Aull Center holds 15th anniversary celebration

The Aull Center — technically the Josephine & William Aull Center for Local History and Genealogy — turns 15 today.

As you might expect, it’s going to be a historic event.

The center, at 351 Spruce St., will hold a historical masquerade today from 6-9 p.m., meaning attendees are encouraged to arrive donning attire from a bygone era — whichever era they so choose.

Because the kind of folks who hang out at the Aull Center definitely have a favorite era.

“This is the history geek hangout,” Manager Mike McClung laughed. “It’s the last bunker for local historians.”

It’s also the depository for the area’s recorded past, as well as a gateway to a number of old and new tools with which sleuths can ferret out the details of their family’s history.

“There’s such an incredible history here, and you find people are shocked to learn most of it,” McClung said. “People are shocked to learn that Morgantown was actually captured by the Confederacy and that the Confederate flag flew for one day over the county courthouse … People are surprised to learn that Thomas Edison and Henry Ford stopped for lunch right down here on the corner.”

McClung explained that he spends his time assisting folks from points across the country and around the world locate their ties to Morgantown and Monongalia County, all free of charge — save a 10 cent fee for copies.

“I just did a will yesterday from 1806. We helped a gentleman from Poland a couple years ago looking for his ancestors that were coal miners here. That blew my mind. A guy in Poland searching for his ancestors here. Usually that’s the other way around,” he said, explaining that the growing popularity of DNA-based genealogy services has spurred a younger generation of visitors.

“It’s really taken off among young people. It used to be the only people who came through those doors were in their late 60s, 70s, 80s,” McClung said. “Now there’s an interest in who your great-great-grandparents were and where your family came here from originally.”

Once the site of a livery stable serving High Street’s Old Wallace House hotel, the property was purchased and the house commissioned in 1906 by Aaron Garlow, president of the Second National Bank, which inhabited the former home of WCLG, on High Street.

The house stayed in Garlow’s family until around 2000, when a trust from library patrons Josephine and William Aull was used to purchase it, making it part of the Morgantown Public Library System.

The center also houses the West Virginia Holocaust Education Commission Library as well as offices for the West Virginia University Appalachian Prison Book Project.

McClung said he hopes visitors will stop in during the anniversary celebration, or whenever the mood strikes them.

“I think we’re a well-kept secret,” he said. “People come in and say they’ve walked by here for years and never knew.”