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If theyd immigrated to other areas, even other areas of Kentucky, they likely would have married non-relatives, and the condition would have faded out of the family long before it did. Its nothing.. He remembered that the Ritchie siblings "were really embarrassed about being blue." Population: 18,763Bars per capita: 6th in West VirginiaFishing/bait shops per capita: 4thMobile home parks per capita: 5th. Chasing Chains, LLC. John Stacy still lives on Lick Branch of Ball Creek. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . 10,000 BC: Paleo-Indian Era (Stone Age culture) the earliest human inhabitants of America who lived in caves and were Nomadic hunters of large game including the Great Mammoth and giant bison. That five-star symbol is the same as the one on the Friendly City flagwhich is drawing approval well outside of West Virginia. Legend has it that Martin himself may have had a blue tinge to his skin, but not the dark blue color of later Fugates. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. Studying the problem, Cawein figured out that he could convert methemoglobin to hemoglobin without the enzyme. All rights reserved. 39, 1960) that the answer began to emerge. He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith with a very pale complexion. Well, according to the official bible of literature, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a redneck is: A white person who lives in a small town or in the country especially in the southern U.S., who typically has a working-class job, and who is seen by others as being uneducated and having opinions and attitudes that are offensive.. In 1820, Martin Fugate, who is believed to have been blue, moved to Troublesome Creek from France and just happened to shack up with Elizabeth Smith, who also carried the gene. You have the official bragging rights as being named the most redneck city in the entire state of West Virginia. Generations later, a descendant of Martin Fugate, Benjy Stacy, would be born "blue". Over time, fewer and fewer babies were born blue, and those who were took a methylene blue pill once a day to put the pink back in their cheeks. Cawein and his colleagues published their research on hereditary diaphorase deficiency in the Archives of Internal Medicine (April, 1964) in 1964. Luna was bluish all over. Heres their story. Of their seven children, four were blue. Im a hematologist, so something like that perks up my ears, Cawein says, sipping on whiskey sours and letting his mind slip back to the summer he spent tromping around the hills looking for blue people.. THE town of Odd, West Virginia is a quiet, rural countryside, despite all the buzz surrounding the infamous inbred family, The Whittakers, who live within it. The gold of the helmet did not reflect the gold utilized in our colors today. The antidote worked quickly but patients were required to take daily doses as it passed quickly through the urine. 20 Fine Arts Drive, Morgantown, WV 26506. https://artmuseum.wvu.edu. Researchers believe this to truly be the case, a result of the family suffering from a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which is an excess of methemoglobin in the red blood cells of the body. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. In another neighborhood of this rust-belt city of 46,000, Pam and Ted Keesee have their own. Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. Everyone around here knows about the blue Fugates, says Hilda Stacy who, at 26, looks more like a sister than a mother to her children. History Timeline of the Native Indians of West Virginia. But as Kentucky became more populated and more genes came into the Fugate family tree, there were far fewer children born blue. If you stayed awake in high-school biology, you might remember that blood is red because red blood cells are packed with proteins called hemoglobin. When asked ahout it, he shakes his head and stares steadfastly ahead. All them old fellers way back then was blue. Cawein, in researching the family lines in Perry County, Kentucky and with the help of Fugate Family Bibles, found in fact, that the Fugates had married Fugates, had married first cousins, and had intermarried with families whose surnames were: Combs, Smith, Ritchie, and Stacy. The couple had eight children, including Luna. The Fugates are of French Huguenot descent, with the original immigrant ancestor coming over from France in about 1820. Still, what a crazy world we live in. Different spellings of the surname sometimes include "Fugett" and "Fugitt". Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. West Virginia History Timeline. Stacys son has built a modern house next door, but the old logger wont hear of leaving the cabin he built with timber he personally cut and hewed for Luna and their 13 children. He tested first for abnormal hemoglobin, but the results were negative. Blow your mind. The reasons for this almost have to do entirely with coal. Those who are otherwise healthy with levels under 15% may exhibit minor symptoms or none at all. She lives alone in one of the. Cut off from contact with the wider population, they married cousins, aunts and other closely related kin, which greatly increased the odds of inheriting the condition. Where people wear camo to church. Population: 7,164 Mobile home parks per capita: 2nd in West Virginia Bars per capita: 2nd in the state Walmart rank: 3rd Elkins is way out in the middle of nowhere south of Morgantown, at the base of the Appalachians. It is the color of oxygen-depleted blood seen in the blue veins just below the skin. The American Heart Association had a clinic in Hazard, and it was there that Cawein met a great big nurse who offered to help. And when you look at the data, its clear this is a really solid place for a redneck to make home. Today I have a healthy son/nephew who is slightly green in skincolor. West Virginia had just one carrier in its exchange in 2015 - Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield - although the carrier only offered 12 plans in 2014, and bumped that up to 14 in 2015. His lips and fingernails still turn a shade of purple-blue when he gets cold or angry a quirk that so intrigued medical students after Benjys birth that they would crowd around the baby and try to make him cry. It was painful. From a history of Perry County and some Fugate family Bibles listing ancestors, Cawein has constructed a fairly complete story. Cawein eventually found a small population of people in the back woods of Appalachia, many with a blue skin disorder. She was a sister to one of the Fugate women. About this same time, another of the blue Combses, named Luke, had taken his sick wife up to the clinic at Lexington. Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. Their offspring, often marrying each other, then brought two copies of the recessive gene into the family line, making it much more likely to express itself in their children. By. One came from a blue Flugate whod joined the Army and been sent to Panama, where his son was born bright blue. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. Laurel Wheeler and family, Buena Vista, Rockbridge County, Virginia. As it was, the Fugates stayed in the same area well into the 20th century. This information supplied by John Graves whose uncle was the father of the child. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Learn how your comment data is processed. If youre analyzing smaller cities in West Virginia with blue collar workers, where people have lots of options for drinking, smoking, hunting and Walmarting, this is an accurate list. score: 5 of 27 (18%) required scores: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 list stats leaders vote Vote print comments. You might actually call Hurricane home of the rednecks with paychecks. "I started asking them questions: 'Do you have any relatives who are blue?' He had to drive eight hours back to Hazard to search out the Ritchies, who lived in a tapped-out mining town called Hardburly. She was as blue a woman as I ever saw.. Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky - who can trace their roots back to a French orphan - started producing children who were blue. Cawein needed fresh blood to do an enzyme assay. Inbreeding in eastern Kentucky has been turning offspring blue since the early 1880s. 7000 BC: Archaic Period in which people built basic shelters and made stone weapons and stone tools Benjy Stacy is one of the last of the blue Fugates. At last they were free of their "blue" shade and were no longer embarrassed. It's also, in part, out of fear. Feeder food: Grain and birdseed. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. Some sites say 100%. As a bonus, theres a Golden Corral, several Dollar Stores and many Waffle Houses in the area. How far from Flatwoods , ky? 3. Luke was just as blue as Lake Louise on a cool summer day, doctor Charles H. Behlen II told the Tri-City Herald in 1974. He hasnt studied the condition for years. They were really embarrassed about being blue, he said. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. In the 1950s more than a fifth of the working population worked in the coal . The good news for those who may still be born expressing the blue gene is that there is a treatment. Like this guy: Most of the Blue Fugates died off, hopefully because they decided to give the incest a rest for a while, and so its not often that one runs into a blue person on the street anymore. Since there werent any roads or trains near their small community, the kidswere married off to the only people who lived nearby: their cousins. The West Virginia motto is Montani semper liberi, and the state is one of the most mountainous in the country; sometimes it is called the "little Switzerland" of America, and once I heard an irreverent local citizen call it the "Afghanistan of the United States."The precipitous upland nature of the terrain makes naturally for three things: (1) poor communications; (2) fierce sectionalism; (3 . Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Wingspan: 6.3-8.3 in (Black-Capped), 5.9-7.9 in (Carolina) Chickadees are tiny little birds that are very easy to recognize because of their "black cap" and black bib. The Blue Ridge was reached in 1670, and in 1671 another expedition encountered the first westward-flowing stream, the New River, in southwestern Virginia. On a hypothesis, he gave a substance called methylene blue to family members who were willing to take it. The marriage of one of their blue boys, Zachariah, to his mothers sister triggered the line of succession that would result in the birth, more than 100 years later, of Benjy Stacy. At 55%, people may feel extremely lethargic and go in and out of consciousness. Bluefield State is committed to being the region's leading institution of higher education. There are other ways to get blue skin without inheriting it, though. Upon discovering the blue members of the Fugate family were perfectly healthy in every other way, Cawein decided to try some experiments to see if the blue color could be treated. Many is more accurate since the practice is legal, or legal under certain circumstances, in more than 20 states. One of the supermarket tabloids once sent a reporter to find out about the blue people, and she was distressed with his preoccupation with intermarriages. *. I just knew that patient was going to die right there in the health department, but she wasnt atall alarmed. 2019 Foreign-Born Population 30.2k people As of 2020, 1.64% of West Virginia residents (29.6k people) were born outside of the United States, which is lower than the national average of 13.5%. However, now that the Fugate gene pool is more diverse, there is less need for this treatment, as fewer blue children are being born. The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. In fact, the last known blue Fugate was born in 1975, and his skin color faded to normal as he grew up. In the Inuit communities, scientists had pinpointed the problem, a deficiency of an enzyme that converted methemoglobin to hemoglobin. Settling in the remote hills of Kentucky, there werent a lot of other people nearby, and marrying people who were closely related became common among the Fugates. Wait. Methemoglobinemia is a blood condition, not a skin condition. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. Population: 6,427High school graduation rate: 70%Bars per capita: 1st in WVMobile home parks per capita: 1st. 11 HINTS YOU MIGHT BE DESCENDED FROM ALIENS, FUGATES OF KENTUCKY: SKIN BLUER THAN LAKE LOUISE As My World Turns, If Your Skin Is Blue, Dont Marry Your Other Blue Shaded Relative interesting12, Daily News investigates: Mystery of family with blue skin solved | Bazaar Daily News, If Your Skin Is Blue, Don't Marry Your Other Blue Shaded Relative - interesting12. So, hold our beers and watch this. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. We just have our own way of life. The solution, oddly enough, was a commonly used dye called methylene blue. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, . The small coal mining town in McDowell County received national attention. Cawein would drive back and forth between Lexington and Hazard an eight-hour ordeal before the tollway was built and scour the hills looking for the blue people hed heard rumors about. What he got from Martin Fugate was dark blue skin. ( Returnto the corrected sentence.). You couldve done even better than that. As the story goes, Martin Fugate, a French orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentucky's Troublesome Creek around 1820 to claim a land grant. By Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh Fast Facts Nickname: The Mountain State Statehood: 1863; 35th state Population (as of July, 2016): 1,831,102. Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin (metHb) in the blood. A lot of nice farmland was lost to the lake over the . West Virginia's population has grown very slowly since the 1950s, at many times losing people . Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. The Blue Fugates have essentially now gone from reality to legend. The condition is called methemoglobinemia, which is a disorder that reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and body tissues, therefore making the skin appear blue. All rights reserved. He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith who had a very pale complexion and their union formed a genetic mutation that resulted in their descendants being born with blue skin. Martin Fugate, who was orphaned as a child in France, began the American Fugate clan. The blue Fugates who did not wish to remain blue continued to take the pills, and contacted Dr. Cawein and other doctors to get more of them when needed. It was later discovered ascorbic acid can do this, as well. By the end of this spectacular journey, you'll be saying "I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT JUST HAPPENED BUT I LOOOVED IT." Read more Blue Man Group 4,830 reviews Luna is buried at the top of the hollow. You have the most bars and trailer parks per capita in the state, and your high school graduation rate is 70%. Martin Fugate arrived in the unsettled frontier of Kentucky in 1820. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four of whom were blue; the recessive gene meant there was a 25 percent chance of each pregnancy resulting in a blue child. "They were bluer'n hell," said Cawein in a 1982 interview with Science 82. His two room log cabin sits in the middle of Laurel Fork Hollow. At the National Press Club on Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney noted that his maternal grandmother is descended from someone named Cheney, then quipped, So we had Cheneys on both sides of the familyand we dont even live in West Virginia. (Click here for a video.) But as Kentucky became more populated and more genes came into the Fugate family tree, there were far fewer children born blue. Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. The Fugate family of Kentucky once lived in the isolated community of Troublesome Creek. The Registered Agent on file for this company is Mikeooney. It seems as if this area is generally, more wealthy than the other cities on this list. For some, though, there was a pain not seen in lab tests. Cawein drew lots of blood from the Ritchies and hurried back to his lab. Google Maps. She and her husband Alva have a strong sense of family. Two days of tests produced no explanation for skin the color of a bruised plum. Martin and Elizabeth Fugates blue children multiplied in this natural isolation tank. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. See the video below. While not every Fugate child was born with the condition, as genes express themselves differently in different people, enough were that locals began to take notice. West Virginia's House congressional districts run from east to west, creating a three-way split that fractures pockets of blue support in the far northern and southwestern parts of the state . If this conversion continued, all the bodys hemoglobin would eventually be rendered useless. Excise tax on bottled soft drinks, syrups and dry mixtures; disposition thereof. In normal people hemoglobin is converted to methemoglobin at a very slow rate. The blood disorder is inherited as a simple recessive trait - meaning that to get the disorder, a person would have to inherit two genes, one from each parent. All lived in isolation from the world, bunched in log cabins up and down the hollows, and so it was only natural that a boy married the girl next door, even if she had the same last name. Major Occupational Groups in West Virginia ( Note --clicking a link will scroll the page to the occupational group): 00-0000 All Occupations 11-0000 Management Occupations 13-0000 Business and Financial Operations Occupations 15-0000 Computer and Mathematical Occupations 17-0000 Architecture and Engineering Occupations Methemoglobinemia can also be caused by reactions to certain topical pain relievers like benzocaine and xylocaine. Not myth or legend; The Blue People of Kentucky were an isolated enclave of Appalachian people who lived with an embarrassing skin discoloration until a young hematologist took notice and found a solution. But by 3 years old and . Blue skin. The topographic boundary was modified where Route 9 crossed the watershed divide. She gets upset at all the talk of inbreeding among the Fugates. It reduced the brightness of the blue on their skin. T he West Virginia senator Joe Manchin has emerged as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to the passing of Joe Biden's ambitious domestic agenda, declaring he will vote against a key voting. The doctor was recently approached by the producers of the television show Thats Incredible. They wanted to parade the blue people across the screen in their weekly display of human oddities. Its 97% white, very blue collar, and there are lots of places to get guns, ammo and chew. Several familes moved elsewhere after being bought out. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. Her lips were as dark as a bruise. He came from where the sun don't shine. Yes, West Virginia is among the poorest if not the poorest state in the union as well as one of the most uneducated and least economically developed. Little did they know that their union would create shades of blue people! "For the first time in their lives, they were pink. It would be hard to doubt this gracious man except that you cant find another person who knew Luna who doesnt remember her as being blue. He found references to methemoglobinemia dating to the turn of the century, but it wasnt until he came across E. M. Scotts 1960 report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation (vol. As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes . Rattini is accused of distributing narcotic painkillers illegally to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. Matt Harvey Dan Cunningham was born Jan. 16, 1850, in Jackson County. Eventually, the recessive gene began to disappear once coal mining and the railroad opened the community to outsiders. The only thing Stacy cant or wont remember is that his wife Luna was blue. Typically, the blue is isolated to one part of the body. Curiosity drove him to Hazard where he was introduced to a nurse, Ruth Pendergrass, who had met a "dark blue" woman. Explainer thanks Edwin Arnold of Appalachian State University, Anthony Harkins of Western Kentucky University, and David Hsiung of Juniata College. In people with methemoglobinemia, the skin appears blue because the veins beneath the skin are coursing with dark blue blood. Instead, football players bore a bronzesque gold helmet emblazoned with a blue outline of the state of West Virginia and the letters "WVU" inside an oval. There was a Zachariah Fugate who was married to a Mary Smith; both carried the gene which resulted in blue children. Have you ever heard of the blue people of Kentucky? Scott's research had found hereditary methemoglobinemia among Alaskan Eskimos and Indians caused by an absence of the enzyme diaphorase from their red blood cells. Between 1880 and 1920, southern West Virginia's population grew from 93,000 to 446,000, due almost entirely to the