mately 20,000 west virginia and troops fought for the union and approximately 20,000 fought for the confederacy. we weren't equally divided state, -- we were and equally divided state, perhaps the most divided state in the union. this is one of those commemorative flags made shortly after the war's conclusion. you can see it is in pristine condition. also, you can read our state motto -- mountaineers are always free. we do have one captured confederate flag from the battle of lynchburg. this is the confederate national flag. it is known as the stars and bars. a lot of folks come here expecting to see the crossed flag the confederate battle flag. this is the national flag of the confederacy. and again, all our flags are in climate controlled cases where

they will be perfectly fine for many, many years. beginning in the 1890's, there was a concerted effort to find and collect west virginia's remaining civil war battle flags. during that decade they collected these flags. at the time, they did not know how to preserve them. some of them used chemicals that were detrimental to the flags. but for over six decades these flags set in dark storage. they did not see light at all until we could figure out how to conserve them, how to repair them, and how to put them in these climate controlled cases. so, they have been conserved. they have been restored as much as possible. what is left will be there for many generations to come. but to be beside a flag, to be in the presence of that object is to be in the presence of the past, because this is that

tangible, real connection people can have to the past. >> all weekend, american history tv is featuring wheeling, west virginia. the city was the first state capital of west virginia after it seceded from virginia in 1863. hosted by our comcast partners c-span's cities tour staff recently visited many sites showcasing the city's history. learn more about wheeling all weekend here on american history tv. ♪ >> we are at the oglebay institute mansion museum in

oglebay park in wheeling, west virginia. 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 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 worked directly with john d. rockefeller. he was a native of this area. he was actually born across the river in bridgeport, ohio. march 4, 1849. when he was five years old, his dad moved to wheeling. his dad was in the wholesale grocery industry, but he was also as a stockholder in the steel and iron industry, and in nails. which was big in wheeling. wheeling made and produced a lot of cut nails.

being located on a national road and with the river, which was a major highway, and also with the railroads, cut nails were produced to make all the things out west. this was an important part of our industry here. at that time, being an industrialist meant you are an entrepreneur. that you saw the opportunity to make money and knew the connections and the people to work with at that time. mr. oglebay had all those advantages. when he was a young man, 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 president in the united states. he saw at that time, the opportunity that people were

getting into steel and iron and iron ore. he realized where the future was. that is when he decided to get fully involved in opening up and working with iron ore mines. in 1881, when he was 31 years old, he married to sallie howell. her parents were involved in a lot of wheeling banking industry. they were very social. she lived down the street from him, which was kind of neat. they were happily married for many years. she passed away before he did from complications, of all things, of whooping cough. there had one daughter sarita, spanish for "little sarah," named after her mom. she was of the love of their life. she was lovely, tall -- much taller than the average woman of that time period.

she was about 5'11", which was unusual at that time. because he saw a lot of opportunity iron ore, he saw the iron ore 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, which was called millionaires row. one of his neighbors was john rockefeller. all the basic, famous industrialists of cleveland lived on euclid avenue, where he lived as well. mr. oglebay made his fortune in 1900 when he was asked to manage j. d. rockefeller's iron ore mines. that was the mesabi range. it was the largest iron ore range in the world. mr. oglebay was involved in managing all of that. in 1900, he and rockefeller sold their interests in the iron ore mines to u.s. steel, and they walked away multimillionaires.

mr. oglebay was 51 years of age. 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 little summer place up on the top of the hill. 25 acres of land. he purchased it for $8,000 from his wife's brothers. he would buy bits and pieces as he could until he assembled 1500 acres of property 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 smith. mr. smith felt that the rolling hills reminded him of his

ancestral home in england. mr. oglebay, doing some research on the property, fell upon that name, loved the name, and called it waddington. the house, when it was built in 1846, was a farmhouse. it had eight rooms, four bedrooms, four downstairs room central staircase. 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, of a wealthy man. at that time, a lot of wealthy industrialists had beautiful summer estates. you think about the biltmore which is the largest private home in america and how beautiful it is. this is nothing like that. but i am sure mr. oglebay knew 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, a man named edward bates franzheim. they decided to add on to the house. a master bedroom. three bathrooms. he also installed a larger dining room. the room we're in now was added by mr. oglebay. this was more of a room where the family could sit and relax more of a true sitting room style. mr. oglebay was very aware of what was going on around him at all times. he was aware that as people moved from the farm to the city, as our economy shifted from agrarian to a more industrial economy and more people found manufacturing jobs in the city that city folks needed safe food. at that time period, there were not a lot of regulations in processing food.

milk could kill you, because it was not always pasteurized or homogenized. he wanted to take care of the dangers. he was also a great humanitarian. he thought that having an agrarian economy was an important thing for people with food distribution. he was very involved in all that sort of thing. he had this great vision for developing a farm that had the best agricultural processes it could have. he had the financial resources to do this. waddington farm became a model farm for this sort of thing. he hired experts from the university of wisconsin, from cornell. he had a cattleman come in from london. he had the best of the best. he had a wonderful model farm here for 26 years. he was a very dedicated, serious man when it came to industry. but he loved his family.

sarita was married and had a grandson he doted on, courtney burton, jr. we have a beautiful goldfish pond, quite large, on the property. mr. oglebay always gave the order that you are not allowed to mess with the goldfish -- they were big koi -- or anything like that. but the boys would fish. i remember a story -- we had a man who worked here for many years. he was courtney burton's boyhood best friend. they were fishing in the pond when they were not supposed to. they heard laughing and it was mr. oglebay behind them. he did not say anything and let them fish. he also gave the boys a gold coin whenever he possibly could. for something, shopping, whatever they wanted to do. he was very generous and that way. bu