Kimball memorial honors Black World War I veterans in McDowell County

Kimball’s War Memorial is more than a preserved building in McDowell County. It is the first structure in the United States erected to honor Black veterans of World War I, and the only one still standing, which makes every preservation decision around it a choice about how Black military service is publicly honored in southern West Virginia.

For Kimball residents, that choice reaches beyond symbolism. A restored memorial draws visitors, supports the National Coal Heritage Trail, and gives the town a visible link to a history that once filled its streets with soldiers, social clubs, and civic life. Neglect would not just risk another historic building in the Tug Fork valley; it would weaken one of the county’s clearest ties to Black Appalachian history.

A national first in a coalfield town

The memorial was dedicated on February 11, 1928, in a community where Black workers and veterans had already reshaped local life. Welch architect Hassel T. Hicks designed the building in Classical Revival style, with a massive two-story Roman Doric portico on the front. Capt. Guenette E. Ferguson, the highest-ranking Black World War I veteran from West Virginia, spoke at the dedication and gave the memorial’s four columns their lasting meanings: faith, hope, charity and service.

The site was chosen for a reason that remains central to its story. Kimball sat in the heart of an African American community in the southern West Virginia coalfields, where Black residents made up as much as 35% of the coal-mining workforce. During World War I, about 1,500 African Americans from McDowell County volunteered for service, a number large enough to explain why this small company town became the home of a national first.

The building was also built for use, not just display. Its original plan included a 100-seat meeting room, trophy room, kitchen, recreation center and library. That mix made the memorial a civic anchor from the start, a place where memory and everyday life shared the same roof.

How the memorial became a community center

The memorial’s most important local role may have been the one it played after the dedication. It became home to Luther Patterson Post 36, the first Black American Legion post in the country, named for Luther Patterson, one of West Virginia’s early Black casualties of the war. That connection tied Kimball’s building not only to remembrance, but also to veterans’ organizing and Black civic life after the war.

It also served the wider community. Citizens of all races used the memorial for social, recreational and cultural events, turning the building into one of Kimball’s most active public spaces. At its height, it hosted performances by Cab Calloway and his band, a reminder that this was once a place where national Black culture met local mountain life.

That history matters now because it shows what is at stake when the building opens or closes. A preserved memorial is not just a monument to visit for a few minutes. It is a venue that can still support meetings, exhibits, and public programming in a town where shared space is part of community identity.

Fire, rescue and the money that saved the shell

The building’s decline followed the collapse of the coal economy that once sustained the surrounding community. On April 12, 1991, a fire gutted the memorial and left only the exterior shell standing. Even then, local restoration efforts were underway, and community members organized to raise money to save what remained.

That response changed the building’s future. The memorial was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, a step that recognized its historic value and strengthened the case for repair. Additional state and federal money followed, including $700,000 that Robert C. Byrd wrote into the fiscal year 2002 VA-HUD appropriations bill, helping push the project toward completion.

The restoration cost about $1.6 million and the memorial reopened in 2006. The rebuilt interior again included meeting rooms, offices, a reception area, an auditorium, a kitchen and exhibit space for World War I artifacts. In other words, the repair did not simply freeze the site as a relic. It restored the building as a working public space.

That work brought national recognition. The memorial received a Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Braintrust Award in 2006, an Honor Award from the West Virginia chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2007, and recognition from the National Trust for Historic Preservation as a conservation success.

What preservation means for Kimball now

The memorial’s future depends on the same kind of public investment and local stewardship that saved it after the fire. The McDowell County Commission, the McDowell County Museum Commission and preservation groups each have a role in deciding whether the site remains active, interpreted and maintained as a visitor stop or slowly drifts back toward vulnerability.

That choice has practical consequences. If the memorial stays open and visible, it strengthens heritage tourism in Kimball and gives the county a destination that links the coal industry, World War I service and Black history in one stop. If upkeep falls behind, the county risks losing a rare asset that already has national distinction and a ready-made place on the National Coal Heritage Trail.

The memorial is also one of the few surviving places where McDowell County’s Black wartime contribution can be seen in public, not just read about in archives. Its brick columns, its restored exhibit space and its place in Kimball make the county’s history legible to visitors and residents alike. In a county shaped by coal, migration and reinvention, that kind of preservation is not decorative. It is infrastructure for memory.