coal industry. Google Maps. At 30%, nausea, difficulty breathing, and an elevated heart rate start to appear. Dr. Cawein injected the dye into the volunteers, and they were amazed to see how quickly their skin changed from blue to a healthy pink, then gradually to a Caucasian white. In more recent memory, the 2003 film Wrong Turn helped perpetuate the inbreeding stereotype. Published November 21, 2021 Updated November 29, 2021 For nearly 200 years, the Fugates known as the blue people of Kentucky remained largely sealed off from the outside world as they passed their blue skin from generation to generation. Then he began to construct the family genealogy and traced their roots back to Martin and Elizabeth Fugate. Blue People of Kentucky Why the Fugate Family Had Blue SkinA Frenchman arrived in Kentucky in 1820, bringing with him his strange blue skin. They went over to Patrick and Rachel Ritchies house and injected each of them with 100 milligrams of methylene blue. Activating it requires adding to the blood a substance that acts as an electron donor. Many substances do this, but Cawein chose methylene blue because it had been used successfully and safely in other cases and because it acts quickly. Population: 5,373Tobacco stores per capita: 5th in West VirginiaGun stores per capita: 2ndFishing/bait shops per capita: 2nd. The methylene blue he used on them is a dye a blue dye, ironically. 1995-2022 Ancestral Findings, LLC. Cawein advised giving the child methylene blue and not worrying about it. Benjy was a pretty big item in the hospital, his mother says with a grin. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. The lightness or darkness of the blue depends on the amount of the substance the person has circulating in them from birth. That iron atom binds with oxygen, which is how red blood cells circulate oxygen throughout the body. Cawein is no stranger to eccentricities of the body. yes, saw that years ago, colloidal silver, damn asshole medias, just state facts, you can prove., thanks for this honest reply. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. In the isolated hollows of rural Kentucky, they were known as the blue Fugates and the blue Combses. The Fugate familys condition caused the blue members to be missing that enzyme; because their methemoglobin couldnt be converted, large amounts of it built up in the blue Fugates, even before birth, causing a very obvious blue tone to their skin. We do not feel less-fortunate. New Martinsville is located in the northwestern part of the state, right on the Ohio state line. Big deal, ive got an extra thumb, and twelve toes, but at least my parents didnt know they were twins until after they had me. Chapter 1: The Climate of Post-War America Chapter 2: West Virginia - The Violent Heritage Chapter 3: Political Maneuvering Chapter 4: The Creative Act of 1919 Chapter 5: Getting Organized PART II Chapter 6: The Mine Wars, 1919-1929 Chapter 7: Depression and Recovery, 1929-1939 Chapter 8: War Service, 1939-1949 Cawein cheers their bad luck not out of malice but out of a deep respect for the blue people of Troublesome Creek. Stacy recalls that his father-inlaw, Levy Fugate, was part of the family that showed blue. Scott, E.M. The relation of diaphorase of human erythrocytes to inheritance of methemolglobinemia, Journal of Clinical Investigation, 39, 1960.3. They were delighted.". In 1980, a counter-intuitive solution was discovered where the blue person drinks a chemical-filled solution that is itself blue. Where people have deer horns on their hoods. It was hard to get out, so they intermarried, says Dennis Stacy, a 51-year-old coal miner and amateur genealogist who has filled a loose-leaf notebook with the laboriously traced blood lines of several local families. The bluest Fugates I ever saw was Luna and her kin, says Carrie Lee Kilburn, a nurse who works at the rural medical center called Homeplace Clinic. "There is a clan of partly-colored people in Barbour County often called Guineas, under the erroneous presumption that they are Guinea negroes," observed WV historian Hu Maxwell in the 1890s. So I knew we had the defect defined.. Informant: "So, what my brother told me is that there's a story that there are people in the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, near the campus I guess, and there is skin is blue. Her name was Ruth Pendergrass, and she had been trying to stir up medical interest in the blue people ever since a dark blue woman walked into the county health department one bitterly cold afternoon and asked for a blood test. by Cathy TrostScience82, November, 1982. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used: Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a citys border, as well as within a short driving distance. Patrick was all hunched down in the hall. Cawein, Madison, et. astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen, [are neither] unique [n]or particularly common to the region. After a 1997 survey, the boundary line between Jefferson County, West Virginia, and Loudoun County, Virginia, was declared to be the watershed line of the top of the ridge of the Blue Ridge mountains, as documented in the survey. Elkins Journeez Bar, Elkins, WV. The railroad didnt come through eastern Kentucky until the coal mines were developed around 1912, and it took another 30 or 40 years to lay down roads along the local creeks. Most of them old people went by that name the blue Fugates. Martin and Elizabeth set up housekeeping on the banks of Troublesome and began a family. Give the gift of knowledge with our official 'did you know' book. All he needed was a substance that could "donate" a free electron to the methemoglobin, allowing it to bond with oxygen. This is a map of the Appalachian mountains Source: Encyclopedia Britannica As you can see, they start in northern Georgia, continuing through most of the Eastern seaboard all the way up to New Brunswick, Canada. The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friends birthday. Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, who lived in Hardburly, were also blue. We used science and data to determine which cities in WV are redneck heaven. Bessie had an iron pot of clothes boiling in her front yard, but she graciously allowed the doctor to draw some of her blood. he passed the gene on to his children. He injected the Ritchie siblings with 100 milligrams of the blue dye and didn't have to wait long to see results. While the substance isn't harmful, large amounts of it will tint any tissue that has blood flowing to it a blue color. Is there anything really wrong with being called a West Virginia redneck? martin fugate was blue from birth, which has nothing to do with inbreeding. Cawein got lucky when a brother and sister named Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked into a Hazard County clinic. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. A transfusion was being prepared when Benjys grandmother spoke up. Definitely not a poaching bunch, these Hurricane rednecks. Because of the dispersion of fluids, the solution only lasts for about a day so the carrier would have to drink a serving every day. Our skimmable newsletter is delivered to your inbox each week, giving you 5 things you need to read and get smarter. Fugates married other Fugates. al. This then turns the carriers blood into a normal red hue which is then reflected in a change in skin tone. I looked at other enzymes and nothing was wrong with them. The risk skyrockets if you're sharing blood.". Genetic Causes Google Maps, KCR Barrel Saloon, Charles Town, WV. The man who discovered the cure for methemoglobinemia was Madison Cawein III, a hematologist (blood doctor) at the University of Kentucky who heard tales of the "blue people" and went looking for specimens in the 1960s. This is redneck wonderland. 702 ft (214 m) Time zone: UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) Summer : UTC-4 (EDT) GNIS ID: 1549599: Blue is an unincorporated community in Tyler County, West Virginia, United States. Eventually, Cawein gained their trust and began taking blood samples. Within a few minutes. The afflicted were embarrassed about their condition and adamant about talking to Cawein. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke. Luna Stacy possessed the good health common to the blue people, bearing at least 13 children before she died at 84. The Derby Bar & Grill, Fairmount, WV. The notion of widespread inbreeding was at least in part the result of crude assumptions about how these isolated forest people might have been perpetuating their communities. Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. Exaggeration-prone outsiders. During the same time period, missionaries reported pervasive ignorance and poverty, with large families living together in ramshackle cabins. The mystery behind the astonishing picture of the Fugates, which has been baffling people for years, appears to have finally been solved. there is no "blue-soloution" that turns them back to a "normal" color. In the 1880s and 1890s, writers such as Mary Noailles Murfree and John Fox Jr. traveled across Appalachia, looking for local color, and overstated the degree to which mountain populations lived in isolation. Plus, we thought why not add in a few stereotypes? Edit Old Gold & Blue Page If the condition were inherited as a recessive trait, it would appear most often in an inbred line. When Two Strangers Lost the Genetic Lottery, Special Offer on Antivirus Software From HowStuffWorks and TotalAV Security, Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications, reactions to certain topical pain relievers. His lips and fingernails still turn a shade of purple-blue when he gets cold or angry a quirk that so intrigued medical students after Benjy's birth that they would crowd around the baby and try to make him cry. Trudging up and down the hollows, fending off the two mean dogs that everyone had in their front yard, the doctor and the nurse would spot someone at the top of a hill who looked blue and take off in wild pursuit. 