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CLASSIC: When West Virginia Begged the USSR for Foreign Aid · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow Ridiculous Historians. Have you ever been in a situation
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: where you say, Hey, I've got to ask an unfamiliar
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: person for a favor.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: H You know I have, and it's awkward, But when
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: you're desperate, you do what's got to be done. Yes,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: this classic episode is about our friends in West Virginia
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: who once upon a time begged the USSR for foreign
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: aid at the height of the Cold War.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go ahead and roll the tape.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, Hi, how
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: are you? Thank you for tuning into Ridiculous History. Several
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of us listening today will be familiar with an area
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of the world known as Appalachia, the Appalachians, the Appalachian Mountains, Right,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I've got I've got some past there. And the thing
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: that's interesting about it is, even if you live in
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the US, odds are that you have not been there
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: because it's quite a rural area. But it's where today's
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: story takes place. My name's Ben.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: My name is no Ben. Have you did you know
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: that if you hike certain parts of the Appalachian Trail
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: you get little rings on your walking stick or there's
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: some kind of merit badge you're supposed to get where
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: you can show unequivocally that you have hiked the entire
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Appalachian Trail. I have exactly zero of those.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I also well have hiked parts of the trail. I
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: have not hiked the entire thing. It's a heck of
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: a commitment, but it's a no thing to do. Almost
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: as noble as being the producer on shows like Ridiculous History,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: which reminds me we should shout out our super producer,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegrip. So nol, you have never hiked the trail,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: but you've been to the Appalachians yet I.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Have, and I have been on parts of the trail.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: That's where I found out about the medallion system, where
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: it's these little kind of curved metal pieces that indicate
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: which parts of the trail you successfully completed. And if
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: you're like a real ball or a real Appalachian trailhead,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: you have a stick that's just like you know, covered
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: in these things.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Right right, just lousy with them. One of the most
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: interesting things about exploring this area of the world is
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that you'll run into places where time seems to have
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: slowed down or things go at their own relatively isolated pace.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: And in today's episode, we're going to explore a tiny
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: community that is, in its own way, very isolated. It's
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: called Vulcan in the western edge of West Virginia.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: That's about as west as it gets, my friend, right, Okay,
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: that's that's actually not entirely true, but it's as west
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: as it gets in West Virginia.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Right, it's a Virginia wise, this is the westest Vulcan.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: West Virginia is an interesting case. It's located along the
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Tug Fork, which is, you know, part of the Tug River,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and this is often called one of the US's most
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: storied waterways. Vulcan is named after, you know, spoiler alert,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the god of fire and Roman mythology, Vulcan, and this
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: is something we had talked about off air. Vulcan makes
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: an appearance in a fantastic novel and set of TV
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: adaptations called American Gods by Neil Gayman. You saw that, right.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: I did a season two out yet been either.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Or it's about to come out. Yeah, I'm excited. That's
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: one of those shows where I don't know about everybody else,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: but I made the decision a while back that if
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I really enjoy a show I want to wait until
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: the entire season is out before watching it because Netflix
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: ruined me. Man. I just I can't watch something and
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: wait for a week and hope it shows up next week.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: It just it triggers all kinds of you know, abandonment
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: issues and patients.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: You know, I'll tell you, I actually kind of I
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: like it in a different way. I like being able
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: to binge, but I also like the old school cliffhanger
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: having to wait a week mentality of traditional television release.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I'll do that with maybe Game of Thrones.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Game of Thrones did it with True Detective, you know,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: the ones that are real edge of your seaters.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: I halfway did it with True Detective season three. Watched
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the first four episodes and I said, I'll wait.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Then you took a couple of weeks off, and then
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: you had some little bingeable episodes for you.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Yep. In the case of Vulcan, West Virginia, we find
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: a town that is very much isolated by geography more
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: so than say culture. Right, Can we talk a little
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: bit about where Vulcan is? We said, it's in this
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: very southwestern corner of West Virginia. But what's it around?
