Patrick and Rachel Ritchie, who lived in Hardburly, were also blue. Madison Cawein began hearing rumors about the blue people when he went to work at the University of Kentuckys Lexington medical clinic in 1960. As coal mining and the railroads brought progress to Kentucky, the blue Fugates started moving out of their communities and marrying other people. 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. West Virginia History Timeline. New Martinsville has the 2nd most places to buy guns, the 2nd most fishing/bait shops and several places to get chew. there is no "blue-soloution" that turns them back to a "normal" color. As a result, their blood is darker than the color typically found running through peoples veins. Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. Two days of tests produced no explanation for skin the color of a bruised plum. 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. 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. 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.. But Cawein knew from earlier studies that the body has an alternative method of converting methemoglobin back to normal. This information supplied by John Graves whose uncle was the father of the child. "The beginning of this story is so wild because Martin moved to Kentucky from Europe and married a complete stranger, a nonrelative who just happened to have the same mutation," says Lewis. The search for blue people ensued. 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. The company's filing status is listed as Revoked (Failure To File Annual Report) and its File Number is 45369. Cawein packed his black bag and rounded up Nurse Pendergrass for the big event. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. ELVIS SEEN AT GRACELAND ON HIS 85th BIRTHDAY! 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. 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 blue color was gone from their skin," Cawein said. Methemoglobinemia is a blood condition, not a skin condition. get your facts straight for petes sake. By the time theyd get to the top, the person would be gone. They have the 2nd most bars and the 2nd most trailer/mobile home parks per capita in the state. Learn how your comment data is processed. The odds against it were incalculable, but Martin Fugate managed to find and marry a woman who carried the same recessive gene. She was one of the "blue" Combses who lived up on Ball Creek and was a sister to one of the Fugate women; her brother, Luke, was also blue. Of their seven children, four were blue. Add to calendar. The expedition descended that river to Peter's Falls on the future Virginia-West Virginia border and claimed for England all the land drained by the New River and its tributaries. Lappat, Hereditary Methemoglobinemia in Hemoglobin, Its Precursors and Metabolites, ed. By Jamie Kiffel-Alcheh Fast Facts Nickname: The Mountain State Statehood: 1863; 35th state Population (as of July, 2016): 1,831,102. How far from Flatwoods , ky? He married a red-haired American named Elizabeth Smith with a very pale complexion. Rattini is accused of distributing narcotic painkillers illegally to more than 200 pharmacies across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. Methemoglobin levels over 50% may result in seizures, coma, and death. That iron atom binds with oxygen, which is how red blood cells circulate oxygen throughout the body. This led to the propagation of the genetic condition that gave them their distinctive blue skin color. Why can colloidal silver turn your skin blue? then I sat down and we began to chart the family." 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. it is a blood disorder in which their blood does not oxygenate correctly. Its post office is closed in 1935. Normally diaphorase converts methemoglobin back to hemoglobin. His car gave out on the dirt road to Zachs house, and the doctor had to borrow a Jeep from a filling station. The area was never entirely cut off, but many people lived in remote closed communities with little incoming or outgoing migration. Google Maps. She told me that her family was the blue Combses who lived up on Ball Creek. 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. The Fugates, a family living in the hills of Kentucky starting in the 19th century, were commonly known as the " Blue Fugates " [1] or the " Blue People of Kentucky ". It was later discovered ascorbic acid can do this, as well. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. 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. We do not feel less-fortunate. Our skimmable newsletter is delivered to your inbox each week, giving you 5 things you need to read and get smarter. Finally, one day when the frustrated doctor was idling inside the Hazard clinic, Patrick and Rachel Ritchie walked in. Intermarrying with people other than close relatives meant the likelihood of any Fugate descendant being born with the condition reduced. Little did they know that their union would create shades of blue people! 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. 1:52. Such people tend to be very blue only at birth, probably because newborns normally have smaller amounts of diaphorase. Upon further research, I saw that the original story was based on a specific family that was said to be suffering from blue-tinted skin. One of the girls, the Informant, was discussing an upcoming trip to visit her brother at West Virginia University. We use data, analytics, and a sense of humor to determine the dirt on places across the country. What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. If this story were true everyone in Alabama would be blue. Martin Fugate carried the recessive gene and the odds that he could have married a woman with the same recessive gene were overwhelming - but that is exactly what happened. 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. 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. After concluding that there was no evidence of heart disease, I said Aha! I started asking them questions: Do you have any relatives who are blue? then I sat down and we began to chart the family., Cawein remembers the pain that showed on the Ritchie brothers and sisters faces. Blue human aren't possible. A new playing surface, FieldTurf Revolution 2.5, was installed in 2016, giving West Virginia one of the country's safest and most . When asked ahout it, he shakes his head and stares steadfastly ahead. