Soon, the Fugates became known as the Blue Fugates of Kentucky. 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. This led to the propagation of the genetic condition that gave them their distinctive blue skin color. So, youd think people who are rednecks would be proud to be called a redneck. Steelworkers Damion Elkins, 50, right, and Edward Clonch, 43, left, in Huntington West Virginia. They were real, and they really were blue, thanks to a recessive genetic condition. Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. Population: 5,373Tobacco stores per capita: 5th in West VirginiaGun stores per capita: 2ndFishing/bait shops per capita: 2nd. The inbreeding caused the recessive gene to appear in both parents. "Methomoglobin is an oxidized form of hemoglobin that has a decreased affinity for oxygen, resulting in a reduced ability to release oxygen to tissues." 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. 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. 3 of 10 isnt good enough; think of how high you wouldve finished on this list had more of you ditched class to head to the hills on Friday mornings like a lot of your friends. Called methaemoglobinaemia (commonly known as met-H), the condition reduces the individuals ability to carry oxygen in their blood. The Blue Ridge Mountains In West Virginia Were Named One Of The 50 Most Beautiful Places In The World We all know the Blue Ridge Mountains in West Virginia are stunning, and it's about time the rest of the world took notice. "For the first time in their lives, they were pink. The blueness increases with increasing methemoglobin levels. It is documented that Fugates were born in the colonies in the mid 1600's but the original progenitor has not been confirmed. 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. They were poor people, concurs Nurse Pendergrass, but they were good.References1. Blue People of West Virginia | . From California herself, the informant was very curious to hear about what the people of West Virginia were like. get your facts straight for petes sake. Some say 99%. She was as blue a woman as I ever saw.. In more recent memory, the 2003 film Wrong Turn helped perpetuate the inbreeding stereotype. The only real picture is of a man who turned himself blue by eating silver. Got a question about todays news? Those who are otherwise healthy with levels under 15% may exhibit minor symptoms or none at all. When Eleanor Roosevelt visited West Virginia mining towns in the 1930s, national newspapers ran pictures of rundown shacks and barefoot kids in rags, which left a lasting impression of the state as a backwater. 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. However, now that the Fugate gene pool is more diverse, there is less need for this treatment, as fewer blue children are being born. Matt Harvey Dan Cunningham was born Jan. 16, 1850, in Jackson County. Google Maps. Scotts Alaskans seemed to match Caweins blue people. Add to calendar. New Martinsville is located in the northwestern part of the state, right on the Ohio state line. It reduced the brightness of the blue on their skin. The distinct gold-and-blue color scheme and Flying WV logo we've come to adore did not exist at that point. Dennis 4 Comments. Their inbreeding led to several medical problems and recessive genes being passed down through each child, such as one that gave some of the offspring blue skin. He injected the Ritchie siblings with 100 milligrams of the blue dye and didn't have to wait long to see results. ELVIS SEEN AT GRACELAND ON HIS 85th BIRTHDAY! The clinic doctors only saw her a few times in her life and never for anything serious. Exhibitions in the McGee Gallery bring ideas and objects together in new ways, highlighting the breadth and depth of the Art Museum's permanent collection: In/Humanity: Combat and War in Art, an . She lives alone in one of the. After ruling out heart and lung diseases, the doctor suspected methemoglobinemia, a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methemoglobin in the blood. Its a part of our culture. Due to the sheer number of things like bait shops, bars and mobile home parks in the area, its definitely crawling with rednecks. 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%. 5 years ago when I was on a swingerparty she got pregnant with me. 1:52. Of their seven children, four were reported to be blue. Wheeling's city flag checks all the boxes for an [] The methaemoglobinaemia condition, or met-H, reduces someones ability to carry oxygen in the blood, leaving it darker than the colour typically found in veins. Methemoglobinemia is a blood condition, not a skin condition. I just knew that patient was going to die right there in the health department, but she wasnt atall alarmed. As it was, the Fugates stayed in the same area well into the 20th century. Blue skin. Martin Fugate arrived in the unsettled frontier of Kentucky in 1820. The Fugate Family of Russell County, Virginia: A Genealogy of the Descendants of Francis, Benjamin, Colbert, Zachariah, Henley & William Fugate, Settlers of Moccasin Valley from 1772. He remembered that the Ritchie siblings "were really embarrassed about being blue." Once he had the enzyme deficiency isolated, methylene blue sprang to Caweins mind as the perfectly obvious antidote. 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 . 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. yes, saw that years ago, colloidal silver, damn asshole medias, just state facts, you can prove., thanks for this honest reply. 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. Even though Lynchburg is about 100 miles from the West Virginia border, Falwell said he would vote for the city to leave Virginia for the purpose of "escaping the barbaric, totalitarian and . They were bluern hell, Cawein says. The solution, oddly enough, was a commonly used dye called methylene blue. He was involved as a law enforcement officer in the Hatfield-McCoy Feud, the West Virginia Mine Wars and the destruction of moonshine stills. 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. The Informant learned this information from her brother, when he returned home after his first semester at school. *. But there around 10 or 15 Dollar Stores in the area. Elkins is way out in the middle of nowhere south of Morgantown, at the base of the Appalachians. Population: 10,486Mobile home parks in area: 3rd in WVBars per capita: 3rdGun stores per capita: 5th in West Virginia. We do not feel less-fortunate. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. Theyre normal people theyre good people. "They were bluer'n hell," said Cawein in a 1982 interview with Science 82. The last known "blue" Fugate descendant was born in 1975. The small coal mining town in McDowell County received national attention. 