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: Well, it's I mean, it's kind of its own weird
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: little island in some ways in that there's no connection
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: to the surrounding areas except through a little footbridge. The
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Norfolk and Western Railway runs through the middle of the town,
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: and that separates the two sides of the town from
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: one being located on the river bank. And then there
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: are ones that are up more inland on a hill
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: that is very near to a cemetery called Vulcan Hill.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: And here's the thing. I mean, even to get out
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: of the city, out of this little hamlet, you would
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: have to sometimes cross underneath parked railway cars. Kids school
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: kids had to catch the bus on the Kentucky side
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: in order to get there. They had to go to
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: some pretty perilous ends to catch the bus, and some
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: kids have even been injured. And I believe there was
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: the case of a child losing a leg in such
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: a situation.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely true. So we're looking at mountains, rivers,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: terrain that is very difficult to traverse, so much so
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that had coal not been discovered in the general vicinity here,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: you could make a fairly strong argument that no one
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: would be living there at all. You know, maybe some
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: guy decades and decades ago would have hit a moonshine
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: still out there, but even that would be pretty arduous.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: It'd still be a lot of work to get there. However,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: when coal was discovered in this area the very beginning
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of the twentieth century, a mining camp was constructed, and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: this would later grow into what we recognize as Vulcan
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: West Virginia. But the thing is, when the mining camp
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: was first constructed, when coal was first discovered there, the
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: miners who lived in the area had to row across
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the river every day just to go to work.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: That's right. And it wasn't until that mining company created
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: this very narrow wooden foot bridge that folks could actually
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: get in and out of town without having to get wet.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: So the thing I was talking about with the kids
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: and the railway cars, that was a little bit later.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that was a little bit later, but it's
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: an excellent example of the importance of this bridge and
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the problems with this bridge. Picture this. If we're going
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: to do a rod Serling intro picture this town. There's
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: one way in, there's one way out, and that's when
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: the bridge is. It drives straight into the Vulcan zone.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So the I'm freestyling here. So over the years, the
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: people who lived in this community, realizing the key nature
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: of this bridge, they took great care to maintain it.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: And when automobiles arrived, when they became a thing in
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: this part of the world, the people of Vulcan took
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: upon themselves to expand this bridge so that they could
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: drive these vehicles across. However, to your point, Noel, when
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we say expanding, we mean that they just barely made
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: it big enough for one car to drive across.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and this was diy ingenuity at its finest, because
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: they didn't have somebody swooping in to help them with infrastructure.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: It was literally an effort of the townspeople to solve
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  Speaker 3: a problem they needed solved and to cross that bridge,
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  Speaker 3: a swinging foot bridge on a car. Good Lord, that
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  Speaker 3: sounds like the was terrifying experience ever of all time. No, no,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: thank you, sir or madam.
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  Speaker 1: The way that The New York Times described this bridge
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  Speaker 1: in an article on December sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight, by
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: an author named Gregory James, was that there was no
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  Speaker 1: more than a quote thumb length margin for error on
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: either side have you ever driven around in the mountain snow?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, with the crazy switchbacks and like where you're right
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: off the edge of the cliff. You were so close,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: especially when you can't see what's in front of you,
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: and you were just trusting that around that turn, you're
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: not just going to plummet to your death.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Oh and you know what this makes me remember when
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: we did an epic road rally car trip. Casey you
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: were there, and Noel you were there, and I was
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: there as well as my good friend Scott Benjamin. We
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: had to drive through parts of West Virginia that were
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: exactly like this, switchbacks and all.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where that's where my main memories of it
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: come from. Is that very sketchy leg of that trip.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: And Scott. I don't know if you know this about Scott, folks,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: but he is a bit of a speed demon.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: He's got a lead foot.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he was not. He was taking those curbs like
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Steve McQueen and leaving us kind of clutch at least
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: me personally clutching my pearls.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: That's that's why I pressured him to switch switch to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: the wheel and ride shotgun for a while and let
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: me drive. But if you've ever been not just in
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the Appalachian area, but if you've ever been in a
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: mountainous area in general in the car, you know what
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: we're talking about. These very narrow roads and lanes that
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: hug the side of the incline with maybe maybe some
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: wooden railing, maybe nothing, And it can be very disconcerting
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: if you're a person who doesn't drive there every day,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: because people who drive there every day this is a
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: normal experience to them, so they think that they'll think
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  Speaker 1: that you are driving like, you know, like an elderly person,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: right whereas we'll think they're driving like lunatics. This is
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: one of those bridges, but it's not just in a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: mountainous area. It's over water, there's not much margin for error.
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  Speaker 1: And then throughout the decades, right they're taking care of
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  Speaker 1: this bridge. It's a key artery of the town. But
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: as we know, as recent history is shown, coal mining
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: doesn't last forever. Toward the nineteen sixties or so, the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: coal resources begin to dry up and the town feels
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: like it's entering an economic decline. It feels like there's trouble,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but they still have the bridge, at least that is
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: until July nineteen seventy five.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's when, you know, despite their best efforts to
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: keep it up. I mean, they're not professional bridge caretakers,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: and you know, understandably they've got work to do down
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  Speaker 3: in those other dangerous part of town, being the mines.
