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The beautiful valleys of
Western Maryland, where the Potomac River starts its winding
course to the nation’s capital, first attracted settlers in the
early 1770s. Among the first arrivals were the Davis brothers,
who established a saw mill where the town of Luke now stands.
The mill provided cross-ties to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
as it pushed its rails westward through the Piedmont area of
what is now West Virginia. When the railroad suspended building
in the 1880s, the Davis brothers disbanded and sold their
property to the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company.
About that same time, William Luke and two of his sons
arrived. They assiduously applied themselves to developing the
the place they had adopted. When the railroad needed a name for
the stop it established there, it happily accepted “Luke.”
Over the next several decades, Luke prospered with the
operation of the paper mill, the influx of other “heavy”
industrial concerns, and the establishment of the usual
supporting Mom and Pop businesses. Nearby, along the Savage
River, there was a gun factory that provided muskets with
bayonets for the United States Army at Harper’s Ferry.
With Luke’s growth came citizens’ concerns about educational
and social issues. Schooling in private homes and business
buildings was relocated to a two-room schoolhouse. Growing
enrollment in the first through eighth grades brought about
construction of a fine new school that opened in September,
1913. It served the town well for forty-six years, sending well
educated students off to high school in Westernport. When the
school closed in 1959, the building was converted for use as the
town’s administrative offices—the City Building.
Luke has changed from a booming industrial town to a small
quiet community with an appreciated big neighbor in its back
yard— the Westvaco Corporation, successor to the West Virginia
Pulp and Paper Mill. With the population declining, homes and
businesses have been purchased and demolished to make room for
Westvaco’s expansion. There are no small businesses left within
the town’s corporate limits. People who live, or have lived, in
Luke never lose their affection for the community, as witnessed
by the hundreds of people who converge for the town’s annual
August Homecoming. As far as they are concerned, Luke should be
the blueprint for all American towns.
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