Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

George L. Carter Letter, Mss. Collection 2001.37, Kegley Library, Wytheville Community College, Wytheville, VA

Acquisition Information

Donated by Ruth Ann Chitwood in 2001 as part of the W. R. Chitwood Collection.

Biographical Information

George Lafayette Carter, born 10 January 1857 in Hillsville, Virginia, was the son of Walter Carter and Lucy Ann Jennings. As a young man Carter worked at the Hillsville General Store and in 1877 started work at the Wythe Lead and Zinc Company in Austinsville. he soon focused upon the development and procurement of mines to provide coke for Dora Furnace in Pulaski, Virginia. In 1898 he founded the Carter Coal and Iron Company and afterwards formed the powerful Virginia, Iron, Coal and Coke Company with headquarters in Bristol, Virginia.

Carter eventually owned iron ore properties, steel plants and iron ore rolling mills throughout the Southeast. He purchased hundreds of thousands of acres across southwest Virginia and northwest Tennessee. Carter was also influential in the development of Kingsport as an industrial city and Johnson City as an education center (home of East Tennessee State University). He also convinced several northern magnates to invest in the Carolina, Clinchfield, and Ohio Railway that connected Cincinnati, Ohio with Charleston, South Carolina.

Carter had homes in Fort Chiswell, Virginia, Coalwood, West Virginia, and Hillsville, Virginia. He died in 1936 and is buried in Hillsville.

Scope and Content

This collection consists of a letter dated 19 April 1897 from George L. Carter, Vice-President and General Manager, Dora Furnace Company, PUlaski, Virginia to the Reed Island Iron Company in Kayoulah, Virginia regarding questions about bills and invoices and request for "a memorandum of all the payments you have made to everybody since the first day of January 1897 " except laborers.