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. Research on intrafamilial marriage in such enclaves is slim. The clan kept multiplying. One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. He hasnt studied the condition for years. Population: 5,626High school graduation rate: 72%Gun stores per capita: 5th in WVFishing/bait per capita: 3rd in the state. That iron atom binds with oxygen, which is how red blood cells circulate oxygen throughout the body. Of their seven children, four were blue. The company's filing status is listed as Revoked (Failure To File Annual Report) and its File Number is 45369. Many is more accurate since the practice is legal, or legal under certain circumstances, in more than 20 states. When you click through real estate links on our site, we earn an affiliate commission. We use data, analytics, and a sense of humor to determine the dirt on places across the country. When Two Strangers Lost the Genetic Lottery Martin Fugate arrived in the unsettled frontier of Kentucky in 1820. 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. Regardless, this place might be the whitest, redneckest of them all. They were delighted.". Eventually, a nurse named Ruth Pendergrass heard of them, and, along with a hematologist named Madison Cawein III, decided to go meet these locally famous blue people in person. The methylene blue he used on them is a dye a blue dye, ironically. By the time a young hematologist from the University of Kentucky came down to Troublesome Creek in the 1960s to cure the blue people, Martin Fugates descendants had multiplied their recessive genes all over the Cumberland Plateau. Have you ever heard the song, Blue Moon of Kentucky? Its pretty well-known and popular. Some of us finished high school and became the "dreaded wife and mother"-as society portrays it. blue people of west virginia December 17, 2021 sister act cast member dies comments The name refers to a specific set of families. Because the boy was intensely blue at birth but then recovered his normal skin tones, Benjy is assumed to have inherlted only one gene for the condition. RoadSnacks is reader-supported. Madison Cawein began hearing rumors about the blue people when he went to work at the University of Kentuckys Lexington medical clinic in 1960. 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. 15,898 100 A Cinephile's Guide to Biographical Films. What Happened to the Blue People? The Blue Ridge Mountains are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. If youll notice, he observes, tracing lines on his familys chart, which lists his mothers and his fathers great grandfather as Henley Fugate, Im kin to myself.. It is bordered by Pennsylvania to the north, Maryland and Virginia to the east, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. Apparently, it shows more easily when theyre cold!. Google Maps. Methemoglobinemia can also be caused by reactions to certain topical pain relievers like benzocaine and xylocaine. Little Blue Run in Chester West Virginia is gone 8/8/2004: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writes about Little Blue Run: Dangerous disposal, by Alyson Walls . Google Maps. The Fugates are of French Huguenot descent, with the original immigrant ancestor coming over from France in about 1820. Laughing, the Informant launched into a story of the West Virginia Blue People, a story about a genetic condition the resulted from intermarriage. 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. The area was never entirely cut off, but many people lived in remote closed communities with little incoming or outgoing migration. If this conversion continued, all the bodys hemoglobin would eventually be rendered useless. 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 She also states that the union of Martin and Elizabeth were probably not the originators of the gene as their marriage took place too late. The drugs effects are temporary, as methylene blue is normally excreted in the urine. The gene is still around today but has now become statistically insignificant and there are no serious medical problems associated with it. Houses belonging to people that lived in the valley were mostly torn down. The Blue People of Kentucky were first diagnosed with methemoglobinemia in the 1960s by Dr. Madison Cawein, a noted hematologist. It was really something exciting to see.. "I started asking them questions: 'Do you have any relatives who are blue?' They are known for being carriers of a genetic trait that led to the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, causing the skin to appear blue. February 16, 2012 by Tap Vann. For more than a century, these Appalachian families passed along an exceedingly rare genetic blood condition that turned their skin a disarming shade of blue. 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. Have you ever heard of the blue people of Kentucky? She has lived in the primitive dwelling without running water or electricity on the slopes of Dead Fall Mountain her entire life. One of the girls, the Informant, was discussing an upcoming trip to visit her brother at West Virginia University. it is a blood disorder in which their blood does not oxygenate correctly. Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, who lived in Hardburly, were also blue. In 2019, the percentage of foreign-born citizens in West Virginia was 1.66%, meaning that the rate has been decreasing. It was real bad in her, Alva Stacy, the boys father, explained. The blue skin gene is a recessive gene that only appears when both parents are carriers of the gene. One relative describes her as blue all over, and another calls Luna the bluest woman I ever saw.. by Cathy TrostScience82, November, 1982. 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. 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. In response, Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia railed against the veep, accusing him of astounding ignorance toward his own countrymen. Howd West Virginia get a reputation for inbreeding? It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. The search for blue people ensued. 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. 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. At 30%, nausea, difficulty breathing, and an elevated heart rate start to appear. '"He was almost purple,"' his father, Alva Stacy, recalls." Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. As a result, their blood is darker than the color typically found running through peoples veins. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. He came from where the sun don't shine. 1 talking about this. Fairmont is a short truck drive down from Morgantown. 2017-2018 Blue Book Frontice (p. I-VIII) Section 1: Executive (p. 1-330) Section 2: Legislative (p. 331-508)
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