2,999 100 . March 8, 2012— -- Kerry Green was a "blue baby," born in 1964 in Tulsa, Okla., and his family was given little hope that he would live because of a malformed aorta. So is the Walmart factor, which is the number of Walmarts per person. Soon, the Fugates became known as the Blue Fugates of Kentucky. And unleash your spirit. As scientists discovered in the 1960s, the mutation that causes the Smurf-like skin is carried by a recessive gene, and it takes two people with that same gene to produce a blue child. We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Stereotypes about West Virginian breeding practices have long been linked to the states poverty. Films That People Feel Guilty for Not Seeing. Archives of Internal Medicine, April, 1964.2. Published. The state capital is Charleston. In alphabetical order, these counties are: Barbour, Berkeley, Boone, Braxton, Brooke, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Fayette, Gilmer, Grant, Greenbrier, Hampshire, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Lincoln, Logan, Marion, Marshall, Mason, McDowell, Mercer, Mineral, Mingo, Monongalia, Monroe, Morgan, Nicholas, Ohio, Martin Fugate was a French orphan who emigrated to Kentucky in 1820 to claim a land grant on the wilderness banks of Troublesome Creek. There are still blue people around today, but some of them developed their blueness from ingesting colloidal silver. Embarrassed by their bluish hue, the families retreated even further from society, which only exacerbated the problem. God Bless America. Since rail lines and paved roads didn't make it out to Troublesome Creek for nearly a century, the blue recessive gene was passed down to generations of Fugates and neighboring families, all of whom came to be known as "the blue people of Kentucky.". Got a question about todays news? So, youd think people who are rednecks would be proud to be called a redneck. So you know theres some good fishin there. Other people in the region knew the family well, and most were related to them, so seeing blue people and marrying them did not seem unusual to the locals. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. West By God is right. Additional comment actions. The inbreeding caused the recessive gene to appear in both parents. She looked like she was having a heart attack. It began whenMartin Fugate, aFrench orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century. But Cawein knew from earlier studies that the body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin back to normal. They took the doctor to see their uncle, who was blue, too. The region's first coal miners primarily were African Americans, both enslaved and free. It run in that generation who lived up and down Ball [Creek]., They looked like anybody else, cept they had the blue color, Stacy says, sitting in a chair in his plaid flannel shirt and suspenders, next to a cardboard box where a small black piglet, kept as a pet, is squealing for his bottle. Hearing this story and conducting some research of my own led me to believe that people love to come up with their explanation for things they cannot explain, no matter how perplex. Six generations after a French orphan named Martin Fugate settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek with his redheaded American bride, his great-great-great great grandson was born in a modern hospital not far from where the creek still runs. The Fugate family didnt leave the area for generations, continually intermarrying with relatives. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508) Fairmont is a short truck drive down from Morgantown. My grandmother Luna on my dads side was a blue Fugate. The Blue People of Kentucky were first diagnosed with methemoglobinemia in the 1960s by Dr. Madison Cawein, a noted hematologist. No mention of his skin color is made in the early histories of the area, but family lore has it that Martin himself was blue. His car gave out on the dirt road to Zachs house, and the doctor had to borrow a Jeep from a filling station. The range of blue that could express itself in the blue Fugates ranged from light blue to dark blue like a blueberry, with even darker blue on the lips and fingernail beds. West Virginia, constituent state of the United States of America. Had you guys just ditched school even more, you might have won this whole thing. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. On a side note, some people on social media have shared images of another famous blue person, Paul Karason, dubbed by some as "Papa Smurf . if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3','ezslot_0',606,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-roadsnacks_net-medrectangle-3-0');Using that criteria, its not hard to scrape the internet, run some scientific data on where rednecks might live in West Virginia, and then put out a list. And a Walmart all to their own. When they settled this country back then, there was no roads. Matt Harvey Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. The story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure. You could tell how much it bothered them to be blue.. Martin married a red-headed American woman named Elizabeth Smith and the two set up a homestead on the banks of Troublesome Creek near Hazard County, Kentucky. Elkins is way out in the middle of nowhere south of Morgantown, at the base of the Appalachians. Green human are possible. The Northfork High School "Blue Demons" were a force to be reckoned with from 1971 to 1984, setting national records including most consecutive state championships. However, it has the ability to change the blue hemoglobin back to a normal color, and remove the blue tone from their skin almost instantly. The gene would most likely appear in an inbred line. In 1980, anthropologist Robert Tincher published a study titled Night Comes to the Chromosomes: Inbreeding and Population Genetics in Southern Appalachia, based on 140 years worth of marriage records. As a result of a coincidental meeting of recessive genes, intermarriage and inbreeding, members of the Fugate family were born with a rare condition that made them visibly discoloured. Once he had the enzyme deficiency isolated, methylene blue sprang to Caweins mind as the perfectly obvious antidote. They wouldnt come into the waiting room. He knew the same thing was happening in this secluded corner of Appalachia. Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. Most of the Fugates didnt seem to mind being blue. He left the Fugates with a supply of the methylene blue in pill form, as it must be taken regularly to keep the skin a normal color, by continually eliminating the mis-colored hemoglobin. It was really something exciting to see.. By 1850, approximately half of Kanawha County's slaves worked in the salt industrymany mined coal to fuel the furnaces. Steelworkers Damion Elkins, 50, right, and Edward Clonch, 43, left, in Huntington West Virginia. Bluefield is only 75% white, and most of its residents finished high school. It doesnt mean the condition is gone from the family; theres a chance another child could be born with it, but the incidents of it should be fewer and farther between in the modern era. Theyre known simply as the blue people in the hills and hollows around Troublesome and Ball Creeks. Population: 5,626High school graduation rate: 72%Gun stores per capita: 5th in WVFishing/bait per capita: 3rd in the state. It is documented that Fugates were born in the colonies in the mid 1600's but the original progenitor has not been confirmed. I was actually born with my twin sisters fetus inside me. This publication also contains information on state and federal agencies; postal information; the Constitutions of the United States and West Virginia; and, considerable information on counties, municipalities and various organizations. June 18, 2015. Fear that more inflation will cost jobs. Add to calendar. People wore jackets and hats that had the slogan "Northfork West Virginia Basketball Capital of the United States." And at least in one famous case, a man turned his skin permanently blue from drinking too much colloidal silver supplements and rubbing colloidal silver cream on his skin (the condition is called argyria or silver poisoning). West Virginia: County: Tyler: Elevation. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four of whom were "bright blue" according to Fugate family lore. He concluded that inbreeding levels in Appalachia [are neither] unique [n]or particularly common to the region, when compared with those reported for populations elsewhere or at earlier periods in American history.. The Faces of Appalachia. They were like any other 1800s family except theyliked inbreeding. New Martinsville has the 2nd most places to buy guns, the 2nd most fishing/bait shops and several places to get chew. You may now brag to your friends and share this endlessly on your Facebook walls. Cawein, Madison and E.J. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. He married Elizabeth Smith, who carried a recessive gene for a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which gives those who have it blue-toned skin, even though they are otherwise perfectly healthy. Population: 10,486Mobile home parks in area: 3rd in WVBars per capita: 3rdGun stores per capita: 5th in West Virginia. This led to the propagation of the genetic condition that gave them their distinctive blue skin color. It is home to so much creativity, and has been a place of devastating poverty. 15,898 100 A Cinephile's Guide to Biographical Films. What Happened to the Blue People? What is a redneck anyways? The Appalachian region of the US is a beautiful place with a rich and sometimes tragic history. avg. Note: In this instance the reason for cyanosis was not methemoglobinemia but Rh incompatibility. In his research, he found a 1960 article by E. M. Scott that was reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. One of them even married his own aunt, and most of them had a lot of children who also married their cousins. The first known ancestor was David Wilson, who was born in Scotland about 1650; he had a son David, born about . Two YouTubers have shared an inside look into Odd as they documented themselves traveling down a windy two-lane road. It has nothing to do with melanin, the amino acid that gives people darker skin tones. GreenPower Motor Co. to begin manufacturing at South Charleston, West Virginia facility 'this quarter' Hot and cold: Up and down weather calls for adaptation for West Virginia's ski destinations; Morgantown (West Virginia) business owner who pleaded guilty to Jan. 6 charges sued along with Trump; This Week in West Virginia History "The True Story of the Blue People of Kentucky" The Wilson Family of West Virginia. Bluefield state is committed to being the region lethargic and go in and out of consciousness called redneck! Zachariah Fugate who was blue from birth that Fugates were born in the in... Sometimes tragic history the bodys hemoglobin would eventually be rendered useless France began... Family lore like any other 1800s family except theyliked inbreeding for cyanosis was not methemoglobinemia but Rh incompatibility Indiana. 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