BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – A 1930’s Beckley architect and engineer Samuel Haas Bridge was commemorated with a bronze plaque.
The plaque is now attached to the side of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building on South Kanawha Street.
The structure is the most ideal resting place for the commemorative sign as it was Bridge’s most significant project in his several-decade-long career.
“Samuel Bridge designed many significant buildings in the area. He designed Stratton High School, Pinecrest Sanitarium, Mark Twain High School,” says the Historical Marker Program Officer for the Raleigh County Historical Society, Merle Cole.
Bridge was often associated with another renowned architect at the time, Alexander B. Mahood.
The plaque is the nineteenth in the series the Raleigh County Historical Society has been installing since 2016. Cole says it will serve to educate many.
“A bunch of people pass the building every day and don’t really give any thought that this was a major architectural project and one of the major architectural achievements in Beckley. Soldiers and Sailors is a very important building for that reason,” he says.
Soldiers and Sailors is owned by the Raleigh County Commission. They are honored by the donation and they also feel it will serve as a means of educating future generations to come.
Bridge was born on January 23, 1884 in Fayette County. He worked as a mining engineer for the Quinnimont Coal Company before moving to Beckley in 1921 where he began doing architectural work by 1930.