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  Speaker 3: So the bridge collapses, it crumbles, and it leaves them
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: pretty much for all intents and purposes in an automobile
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  Speaker 3: based society at this point, cut off from the outside world. Yeah,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: and in desperate need of some assistance.
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  Speaker 1: So even though things had never been particularly opulent in
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the town of Vulcan, West Virginia, now things seemed increasingly desperate.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: One person in the town described it as living at
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the tail end of nothing. They knew that this situation
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: was unsustainable. The town depended upon this bridge. Around the
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: time of the bridge collapse, a woman named Nelly Holly
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: had ordered a living room suitep from upstate further up
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: in West Virginia, and the truck arrived with the furniture,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: but the driver refused to bring the goods to the
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Holly household because the driver learned that the only road
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: into Vulcan was this How is it described a ribbon
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: of gravel and it was an even public property, right.
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: No, it belonged to the railway. It was more of
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: a more or less an access road, not intended for
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: this kind of use, and kind of in a similar
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: situation we were talking about, and that it was very narrow,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: very dangerous, and you'd be putting yourself at risk, and
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: especially since it would technically be trespassing on private property.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And so now we introduce you to a fascinating character,
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  Speaker 1: one John Robinette, who had lived in the area for
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: his entire life. He worked as a notary public, a
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: car mechanic, a carnival barker. That's something that happens in
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of small towns. There will be people who
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: have multiple different types of occupation depending upon the service
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: needed at any given day. You know. So the person
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: who runs the grocery store might also be the person
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: who hosts the annual harvest festival or something. Right, the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: person who's the dentist might also be the youth pastor.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sort of the way that football coaches don't often
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: teach history in high school.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Right, oddly, or social studies. Also, sure, that's the other one.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: So this guy, John Robinette, he is so sad that
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Miss Holly is not getting her living room sweet. It
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: moves him on an emotional level, and he says, so
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I up and appointed myself mayor and set out to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: get us a bridge. Because the bridge had obviously collapsed.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Miss Holly was seventy four years old, she had to
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: hire herself a boy to go fetch a few sticks
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: of furniture and haul it on back against the law
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: on railroad property private property. And so he made it
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: his mission as self appointed mayor to prosecute for the
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: construction of this new bridge and talk to regional politicians,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: area politicians. He eventually gets as far as speaking to
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the office of former Governor Arch Moore. However, it's a
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: close but no cigar situation, a close but no bridge situation, and.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Just for a little bit of contact. This article from
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: the New York Times that you can find online is
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: from nineteen seventy eight, so this is a very contemporary
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: account of this problem. So what happens is Phyllis Blankenship,
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: who ran the sixteen post office Box post office in Vulcan,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: recounts the story like this. He the person who appointed
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: himself mayor, mister Robinette, got on the phone got on
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: the horn with the governor and demanded a bridge be builds,
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: demanded satisfaction and close but no cigar. So you know
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: what's the obvious next step. He's been turned down by
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: the government of his own city, abandoned, left in the cold.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: You know, they're doing this this town based around the
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: very dangerous occupation contributing to the economy of the state.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: And the governor says, no, thank you. You are forgotten.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: You are marooned and forgotten. So mister Robinette comes up
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: with what I would say is one of the most
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: brilliant uses of like pr blackmail.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Almost yeah, yeah, So it's nineteen seventy six. They've just
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: been stonewalled every time, every time they ask for a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: little bit of help. Again, the bridge that collapsed was
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the only legal way in and out of the town.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: People were having to drive illegally on this flimsy ribbon
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of gravel that the train company owned. They every time
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: they asked, they were told there was no money. There's
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: no money available to spend on the bridge, according to
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: reports from the West Virginia Gazette. So this is what
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Robinette does. Mayor Robinette rights to not the local paper
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: he's already done that, not the New York Times, any
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: paper of note. Instead, he writes directly to the USSR,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, and he says, Hi, I'm the mayor
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: of Vulcan, West Virginia, a small town here in the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: United States, and we are our town is going to
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: die if we don't get this bridge. The state is
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: not going to fund us. And in my opinion, dear Russians,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I don't think Uncle Sam cares one wit about us.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: He sends this letter to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and at first, you know, at first it's like, well,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: is this joke? Is this just a prank, a little
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: bit of trolling? And the Soviet government doesn't immediately answer
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: until that is Robinette is contacted directly by a journalist
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: named Iona Andronov, a Soviet reporter who won to hear
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: this story in person.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: So in December of nineteen seventy seven, this reporter Andronov
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: touches down in Vulcan and starts making the rounds, getting
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: the scoop, pounding the pavement or the gravel, I guess,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: and asking questions of the residents and broadcasting it to
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: the rest of the world right right.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: So Endrov works for a publication in Moscow called Litterata
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Naval Gazeta, and this is solid gold, platinum level ammunition
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: for the propaganda war that's going on between the USSR
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: and the US. The problem is from Uncle Sam's side
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: that US papers also know a good headline when they
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: see it, and the US based publications pick it up
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: as well, so in a way they are disseminating Russian
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: propaganda for the USSR. The Spokane and Daily Chronicle rites
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: about this in seventy seven with the following quote Soviet officials. Well,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I'm used today by reports that the small town of
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Olk in West Virginia has appealed to the Kremlin for