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. Blue People of Kentucky Why the Fugate Family Had Blue SkinA Frenchman arrived in Kentucky in 1820, bringing with him his strange blue skin. At last they were free of their "blue" shade and were no longer embarrassed. Rednecks are hailed as being great in our song lyrics. Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friends birthday. Book is out of print, borrowed from Special Collections at the St. Louis County Library, St. Louis, MO. Soon, the Fugates became known as the Blue Fugates of Kentucky. In most people, there is an enzyme present called diaphorase that converts methemoglobin back into a usable form of hemoglobin. Meghan. Had you guys just ditched school even more, you might have won this whole thing. When they settled this country back then, there was no roads. Archives of Internal Medicine, April, 1964.2. This article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as info-tainment. She remembers the story very easily, most often humorously, because she remembers the manner in which her brother told her. 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. Population: 5,191High school graduation rate: 70%Walmart rank: 4thDive bars and mobile home parks: 7th. Some of us finished high school and became the "dreaded wife and mother"-as society portrays it. In normal people hemoglobin is converted to methemoglobin at a very slow rate. Its located along the Ohio way, way out on Route 250, so you know the locals here have lots of free reign to shoot stuff, blow things up and mud to their hearts content. ( Returnto the corrected sentence.). 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. He was born in the 1970s in a maternity ward of Hazard, Kentucky. The 2010 survey revealed that there were 1,852,994 people living in West Virginia, which represented a modest rise of just 2.5% on the numbers declared at the 2000 census. If enough blood is "infected" with this faulty type of hemoglobin, it changes from red to an almost purple-ish dark blue. 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. In fact, change is seen as a negative to many West Virginians and disruptive to their way of life. But as Kentucky became more populated and more genes came into the Fugate family tree, there were far fewer children born blue. Howells Pawn and Guns, New Martinsville, WV. You may now brag to your friends and share this endlessly on your Facebook walls. Benjamin Stacy was the last of the Fugate family members to have blue skin and lived a healthy life. Answer (1 of 3): Depends on what you mean by blue. Sometimes they married first cousins. 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. 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. They were real, and they really were blue, thanks to a recessive genetic condition. Its 97% white, very blue collar, and there are lots of places to get guns, ammo and chew. They wouldnt come into the waiting room. He had to drive eight hours back to Hazard to search out the Ritchies, who lived in a tapped-out mining town called Hardburly. I just knew that patient was going to die right there in the health department, but she wasnt atall alarmed. I couldnt tell you what caused it.. However, now that the Fugate gene pool is more diverse, there is less need for this treatment, as fewer blue children are being born. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke. Doctors were so astonished by the color of Benjy Stacys skin that they raced him by ambulance from the maternity ward in the hospital near Hazard to a medical clinic in Lexington. Two YouTubers have shared an inside look into Odd as they documented themselves traveling down a windy two-lane road. The condition that made the Fugates blue causes large amounts of methemoglobin (which is a blue type of hemoglobin) to circulate in the blood. Blue Grass Riding Club Of West Virginia, Inc. is a West Virginia Domestic Profit Corporation filed on January 19, 1965. "She had been out in the cold and she was just blue!" recalls Pendergrass, who is now 69 and retired from nursing. It can be brought on by several things: abnormal hemoglobin formation, an enzyme deficiency, and taking too much of certain drugs, including vitamin K, which is essential for blood clotting and is abundant in pork liver and vegetable oil. Blow your mind. Excise tax on bottled soft drinks, syrups and dry mixtures; disposition thereof. Cawein, Madison and E.J. The Fugate family didnt leave the area for generations, continually intermarrying with relatives. Population: 5,626High school graduation rate: 72%Gun stores per capita: 5th in WVFishing/bait per capita: 3rd in the state. Princeton is located down on I-77, before you make the climb into Virginia. Diet: Insects, seeds, and grains. Which means lots of weekend warriors probably live here; its the families that have boats and who book nice family hunting trips. Elizabeth Smith, apparently, was as pale-skinned as the mountain laurel that blooms every spring around the creek hollows. Fortunately, Cawein was able to find an antidote for the blood disorder - methylene blue which acted as an electron donor. Oxygen, or a lack of oxygen, is what turns the blood from red to blue in people with methemoglobinemia. This results in brown blood giving Caucasian patients a bluish hue to their skin. During the same time period, missionaries reported pervasive ignorance and poverty, with large families living together in ramshackle cabins. One came from a blue Flugate whod joined the Army and been sent to Panama, where his son was born bright blue. We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. The small coal mining town in McDowell County received national attention. Days of testing provided no answers; but then Benjy's grandmother told the doctor a story about the "blue" Fugates. 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. Theyre normal people theyre good people. There was a Zachariah Fugate who was married to a Mary Smith; both carried the gene which resulted in blue children. The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjy, who carry one gene. 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