Qualla: West Virginia Colored Children's Home

West Virginia Colored Children's Home: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. In March 1900, a Black minister named Reverend McGhee brought a group of Black orphans to Huntington, West Virginia. There were no public institutions in the state willing to take them in. Funds ran out within months, and McGhee was forced to move the children to Blue Sulphur Springs near Ona, where the local hostility was so sharp that the school could not stay. In 1903, McGhee bought 210 acres overlooking the Guyandotte River on the outskirts of Huntington and brought the children back. From that purchase grew an institution that would shelter Black West Virginians for more than half a century, change names half a dozen times, and finally - in 2011 - be torn down to make room for a middle school.

Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

West Virginia Colored Children's Home: A Home Built by the Children Who Lived There

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Daderot, CC0. The original three-story building on the Huntington property went up in 1904, partly built by the labor of the children it would house. The state had no provision for Black orphans, so the institution depended on McGhee's fundraising, a small farm worked by the residents, and beg...

Image: Daderot | CC0

West Virginia Colored Children's Home: Fire, and Then Fire Again

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dave Parker, CC BY-SA 2.5. On November 5, 1909, the original building caught fire. A new structure was already under construction next to it and survived. Records are unclear on whether the burned building was rebuilt or merely remodeled, but the home kept operating. Then on April 5, 1920, the main school ...

Image: Dave Parker | CC BY-SA 2.5

West Virginia Colored Children's Home: The End of Segregation, and the End of the School

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wv funnyman, CC BY-SA 4.0. By 1951, the residents of the Children's Home were no longer educated on the property. They were bused to Huntington's segregated public schools, an arrangement that itself ended in the following decade as West Virginia desegregated. The institution lingered in various forms, eve...

Image: Wv funnyman | CC BY-SA 4.0

West Virginia Colored Children's Home: What the Land Remembers

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kuyler McComas (Kuyman), CC BY-SA 3.0. Drive U.S. Route 60 east out of Huntington today and the property looks like any other suburban school campus, the kind of low brick architecture that could be anywhere in the country. The bluff still overlooks the Guyandotte River. The 210 acres McGhee bought in 1903 are still t...

Image: Kuyler McComas (Kuyman) | CC BY-SA 3.0