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: four and eight. The town, with a population of two hundred,
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: asked the Soviet government for financial help to build a
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: bridge after the town was turned down by the US
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: and West Virginia governments.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: It's crazy that newsmen still talked like that in the
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: late seventies.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Especially since it was a printed paper and not a
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: radio announcement.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, sometimes they have to dictate, you know.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: So this is this is also during the not the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: height of the Red Scare, Communist panic but this is
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: still a time and place where people would accuse you
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: of being a communist as an insult or ask you
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: if you were a card carrying communists. Someone did ask
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Endanov and he said, yes, actually.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's sort of our thing. Yeah. It got so
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: far as to for there being rumors circulating in the
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: community that there would be bomb attacks on any bridge
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: that was built with communist cash. So you know, it
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: really created a hubbub, and that those headlines really were disseminated.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Because this is quite a juicy story. So of course,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, the good old us of a as
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: we don't like we don't like to be made fun of,
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: we don't like to be made to seem cheap, even
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: though we kind of are a lot of the time
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: acquiesced and was like, okay, okay, we can do this.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: We can we can muster the money that we need.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Now that you've put our nose to the fire, we'll
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: give you one point three million and we'll get you
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: your little bridge. Because here's the thing, though, it like
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: it was really not. The families that stayed behind after
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: the coal industry crumbled were kind of these holdouts. They
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: didn't have anywhere else to go. They couldn't afford to
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: move perhaps, and they you know, this was their home.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: And it was only like in the dozens of families
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: that lived in this very small area.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Right, it was less than it was less than one
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: hundred families, maybe maybe fifty families. But this is okay. This,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: this is where the story divides. This is where there
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: are two different versions of the story, two different narratives
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that persist in the modern day. So yes, the West
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Virginian government does agree to build this bridge, or at
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: least provide the funds to build a bridge, but they
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: do it like within hours after Andronov actually gets into Vulcan.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: They do it so quickly. So let's kick through two
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: different versions of this story. As The New York Times
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: puts it, whether by coincidence or design, the state of
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: West Virginia announced on the same day of Andronov's visit
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: that Vulcan would get this bridge they like the same
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: day he was there, he announced.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I wonder if that was because of some intelligence gathering.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe yes, So the papers have been the US papers
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and the Moscow papers were aware of this too, and
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: that means certainly the intelligence apparatus was also cognizant. But
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: from the official US government perspective, the explanation of this.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: West Virginia's explanation is that they just they were just
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in the approval process for months and months. It just
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: takes a long time to approve that much money and
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the West Virginian government. But to the people of Vulcan,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and if we're being honest, to most of the people
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: reading this story from the outside, it seemed like they
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: only reacted this way because it was an international embarrassment
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: because Mayor John Robinette had just brought a Russian person
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: down there and he said Also Robinette, for his part,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: said he doesn't he doesn't care where the money comes from. No,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: he just wants the bridge built.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: He just wants Miss Holly to get her living room
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: suite with some dignity.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: It really tied the room together. It was really important
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: for her to have that living room suite. But here's
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: the thing. I mean it it just goes to show
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: how sometimes a little weaponized pr move is exactly what
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: it takes to get those in power to act. It's
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: never doing the right thing, or often not, it's much
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: more about holding their feet of the fire and making
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: them fear the potential of looking.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Foolish, right, and in this case it worked. Two years later,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: two years after this hubbub and Bujaha, on July fourth,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, the bridge opened. It cost a little over
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: one million dollars, and the price was ultimately split between
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the governments of West Virginia and Kentucky. The residents of
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Vulcans celebrated the opening of what they called the bridge
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the Russians almost built, with an American flag waving in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the breeze and a cartoonishly large amount of illegally imported vodka.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: Now here's the PostScript of the story, or at least
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: the fictionalized PostScript, the part where the US government, in
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: a blatant act of revenge, poisons all the remaining inhabitants,
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: you know, in their sleep. Because you don't mess with
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: you know, you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Yeah.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: I don't know, that's not true. But I would be pissed.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: Wouldn't you be pissed if you were Uncle Sam.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: It depends on the different levels, you know, on a
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: federal level, I probably would be more irritated with the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: with the state government, like were I president at the time,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be irritated with the residents of vulcan I
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: wouldn't even be that irritated with the Soviets. I'd be
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: irritated with the governor of West Virginia. That's a good point,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Maybe he got.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: A talking to.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: It rolls downhill, my friend, it really does. So this
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: this is fascinating, and this stunt was successful. We have
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to wonder whether something like this could be replicated somewhere
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: else in the world, and we're working with our research associate,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Christopher Hasiotis. One thing we found was that there are
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: plenty of other examples of foreign aid being given to
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the US or other countries attempting to give foreign aid
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: to the US, like famously, the Massi in Kenya after
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: the tragedy of nine to eleven on September eleventh, two
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: thousand and one, the attack on the World Trade Center,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the Massill donated cattle to the US. Did you do
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: you remember this story?
