Page-Vawter House
Encyclopedia
Ansted, West Virginia
Ansted is a town in Fayette County in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is situated on high bluffs along U.S. Highway 60 on a portion of the Midland Trail a National Scenic Byway near Hawk's Nest overlooking the New River far below....
in Fayette County, West Virginia
Fayette County, West Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 47,579 people, 18,945 households, and 13,128 families residing in the county. The population density was 72 people per square mile . There were 21,616 housing units at an average density of 33 per square mile...
was built in 1889-90 by company carpenters of the Gauley Mountain Coal Company for the family of William Nelson Page, who was company president. The palatial white Victorian mansion is located on a knoll in the middle of town. William and Emma (née Gilham) Page raised their four children there, attended by a staff of 8 servants.
Architect William Minter designed the house in a Gothic style. It has 15 regular rooms, plus a butler's pantry and a dressing room. There are 11 fireplaces with hand-carved wooden mantels; most are in different styles. Even the doors have ornately decorated hinges. The exterior features 52 8-foot-tall windows built by company carpenters on a knoll in the middle of town.
According to author and railroad historian H. Reid
H. Reid
Harold A. Reid was an American writer, photographer, and historian. Reid is best known for his lifelong love of railroading and related photography and published work...
in his book The Virginian Railway (Kalmbach, 1961), it was in this mansion that Page developed the plans for the coal-hauling Virginian Railway
Virginian Railway
The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads....
, which was financed by industrialist Henry Huddleston Rogers and became the "Richest Little Railroad in the World" after its completion in 1909. The nearby railroad town of Page
Page, West Virginia
Page is an unincorporated census-designated place in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 224. It was named for William Nelson Page , a civil engineer and industrialist who lived in nearby Ansted, where he managed Gauley Mountain Coal Company and...
was named for him.
The mansion was later occupied by several generation of the Vawter family. In the 21st century, it still stands as evidence of the once-thriving coal
Bituminous coal
Bituminous coal or black coal is a relatively soft coal containing a tarlike substance called bitumen. It is of higher quality than lignite coal but of poorer quality than Anthracite...
business.
The Page-Vawter House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1985.
External links
- Special Collection William Nelson Page Papers, Duke University NOTE: this Gift of Mary Josephine Page in 1952 may have been moved to UNC-Chapel Hill
- Special Collection William Nelson Page Papers, Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- US Dept. of the Navy, Naval Historical Center
- New River CVB Guide to Ansted, WV
- Hawk's Nest State Park
- Biographical item on William Jordan, an African-American photographer that includes the Gauley Mountain Coal Company startup time frame and information on Ansted WV circa 1889-1909
- Article published May 12, 2008 in the State-Journal about the new owners