interests, he was pres- ident of the Keeney's Creek Colliery Company at Winona from February, 1911, until it was sold to the Maryland Coal Company in 1917, and was president of the Sullivan Coal & Coke Company at Sullivan in Raleigh County from 1908 to 1919. Mr. Wood's active association with Mr. Quin Morton dates from 1916, in which year the Wood Coal Company of Logan County was organized. Mr. Wood is still presi- dent of this corporation. He was one of the organizers and was vice president of the American Eagle Colliery Company, when organized in 1918, and he is now president of that company. He is president of the Leevale Coal Company, organized in 1919; president of the Hopkins Fork Coal Company, organized in 1917; president of the Imperial Smokeless Coal Company and vice president of the Wood-Morton Fuel Company, and is vice president and general manager of the Middle Creek Coal Company at Hartland, on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, organized in 1917. Mr. Wood is also one of the state's bankers. He or- ganized and is president of the Bank of Quinwood, a flour- ishing bank of $50,000 capital at Quinwood in Greenbrier County. Mr. Wood is obviously a man of many prominent inter- ests and high standing in the business and social life of Charleston. He is a member of St. John's Protestant Epis- copal Church, and is a Knight Templar and thirty-second degree Mason and Shiner. He married Miss Lucy Sims. Their four children are Virginia, Helen Reid, George Wal- ter and Alice.