>> here are some of our featured programs for this weekend on the c-span networks. on c-span tonight at 10:00, on book tv's afterwards, bret stephens argue our enemies and competitors are taking advantage of our situations abroad. democratic representative from new york steve israel about his novel about a salesman and a top-secret government surveillance program. tonight at 8:00 eastern, on lectures in history, george mason university fsa john tunrner on the mormons and their creek -- attempt to create a new zion in western america. nine from little rock, a film about the forced desegregation

of little rock arkansas's all-white high school. find a complete schedule on www.c-span.org. let us know what you think. colonists, e-mail us, or send us a tweet. joined the c-span conversation. like us on facebook. follow us on twitter. all weekend, american history tv is featuring wheeling, west virginia. it was the first state capital of west virginia after the suit -- after it seceded from virginia and 1863. hosted by our comcast partners, we recently visited many sites showcasing the city's history. learn more about wheeling all weekend here on american history tv. ♪

♪ >> we are at the ogilvie in the state -- oglebay institute museum. oglebay park is one of the largest city parks in the united states. people are surprised. they think it may be a state park, but it is a city park. this museum was the former summer it estate of earl w. oglebay. when you think of great american industrialists, you may not have heard about him. you think about rockefeller and carnegie. but he knew those people and work directly with john rockefeller. he was a native of this area. he was worn across the river in bridgeport ohio.

when he was five years old, his dad moved to wheeling. his dad was in the wholesale grocery and also as a stockholder in the steel and iron industry, and in nails. which was big in wheeling. being located on a national road and with the river, which was a major highway, and also with the railroads, cut nails where produced to make all the things out west. this was an important part of our industry. being an industrialist meant you are an entrepreneur. that you saw the opportunity to make money and new -- knew the connections and people to work with at that time. mr. oglebay had all those advantages. he succeeded his father as a bank president of a bank in wheeling called the northwestern

bank of virginia. he succeeded his dad as president in 1876. he was 28 years old, the youngest bank resident in the united states. -- president in the united states. he saw people were getting into steel, and iron, and iron or. he realized where the future was area that is when he decided to get fully revolved -- involved in working with iron mines. when you was 31 years old, he married to sallie howell. her parents were involved in a lot of wheeling's bank industry. they were very social. she lived down the street from him which was neat. they were happily married for many years. she passed away before he did from competitions of whooping cough -- complications of

whooping cough. there had one daughter sarita named after her mom. she was of the love of their life. she was lovely tall -- much taller than the average woman about 5'11", which was unusual at that time. because he saw a lot of opportunity in our door, he saw the iron or mines opening up, so he located the family in cleveland. that is where his base of operations was. that is where most of his business was. they lived on euclid avenue called a millionaire row. one of his neighbor was john rockefeller. mr. oglebay made his fortune in 1900 when he was asked to manage j. d. rockefeller's iron ore

mines. mr. oglebay was involved in managing that. in 1900, he and rockefeller sold their interest in the iron ore mines to u.s. steel and walked away multimillionaires. he always had an affinity for wheeling. even in cleveland, he had an absentee ballot for wheeling. he loved the area wanted to come back. his wife's family owned this summer place at the top of the hill. 25 acres of land. he purchased it from his wife's brothers. he would buy bits and pieces as he could until he assembled 1500 acres of poverty on the hill above wheeling.

he called it waddington. that was the name given to this property by the second owner of the mansion in 1856. a man from england called george whether all smith. he snuck that he felt that the rolling hills reminded him of his ancestral home in england. mr. oglebay, fell upon that name doing research, loved the name, and called it waddington. the house, when it was built in 1846, was a farmhouse. it had eight rooms. it was a basic farmhouse. a red brick farmhouse when he originally purchased it. mr. oglebay wanted to make it more fitting of a summer home of an industrialist, a wealthy man. at that time, and a lot of wealthy industrialists had

beautiful estates. i am sure mr. oglebay new mr. vanderbilt, knew those sorts of folks, and wanted to have a summer estate that was more befitting his status. the first thing he did was hire a good friend of his who was the most prominent architect in wheeling at the time, that's they decided to add on to the house. -- they decided to add on to the house. a larger dining room. three bathrooms. the room even in now was added by mr. oglebay. this was more of a room where the family could sit and relax more of an true sitting room style. mr. oglebay was aware of what was going on around him at all times.

he was aware as people moved from the farm and the city, as our economy shifted from agrarian to a more industrial economy and more people found any fracturing jobs in the city that city folks needed safe food. at that time, there were not a lot of regulations in processing food. milk could kill you because it was not always pasteurize or homogenized. he wanted to take care of the dangers. he was also a great humanitarian. he's not having an agrarian economy was important for people in food dish should be sure and. -- distribution. he was interested in having a farm with the best agricultural processes it could have. waddington farm became a model farm for this sort of thing. he hired experts from the

university of wisconsin, from cornell university. he had a cattleman, in from london. he had the best of the best. he had a wonderful model farm here for 26 years. he was a dedicated, serious man when it came to industry. but he loved his family. his daughter sarita was married and had a grandson he doted on. we have it did a full goldfish pond, quite large, on the property. esther oglebay always gave the order that you are not allowed to mess with the gold -- the goldfish -- they were big koi. but the boys would fish. we had a man who worked here for many years. he was the boy's "boyhood -- boyhood's best friend.

they were fishing in the pond when they were not supposed to. you heard laughing and it was mr. oglebay behind them. he did not say anything and let them best. he also gave the boys a gold coin whenever he could. he was very generous and that way. but he was also very serious minded. he was on this mission to be a great humanitarian. mr. oglebay died in 1926. because he was a wealthy man, a very famous man in this area, people did not know him on a personal basis well. he was very formal when he was out. i think people are grateful that he left his land to the city of wheeling to become a part. i think it was an amazing gift. very generous. it was nice that the family did not quibble with this. when mr. oglebay passed away at the age of 77, his wife had

predeceased him, they have the daughter sarita and her husband and they supported it so much that they paid the taxes here until the city accepted it as a gift. it took two years for the city to accept it. people were reluctant because of the responsibility. but they accepted in 1928. it was named oglebay and his farm best -- in his honor. by think of the park is a great heritage today. people are surprised when they find out it is a city park, one of the guest in the country. -- biggest in the country. >> throughout the weekend, american history tv is featuring wheeling, west virginia. our tour staff recently traveled there to learn its history. learn more about it and other stops