They were really embarrassed about being blue, he said. Come on, Grafton rednecks. It was hard to get out, so they intermarried, says Dennis Stacy, a 51-year-old coal miner and amateur genealogist who has filled a loose-leaf notebook with the laboriously traced blood lines of several local families. Methemoglobinemia is a rare hereditary blood disorder that results from excess levels of methomoglobin (metHb) in the blood. Zach took the doctor even farther up Copperhead Hollow to see his Aunt Bessie Fugate, who was blue. "If you took any random person in the population, maybe one in 100,000 would carry this gene, if that many," says Ricki Lewis, a science writer and author of the textbook "Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications," now in its 13th edition. At West Virginia University in Morgantown, it . WEST VIRGINIA (DC News Now) The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) said that it finished analyzing samples of last week's mystery dust. They were poor people, concurs Nurse Pendergrass, but they were good.References1. Since rail lines and paved roads didn't make it out to Troublesome Creek for nearly a century, the blue recessive gene was passed down to generations of Fugates and neighboring families, all of whom came to be known as "the blue people of Kentucky.". Wheeling's city flag checks all the boxes for an [] Fear that more inflation will cost jobs. Cause, you know, rednecks like to hunt, drink, smoke and shoot things. History of West Virginia. Lunas father, Levy Fugate, was one of Zachariah Fugates sons. ( Returnto the corrected sentence.). Population: 5,258Walmart rank: 1stChew factor: 1stAmmo per capita: 9th. url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/40/MontserratExtraBold/montserrat-extrabold-webfont.ttf') format('truetype'), "The True Story of the Blue People of Kentucky" Dr. Madison Cawein III began treatment with many tests. The trait is recessive and when homozygous gives affected individuals, a distinctly blue color to their skin and chronic weakness. Native Americans first began to gather in the Appalachian Mountains some 16,000 years ago. The arrival of enslaved Africans in the area dates back to the 16th century. "That's crazy.". Yep, thats right. Cawein and his colleagues published their research on hereditary diaphorase deficiency in the Archives of Internal Medicine (April, 1964) in 1964. For the Fugates, family members expressed the gene to varying degrees. And a Walmart all to their own. Those who are otherwise healthy with levels under 15% may exhibit minor symptoms or none at all. Luna has been dead nearly 20 years now, but her widower survives. Cancel any time, no strings attached. Sometimes they married first cousins. The number of tobacco stores per capita (we call it the chew factor) is the highest in West Virginia here in Charles Town. He was a French orphan who knew nothing of his lineage. Some sites say 100%. "But if you're marrying your cousin, it's one in eight. By the time a young hematologist from the University of Kentucky came down to Troublesome Creek in the 1960s to cure the blue people, Martin Fugates descendants had multiplied their recessive genes all over the Cumberland Plateau. My grandmother Luna on my dads side was a blue Fugate. You have the most bars and trailer parks per capita in the state, and your high school graduation rate is 70%. src: url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/41/MontserratExtraLight/montserrat-extralight-webfont.eot?#iefix') format('embedded-opentype'), Cawein, Madison, et. March 8, 2012— -- Kerry Green was a "blue baby," born in 1964 in Tulsa, Okla., and his family was given little hope that he would live because of a malformed aorta. Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. It seems as if this area is generally, more wealthy than the other cities on this list. Add to calendar. They sing in the Stacy Family Gospel Band and have provided their children with a beautiful home and a menagerie of pets, including horses. Hereditary diaphorase deficiency and methemoglobinemia. RoadSnacks is reader-supported. Benjy lost his blue tint within a few weeks, and now he is about as normal looking a seven-year-old boy as you could hope to find. Researchers believe this to truly be the case, a result of the family suffering from a genetic condition called methemoglobinemia, which is an excess of methemoglobin in the red blood cells of the body. Wait. 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. Somebody with only one gene would not have the condition but could pass the gene to a child. valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible Stephanie Pittman 561 followers More information Blue People of West Virginia | . It began whenMartin Fugate, aFrench orphan, settled on the banks of eastern Kentuckys Troublesome Creek to claim a land grant in the early 19th century. Different spellings of the surname sometimes include "Fugett" and "Fugitt". And at least in one famous case, a man turned his skin permanently blue from drinking too much colloidal silver supplements and rubbing colloidal silver cream on his skin (the condition is called argyria or silver poisoning). When young people started moving away from the farms surrounding Troublesome Creek in the mid-20th century, they took their recessive blue genes with them. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. try{ e.c=jQuery(e.c);var i=jQuery(window).width(),t=9999,r=0,n=0,l=0,f=0,s=0,h=0; You know theres lots of rednecks here when you look at the numbers. Adena burial mound. 