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: I do not.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Y's heartwarmings. So the Massill live in a relatively
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: rural area of Kenya, but when they learned what happened
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: in New York on September eleventh. They were they were
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: so horrified and sad. They felt like they needed to
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: do something. So they blessed fourteen cows in a pretty
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: solemn ceremony and then gave these cows to the Deputy
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: Chief of Mission at the US Embassy and Nairobi, a
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: guy named William Brankick, and they said, here, please bring
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: these to the people of New York and let them know,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you know that they are in our thoughts. And I
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: thought that was hard warming, because that's not propaganda at all.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: That's just being very human, you know what I mean.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: So I want to I'm bringing that example up because
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I do want to point out that not every foreign
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: act of charity is a propaganda move. The Russian one was, though,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: totally the record. That was one.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And now you can, I think, still visit this
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: area through that very bridge that was constructed, the bridge
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: that the Russians almost built, which is now a single small,
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: two lane road bridge over the Tug which is just
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: a single lane tunnel bridge that is covered in graffiti,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: which I love that in and it's almost like its
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: own little mini Berlin wall.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: And this is where our story ends today. However, never
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: fear it's not the end of our show. We will
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: be back with more strange dare we say, ridiculous tales
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: of people, places, and events throughout this the weird experiment
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: that we call human civilization. In the meantime, we want
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to hear from you, folks. Do you have any stories
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: from it? I in particular will be personally fascinated by
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: any stories of the Appalachian Mountains. But regardless of where
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: you live in the world, do you have any stories
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: like this, any very isolated towns that had to use
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: unorthodox means to for survival?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, any bridge related stories? And hey, if you're a
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: New Yorker, are you a bridge or a tunnel person?
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: What do you prefer? Let us nice? It really is.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Cab drivers are often after that, and I'm like, I
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: don't know which everyone's best.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I think part of it is, you know, the cab
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: drivers will present it in terms of what's better given
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: traffic patterns. But a lot of people do have crippling
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: fears of either going on bridges, like my mother hates bridges,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: or they have a fear of going into the ground,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you know. So it's really is a polite way to
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: ask which terrifies you least.
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: That's a really interesting way of looking at it, and
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: I never thought of that, So let us know which
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: terrifies you most or least. You can write to us
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: at Ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot com. You can check out
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: our social media presencies at Facebook where you can join
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: our group called the Ridiculous Historians, which we find to
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: be a lot of.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: Fun, and you can follow us both personally. We have
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: our very own instagrams nol you've got one, Yeah, it's.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: At Embryonic Insider and.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I'm at ben Boland Thinks as always to our super producer,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram thanks to we're research associate. Friend of the show,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Christopher hasiotis who we're overdue to have a guest appearance.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: We really are.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: He's always the best.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: In fact sometimes on the One thing you have to
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: do to join Ridiculous Stories on Facebook is say who
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: name one of us as the host and occasionally some
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: whole named Christopher, which I appreciate because he appears so infrequently,
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: his appearances must really make an impact.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I love all the guests that we have on our show,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and you know, it gets weird, but always weird in
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a good Way. Thanks also to Alex Williams who composed
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: our track, to our research associate Gabe and Noel. Thanks
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: to the people of West Virginia.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Really, they are resilient people and they know how to
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: get stuff done. We'll see you next time, folks. For
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.