West Jefferson in Days Gone By - series 145 by Charlie Miller

- Water Ways – In Series #144, we mentioned the Little Darby Creek and the Teays. As noted, Little Darby Creek was originally named Treacles Creek, and this name appeared in the early surveys. Later, it and Big Darby Creek were named after Chief Darby, who lived along the banks of Big Darby near present Plain City. In 1991, Big and Little Darby were named “The Last Great Place” by the Nature Conservancy, an international group that maintains the largest private systems of nature sanctuaries in the world. Only 12 areas in the western hemisphere have received this designation, and the Darbys are one of them.

- The Teays River - Before the glaciers emerged some 20,000 years ago, Madison County was a relatively flat highland, cut by steep-sided valleys and the Teays River, which flowed between them. Major streams generally flowed to the northwest, but the Ohio River did not. The Teays originated in Virginia and North Carolina and flowed across West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois and into the Mississippi River. It flowed near London and was joined by a large tributary coming down from the Plain City area. The main valley floor was 568 feet above sea level near London, and the valley was between 3,000 to 3,500 feet wide and 400 feet in depth. One of the tributaries would have been in the vicinity of the Darby Creeks.

- Along the Road - In 1926, Clinton Odell gambled $200 for materials to put up “Burma Shave” signs. Burma Shave had developed a new shaving cream and needed some way to advertise it. He started out with small signs planted 100 feet apart. In the first year, Burma Shave sales grew from next to nothing to $68,000! Some of these signs were planted along U. S. Route 40 near West Jefferson. In 1963, Phillip Morris bought Burma Shave and decided that the signs weren’t effective anymore and started removing them. There was plenty of publicity over the demise of the signs. The Saturday Evening Post and Reader’s Digest ran articles on them. There is now a set in the Smithsonian that says,

Shaving brushes

Soon you’ll see ‘em

On the shelf

In some museum

Don’t lose your head.

To gain a minute

You need your head

Your brains are in it.

Drinking drivers

Nothing worse

They put the quart

Before the hearse