Logan County, West Virginia    Biography of Harry Magill VENABLE

**************************************************************************
USGENWEB NOTICE: Material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, 
as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is 
obtained from the contributor of the file.

These pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation 
by other organizations.  Persons or organizations desiring to use this 
material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of 
the contributor.

Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@earthlink.net>, July 1999
**************************************************************************

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 187-188


HARRY MAGILL VENABLE, an ex-service man who was with
the Engineers in France, is an engineer by profession and
training, and has been a factor in the mining development
of West Virginia. He is now superintendent of the McCall
Coal Company at Christian in Logan County. He opened
a mine, the location being established in May, 1920, and
operations beginning in October of the same year. All this
work has been done under his supervision.

Mr. Venable was born at Bellview, Kentucky, just over
the Ohio River from Cincinnati, October 16, 1889, and is a
son of Matthew W. and Mariah (Dyer) Venable.  His
father, who was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia,
and is now seventy-four years of age, was a youthful soldier
in the Confederate army, is a graduate of the University of
Virginia, a civil engineer by profession, and for many years
has employed his technical abilities in the development of
mines in all the important fields of West Virginia. He now
resides at Charleston. He has four living sons, the oldest
being associated with his father in the M. W. Venable &
Son firm. Another son, W. W. , is chief engineer of tipple
construction with the Kanawha Manufacturing Company of
Charleston. C. S. Venable is a constructing engineer in the
Logan field. After the death of his first wife Matthew W.
Venable married Anna Byrne, daughter of Col. Ben W.
Byrne. By this union there are two sons, Ben, a captain
in the United States Army, and Richard, a civil engineer
living at Charleston.

Harry Magill Venable received his education in the
Virginia Military Institute, and on leaving school in 1909
took up construction work and had a varied experience with
opportunities of travel in South and Central America and
in Mexico. For a number of years he had been associated
with his father at Charleston, and he was also just before
the war engaged in installation work for the Lincoln Smoke-
less Coal Company in Raleigh County.

In November, 1917, he enlisted at Washington in the
Twenty-third Engineers, was trained at Camp Meade, Mary-
land, and was overseas until June, 1919. He received his
honorable discharge at Camp Sherman. He was in the St.
Mihiel, the Mense and Argonne sectors, around Chateau
Thierry, and was on the scene of much of the heavy fight-
ing engaged in building highways and bridges. He was dis-
charged with the rank of master engineer. Mr. Venable
is a member of the Elks Lodge at Hinton, and in politics
is non-partisan.