{"id":3554,"date":"2025-05-30T20:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T00:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3554"},"modified":"2025-05-29T08:08:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T12:08:43","slug":"the-lumber-king-of-appalachia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3554","title":{"rendered":"The Lumber King of Appalachia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TM-XSUp-gaY?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>William McClellan Ritter didn\u2019t just cut down trees, he built an empire. In this week\u2019s episode, we tell his story, from Pennsylvania farm boy to head of one of the world\u2019s largest lumber companies. He built railroads, ran coal mines, advised the U.S. war effort in World War I and once gifted $3 million to his workers.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBut that story also includes the cutting down of much of Appalachia\u2019s old growth forests and forced labor charges that stained his legacy.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nBe sure to subscribe to the Stories podcast.\u00a0 You\u2019ll find us on Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, IHeart Media or wherever you get your podcasts.\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThanks for listening!<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_1353\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3554-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66325794\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66325794\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66325794\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66325794\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3554-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/66325794\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>William McClellan Ritter didn\u2019t just cut down trees, he built an empire. In this week\u2019s episode, we tell his story, from Pennsylvania farm boy to head of one of the world\u2019s largest lumber companies. He built railroads, ran coal mines, advised the U.S. war effort in World War I and once gifted $3 million to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,34,31,22,12],"tags":[104,1096,1102,1100,1103,1099,1094,1106,1098,1097,1105,1095,1104,1101,1093],"class_list":["post-3554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personalities","category-the-1890s","category-the-1910s","category-the-oughts","category-the-roaring-20s","tag-appalachian-history","tag-coal-mining","tag-gilded-age","tag-hardwood-empire","tag-industrial-appalachia","tag-labor-abuse","tag-lumber-king","tag-lumber-magnate","tag-peonage","tag-railroads","tag-red-jacket-coal","tag-timber-industry","tag-war-industries-board","tag-welch-wv","tag-william-ritter"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-Vk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3554"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3557,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3554\/revisions\/3557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}