A Few Notes by Ferrell Friend:

3/30/07-Clay, Tired of 'Sleepy Little Place' Label, Moves Forward
Town of 500 Hopes to Induce Outlying Population of 1,500 To Enter Corporation Limits
   Clay, Nov. 18, 1950 - This could be any of several thousand small towns dotting the map, quietly going about their business and plodding along year after year without much progress.
   That is, except for one important fact: Clay IS making progress.
   The town is tired of being labeled a 'sleepy little village', and the people are out to do something about it.
   There's no large-scale drive to convert Clay into a small city overnight- there isn't room within the corporation limits for a project like that, anyway.
   But local businessmen are cooperating to make it more attractive and a better business center.
Population May Grow
   Actually, Clay's population places it in the village class.  Around 500 persons live in town, with another 1,200 to 1,500 living on the outskirts.
   Mayor Dick Sizemore, whose family has been in the store business here for three generations, hopes those outlying sections will be part of Clay someday.
   "We've tried to take them in," he explained, "but they didn't like the idea of higher taxes, despite the good points of a merger."
   He was speaking in particular of the Two-Run section, at Clay Junction one mile above the town on State Rt. 4.
    "When that suburb is willing to join the town, we'll be glad to have it," he said.  "We'll have an election anytime they're ready."
Expanding Business
   Alva Bailes, the town recorder and manager of a local automobile agency, has the figures to prove that Clay is expanding from a business standpoint.
   "You might say we're remodeling the business district," he explained.
   "Many of the old buildings along Main St. are being torn down and replaced with modern ones, the kind you wouldn't expect to find in so small a town."
   In the last five years, nine new business places, all of fireproof construction, have been built in a four-block area.
   The combined cost of this miniature building boom is estimated at more than $200,000.
Local Labor
   "Of course this doesn't sound like much in these days of high prices," Bailes said, "but much of the work was done with local labor and materials, and that's where money was saved."
   A composite of West Virginia's four big industries - farming, coal, lumber and oil and gas - provide the county's wealth, according to W.M. Smith, assistant cashier of the Clay County Bank.
   "We don't get much credit for farming though because of the scarcity of suitable land," the banker said.
   Most of the larger farms border on Roane and Braxton counties, both of which are farming centers.
Coal Industry Leads
   The coal industry leads, with farming, oil and gas and timbering following in that order.
   Smith has been with the bank for 25 years.  A native of Roane County, he came here to attend high school, and then became a permanent resident.
   "The number of families living just outside town has doubled in the last 10 years," he said.  "As long as its like this, we'll have no business worries."
   The banker describes Clay County's economic picture as "extremely steady".  "Our money doesn't come and go", he said.  "Instead it stays in the county for the most part."
   The man who can tell you almost anything you want to know about coal in Clay County is L.E. Woofter, an independent operator who keeps close watch on what goes on in that industry.
900 Work at Mines
   Of the county's 15,000 residents, 900 are employed by coal companies which have gross income of $18,000,000 annually.
   The Elk River Coal and Lumber Co., whose chief operations are in the Widen area, 20 miles from here, is the largest coal company.
   Others include the Chemical Coal CO., the Queen Shoals Coal Co., Osborne Brothers Mines and the Mountain State Coal Co.
   Most of the coal comes from deep mines with new seams being opened as the old ones run out.  There is very little strip mining.
   Woofter says coal production in the county has been on about the same level for the last six or seven years.
   One of the leading oil and gas operators is State Sen. E. Ray Reed of Clay, who has 2,000 acres of land under lease in the Porter's Creek and Big Sycamore sections.
Oil Equipment Scarce
   Reed said there hasn't been much oil and gas development by independent operators recently because of a shortage of equipment.
   However, he credits that industry with producing "a major part" of the county's money.
   Hundreds of oil and gas wells are scattered about the sprawling fields in the Wallback section, over near the Roane County border.
   Two of the largest companies there are the United Fuel Gas Co. and the Hope Natural Gas Co.
   Reed, who earned a law degree in college but has never gotten around to opening a law office, also is a Republican party leader in Clay County.
Former Lawmaker
   He's former mayor and town councilman here served two terms in the state House of Delegates - in 1932 and 1935 - and was in the State Senate once before, from 1940 until 1944.
   In addition to its extensive coal fields, the Elk River Coal and Lumber Co. which strangely is on Buffalo Creek, not Elk River also leads in Clay County's lumber industry.
   Its plant at Swandale is one of the largest in the state.
   One of the specialties of independent lumber firms today is the production of mine support posts, the strong hardwood beams which support mine roofs and walls.
   Mine posts from Clay County are used throughout the state.
Pioneer Lumbermen
   Three brothers, Sylvester, Marcellus and Orlando Hardman, were pioneer lumbermen here half a century ago, with a 10,000-acre tract on Elk River above Clay.
   After harvesting the timber, they had to wait for the annual spring floods to carry the logs down the river to Charleston.
   Many of their descendants still live in Clay County, where Hardman is a prominent name.
   As a rule, most of the families in Clay have been here for generations.
   Mark C. King, who runs King's Jewelry and Gift Shop, was born here, and has never thought much about leaving.
   His father was a jeweler here before him, and he hopes his son will carry on the trade when he retires.
Gradual Changes
   "Any changes around here," said King "are so gradual that you hardly notice them except these new buildings.  It's about the same place, year after year, with the same people, too."
   King believes the town itself "wouldn't amount to much" except for its wide trading area, which has a radius of 20 miles.
   Two outsiders who admit they've done right well in Clay are Joe Dotson, who operates the Clay Food Market with a friend and partner, Deb Steorts, and W. Price Vaughan, the local barber.
   Dotson came to Clay from Summersville in 1938 to manage a chain food store here.  He stayed on with the store, building up its business, and eventually bought it.
   Vaughan, an ardent booster for Clay High's basketball and football teams, was a barber at Widen before moving to Clay in 1942.
   He's superintendent of the Baptist Sunday School and active in civic work as well.
   At 24 years of age, R. Dale Bowyer is one of town's leading businessmen.  He owns the Plaza Theater and one of the largest restaurants.  The theater is his preference.
   A former West Virginia University football and basketball player, young Bowyer came back to his hometown where an automobile wreck ended his career as a baseball pitcher.
   He was with the Chattanooga, Tenn. baseball club' in the Southern Assoc. when his collar bone was broken in the accident two years ago.
   But he'd been saving his money for the time when he'd be too old for baseball, and used it to buy the theatre.  And with theater profits, he bought the restaurant.
   A man who is as much a part of Clay as Main St. is S.H. McLane, cashier at Clay County Bank and a member of the board of education.
   McLane's chief interests are banking and schools the latter partly because he taught in Randolph, Mineral, Tucker and his native Barbour County before coming here in 1908.
Watched Town Grow
   He's been with the bank for 42 years, and says he has seen Clay grow "from nothing to something."
   One of Clay's best-loved and best-known citizens is Miss Clara LeMaster, who for 36 years has been the switchboard operator for the locally-owned telephone company.
   And after 36 years on the job, she has no intention of retiring.
   I'd be bored to death without my job," said Miss LeMaster.
   She knows about everything that's going on all over the county, and her "information service" ranges from what tomorrow's weather will be to whether the night shift will work at the Widen mines.