Littleton, W.Va., is a town decimated by poverty, drugs
May 31, 2015
By Dan Majors
LITTLETON, W.Va. — State Route 250 is pretty much the only road into this tiny but once-thriving town. Narrow, winding and rough, the highway follows the path of the creek through the bottom of the valley, past the Country Cupboard market and the post office.
It’s the road along where the railroad tracks used to run. The road lined with collapsed and burned-out buildings.
It’s the road that brings the heroin in.
It would be nice to tell the story of Littleton without talking about the drugs. How a small Wetzel County community at the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania, just a mile from the end of the Mason-Dixon Line, came to life with the railroad in the late 1800s only to wither when the trains quit passing. How the people live here survive despite devastating economic odds, making ends meet with a meager mix of gas-well jobs, government assistance and chickens in their yards.
The poverty is as plain to see as the rusting cars on cinder blocks. The 2010 census pegged Littleton — then with a population of 198 — as the poorest town in the nation’s second-poorest state, ranking it 281st in West Virginia with a per capital income of $6,036.
But the biggest challenge today in Littleton, the residents here and in neighboring communities will tell you, isn’t the hard times. It’s the hard drugs.
“I do drug awareness classes because drugs are so prevalent now in our area, especially heroin,” said Carla McBee, the medical examiner for Wetzel and Tyler counties for 15 years. “A lot of the young men have died in the past couple years. It’s really shocked the community.”
The most recent casualty was James Tedrow, 26, who died of an overdose April 18 at his home overlooking SR 250. His cousin, Tonya Tedrow, stood along the highway with her friend, Roshelle Piper, a few days after the funeral and talked about his death. And about life in Littleton.
“It sucks,” said Ms. Tedrow, who has lived in Littleton for all of her 27 years. “I wish that somebody would come around and just wipe it out.”
“Everybody around here is drug heads, drug addicts, and that’s all they’re ever going to do,” said Ms. Piper, 29. “It’s gotten a lot worse, the last 10 years.”
“It’s real sad because there’s no jobs around here. There’s no opportunities,” Ms. Tedrow said. “Something needs to change around here because if it doesn’t, then a lot more people are going to end up in the graveyard.”
• • •
There aren’t that many people left in Littleton, a community of less than a square mile scratched into the hills of Wetzel County, which borders both Pennsylvania and Ohio at the base of West Virginia’s northern panhandle. Incorporated in 1892, Littleton was a stop along the B&O Railroad. The 1900 census put the population at 1,000. Records show there were four hotels, each with a saloon, a few factories and a mill. There was a school, a handful of churches and a couple of banks.
The decline started while the boom was still echoing. On Feb. 9, 1906, a fire swept through the town’s wooden structures along SR 250. By the time they were replaced with brick buildings, the population had dipped to 725. Then the Great Depression of the 1930s closed the banks.
Geraldine Eichberg, 91, grew up in Littleton, but now lives in Towson, Md. She said she can still remember when her grandmother — “a strong suffragette” — dressed her and her sister in special black velvet dresses to go down to the railroad tracks to see Franklin Roosevelt on his whistlestop campaign for president in 1932.
“He stood on the back of the train and made a little speech,” she said. “The whole town came out. Oh, it was a very busy little town. I remember you could tell the time by the passing trains.”
continued with video here http://www.post-gazette.com/local/r...cimated-by-poverty-drugs/stories/201504280190
May 31, 2015
By Dan Majors
LITTLETON, W.Va. — State Route 250 is pretty much the only road into this tiny but once-thriving town. Narrow, winding and rough, the highway follows the path of the creek through the bottom of the valley, past the Country Cupboard market and the post office.
It’s the road along where the railroad tracks used to run. The road lined with collapsed and burned-out buildings.
It’s the road that brings the heroin in.
It would be nice to tell the story of Littleton without talking about the drugs. How a small Wetzel County community at the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania, just a mile from the end of the Mason-Dixon Line, came to life with the railroad in the late 1800s only to wither when the trains quit passing. How the people live here survive despite devastating economic odds, making ends meet with a meager mix of gas-well jobs, government assistance and chickens in their yards.
The poverty is as plain to see as the rusting cars on cinder blocks. The 2010 census pegged Littleton — then with a population of 198 — as the poorest town in the nation’s second-poorest state, ranking it 281st in West Virginia with a per capital income of $6,036.
But the biggest challenge today in Littleton, the residents here and in neighboring communities will tell you, isn’t the hard times. It’s the hard drugs.
“I do drug awareness classes because drugs are so prevalent now in our area, especially heroin,” said Carla McBee, the medical examiner for Wetzel and Tyler counties for 15 years. “A lot of the young men have died in the past couple years. It’s really shocked the community.”
The most recent casualty was James Tedrow, 26, who died of an overdose April 18 at his home overlooking SR 250. His cousin, Tonya Tedrow, stood along the highway with her friend, Roshelle Piper, a few days after the funeral and talked about his death. And about life in Littleton.
“It sucks,” said Ms. Tedrow, who has lived in Littleton for all of her 27 years. “I wish that somebody would come around and just wipe it out.”
“Everybody around here is drug heads, drug addicts, and that’s all they’re ever going to do,” said Ms. Piper, 29. “It’s gotten a lot worse, the last 10 years.”
“It’s real sad because there’s no jobs around here. There’s no opportunities,” Ms. Tedrow said. “Something needs to change around here because if it doesn’t, then a lot more people are going to end up in the graveyard.”
• • •
There aren’t that many people left in Littleton, a community of less than a square mile scratched into the hills of Wetzel County, which borders both Pennsylvania and Ohio at the base of West Virginia’s northern panhandle. Incorporated in 1892, Littleton was a stop along the B&O Railroad. The 1900 census put the population at 1,000. Records show there were four hotels, each with a saloon, a few factories and a mill. There was a school, a handful of churches and a couple of banks.
The decline started while the boom was still echoing. On Feb. 9, 1906, a fire swept through the town’s wooden structures along SR 250. By the time they were replaced with brick buildings, the population had dipped to 725. Then the Great Depression of the 1930s closed the banks.
Geraldine Eichberg, 91, grew up in Littleton, but now lives in Towson, Md. She said she can still remember when her grandmother — “a strong suffragette” — dressed her and her sister in special black velvet dresses to go down to the railroad tracks to see Franklin Roosevelt on his whistlestop campaign for president in 1932.
“He stood on the back of the train and made a little speech,” she said. “The whole town came out. Oh, it was a very busy little town. I remember you could tell the time by the passing trains.”
continued with video here http://www.post-gazette.com/local/r...cimated-by-poverty-drugs/stories/201504280190
