Digging into Riverwalk site's past

I'm still reeling from all the impressions made on me by a trip to Pittsburgh Wednesday. Several years ago I had begun poking around on the internet for vestiges of companies, men, and mills that occupied the present site for Davis Riverwalk. I had browsed the few books on the industrial history of the area and found over and over again that Davis history -- despite its scale and duration of boom times - was barely documented.

A couple of years ago I searched with Google for the Babcock Boom & Lumber Company. Amazingly the main operator of the mill operations in Davis, Babcock Lumber, was still in existence and even celebrated its Davis history on its corporate web site. Consider that this is a business that cut and milled virgin timber in the Valley at the turn of the century, and today they still exist as a lumber company with the same name, and run by the grandaughter of the principal founding Babcock, E.V. Babcock.

I began a dialog with the corporate office that eventually resulted in an invitation to visit their offices in Pittsburgh, where we reviewed archives for anything related to the Davis operation. Cindy Phillips, the author of "Images of America: Tucker County", joined me for the visit.

It turns out that E.V's son, Fred Babcock, who died in 1997, had made a sustained effort over years to collect and preserve the history of Babcock Lumber. In that effort he had corresponded with several prominent Canaan Valley community members who had records and photos from the days of industrial pioneering. The folks at corporate still carry Fred's enthusiasm for Babcock's legacy in their hearts, and welcomed me and historian/author Cindy Phillips to come in and review their archives. What is also refreshing is that Babcock Lumber company sees the old photos and documents as both special and -- ultimately -- for the public to appreciate.

Yes, we saw photos we have never seen in the usual collections on the area's industrial history. And these will be collected for the public to enjoy. But for me the biggest surprise was how rewarding it was to get a glimpse of the Babcock family and the corporate culture they built over more than a century. It was captivating to read letter after letter between Fred Babcock and various decendants of the early families of Canaan. It was clear that one could spend several years on a full time basis doing interviews, research and writing from the clues and information we saw Wednesday.

There are no structures, few artifacts and little writing to tell today's residents and visitors what happened right here on this site, along this river. The promise of fuel for our collective imaginations lies in a digital history: history writings, letters, photos and drawings. Many of these bits exist and seem to satisfy the hunger of their collectors or original owners, but you and I don't get to know much of it without going into research mode -- yet.

Fun in the Valley and even living on the mill site in Davis Riverwalk has its merits even with no understanding of its history, but for many it will be that much richer with a sense of the people and stories that took place here, where the Beaver Creek flows into the Blackwater River.