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. Everyone around here knows about the blue Fugates, says Hilda Stacy who, at 26, looks more like a sister than a mother to her children. My first reaction to this story was wondering whether there was a scientific reason, or condition perhaps, that acted as a precursor to this belief of a skin condition that was a result of incest. The boy inherited his fathers lankiness and his mothers slightly nasal way of speaking. All them old fellers way back then was blue. They went over to Patrick and Rachel Ritchies house and injected each of them with 100 milligrams of methylene blue. It added residential housing options that include double or single rooms with full meal plans. It was almost purple, his father recalls. The story of an Appalachian malady, an inquisitive doctor, and a paradoxical cure. "Location: Primarily centered in Barbour and Taylor counties, West Virginia. Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks.com article: Dave Roos It was painful. Bessie had an iron pot of clothes boiling in her front yard, but she graciously allowed the doctor to draw some of her blood. url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/41/MontserratExtraLight/montserrat-extralight-webfont.woff') format('woff'), Many wonder why eggs are so diverse. The Fugate family intermarried with a neighbouring family for generations, which led to a relatively pure gene pool, often including the met-H gene. Even so, Cawein still gets calls for advice. Bannon's emotions overflowed over Rep. Mike Gallagher bashing Wisconsin's 1950's commie witch-hunter Joseph McCarthy. } The methaemoglobinaemia condition, or met-H, reduces someones ability to carry oxygen in the blood, leaving it darker than the colour typically found in veins. .recentcomments a{display:inline !important;padding:0 !important;margin:0 !important;}function setREVStartSize(e){ It was real bad in her, Alva Stacy, the boys father, explained. Have you ever heard of the blue Fugates of Troublesome Creek? Yep, that's right. One of em I remember seeing him when I was just a boy Blue Anze, they called him. Consignment Eyeglass Frames, What neither she nor Martin could have known is that they both carried the recessive gene for a rare hereditary blood disorder called methemoglobinemia. Within a few minutes. Because the boy was intensely blue at birth but then recovered his normal skin tones, Benjy is assumed to have inherlted only one gene for the condition. The doctor gave each blue family a supply of methylene blue tablets to take as a daily pill. The Informant learned this information from her brother, when he returned home after his first semester at school. 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. For some, though, there was a pain not seen in lab tests. Where is this area located in eastern KY? Cancel any time, no strings attached. Folklore maintained the Fugates were blue due to heart disease or lung problems. So you can tell if someone is a product of incest if their skin is blue! West Virginia Blue People Text The following piece was collected at a dinner table with a group of girls out celebrating a friend's birthday. Cawein advised giving the child methylene blue and not worrying about it. Patrick was all hunched down in the hall. West Virginia: County: Tyler: Elevation. What Happened to the Blue People? The antidote worked quickly but patients were required to take daily doses as it passed quickly through the urine. The clan kept multiplying. Benjy was born in a maternity ward near Hazard, Kentucky and was rushed by ambulance to a medical clinic in Lexington to find help for his blue problem. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. If youre analyzing smaller cities in West Virginia with blue collar workers, where people have lots of options for drinking, smoking, hunting and Walmarting, this is an accurate list. 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. They took the doctor to see their uncle, who was blue, too. [6], Descendants with the gene continued to live near Troublesome Creek and Ball Creek into the 20th century. He knew the same thing was happening in this secluded corner of Appalachia. When West Virginia University decided to put "Black Lives Matter" decals on the back of their football helmets, the reaction by the people of . "I started asking them questions: 'Do you have any relatives who are blue?' }; Stumped, the doctor turned to the medical literature for a clue. Population: 10,486Mobile home parks in area: 3rd in WVBars per capita: 3rdGun stores per capita: 5th in West Virginia. They are known for being carriers of a genetic trait that led to the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, causing the skin to appear blue. Scott also concluded that the condition was inherited as a simple recessive trait. What he got from Martin Fugate was dark blue skin. But by 3 years old and . 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.. This small enclave was no longer isolated and they began to disperse and marry outside of their little clan diminishing the effect of the "blue" gene. This is redneck wonderland. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. 1 talking about this. Martin Fugate was a French orphan who emigrated to Kentucky in 1820 to claim a land grant on the wilderness banks of Troublesome Creek. This is redneck wonderland. Houses belonging to people that lived in the valley were mostly torn down. The Fugate family of Kentucky once lived in the isolated community of Troublesome Creek. 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