And a Walmart all to their own. As scientists discovered in the 1960s, the mutation that causes the Smurf-like skin is carried by a recessive gene, and it takes two people with that same gene to produce a blue child. Not myth or legend; The Blue People of Kentucky were an isolated enclave of Appalachian people who lived with an embarrassing skin discoloration until a young hematologist took notice and found a solution. It can make a claim that it should top this list, since it has the most people. The enzyme eventually builds to normal levels in most children and to almost normal levels in those like Benjy, who carry one gene. The bluest Fugates I ever saw was Luna and her kin, says Carrie Lee Kilburn, a nurse who works at the rural medical center called Homeplace Clinic. Book is out of print, borrowed from Special Collections at the St. Louis County Library, St. Louis, MO. } Stacy counts Fugate blood in his own veins. Martin and Elizabeth had seven children, four being born blue; Zachariah, who was blue, married his mother's sister. From California herself, the informant was very curious to hear about what the people of West Virginia were like. One of em I remember seeing him when I was just a boy Blue Anze, they called him. Feeder food: Grain and birdseed. Martin and Elizabeth Fugates blue children multiplied in this natural isolation tank. The condition is called methemoglobinemia, which is a disorder that reduces the amount of oxygen in the blood and body tissues . valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible West Virginia Mountains Fall Foliage The Mountain Spruce Fall Colors Beautiful Pictures Valley Amaranth Cows More information . 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. The doctor was recently approached by the producers of the television show Thats Incredible. They wanted to parade the blue people across the screen in their weekly display of human oddities. 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. The Blue Ridge was reached in 1670, and in 1671 another expedition encountered the first westward-flowing stream, the New River, in southwestern Virginia. When Two Strangers Lost the Genetic Lottery, Special Offer on Antivirus Software From HowStuffWorks and TotalAV Security, Human Genetics: Concepts and Applications, reactions to certain topical pain relievers. In 2019, the novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Richardson, described a fictional version of the Fugate family during the Great Depression. Stacy courted her, married her, and moved over from Troublesome Creek to make a living in timber on her daddys land. Finding it ridiculous herself, the Informant told me that she still enjoys being a part of the joke. Generations later, a descendant of Martin Fugate, Benjy Stacy, would be born "blue". The strain of inherited blue began to disappear as the recessive gene spread to families where it was unlikely to be paired with a similar gene. A few occur in Garrett County, Maryland. Exaggeration-prone outsiders. You couldve done even better than that. The mountain range is located in the eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsylvania through Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. He helped isolate an antidote for cholera, and he did some of the early work on L-dopa, the drug for Parkinsons disease. The Informant learned this information from her brother, when he returned home after his first semester at school. H & S Sporting Goods, Princeton, WV. Eventually, Cawein gained their trust and began taking blood samples. They took the doctor to see their uncle, who was blue, too. THE town of Odd, West Virginia is a quiet, rural countryside, despite all the buzz surrounding the infamous inbred family, The Whittakers, who live within it. Grafton has the highest percentage of its population that didnt finish high school. 39, 1960) that the answer began to emerge. With Fugate blood on both his mothers and his fathers side, the boy could have received genes for the enzyme deficiency from either direction. In the 1950s more than a fifth of the working population worked in the coal . Levy married a Ritchie girl and bought 200 acres of rolling land along Ball Creek. Upon further research, I saw that the original story was based on a specific family that was said to be suffering from blue-tinted skin. Some 14,000 years ago Native American hunters entered the Ohio and Kanawha valleys in pursuit of mammoths. This is redneck wonderland. Dr. Madison Cawein III began treatment with many tests. Luna Fugate and John Stacy The entry was on the blue men, not of West Virginia, but of the Mountain State's neighbor, Kentucky, and it focused primarily on an article published in Science way back in 1982 - you can find that article here, but I want to quote a couple points for you. Bessie had an iron pot of clothes boiling in her front yard, but she graciously allowed the doctor to draw some of her blood. The solution, oddly enough, was a commonly used dye called methylene blue. But by 3 years old and . url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/40/MontserratExtraBold/montserrat-extrabold-webfont.ttf') format('truetype'), Dating back to the early 1800s, an isolated family in eastern Kentucky who can trace their roots back to a French orphan started producing children who were blue. Cawein, Madison, et. Just like the Alaskans, their blood had accumulated so much of the blue molecule that it over- whelmed the red of normal hcmoglobin that shows through as pink in the skin of most Caucasians. It can be brought on by several things: abnormal hemoglobin formation, an enzyme deficiency, and taking too much of certain drugs, including vitamin K, which is essential for blood clotting and is abundant in pork liver and vegetable oil. Written family records do not indicate Martin's skin color, but family legend says he was blue. Using Yelp and Google Maps, this is the criteria we used: Note: For the sake of getting reliable numbers, we counted places within a citys border, as well as within a short driving distance. Hearing this story and conducting some research of my own led me to believe that people love to come up with their explanation for things they cannot explain, no matter how perplex. The bluest Fugates I ever saw was Luna and her kin, says Carrie Lee Kilburn, a nurse who works at the rural medical center called Homeplace Clinic. Theyre prominently featured in reality television. Population: 5,258Walmart rank: 1stChew factor: 1stAmmo per capita: 9th. If their blood had a lower concentration of methemoglobin, they might only blush blue in cold weather, while people with higher concentrations of methemoglobin were bright blue from head to toe. Cawein would have no part of it, and he related with glee the news that a film crew sent to Kentucky from Hollywood fled the two mean dogs in every front yard without any film. This spring water is 74.3 degrees, and it is known to have a natural curing ability. In 2014, the lowest-cost bronze plan in the WV exchange was an average of $280/month, higher than the national average of $249. However, only 89% are white, and a whopping 83% finished high school. Martin and Elizabeth set up housekeeping on the banks of Troublesome and began a family. Cawein, in researching the family lines in Perry County, Kentucky and with the help of Fugate Family Bibles, found in fact, that the Fugates had married Fugates, had married first cousins, and had intermarried with families whose surnames were: Combs, Smith, Ritchie, and Stacy. It like to scared me to death! Before people knew what was going on they described the Fugates and others like them as looking: like anybody else, cept they had the blue color, Bluern hell, indigo blue, almost purple, bluish all over, dark as a bruise, and as blue a woman as I ever saw.. Its common. They are known for being carriers of a genetic trait that led to the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, causing the skin to appear blue. "The True Story of the Blue People of Kentucky" Population: 6,427High school graduation rate: 70%Bars per capita: 1st in WVMobile home parks per capita: 1st. Neighboring Virginia has more than 200 per square mile. url('//www.incandina.pe/wp-content/uploads/fonts/40/MontserratExtraBold/montserrat-extrabold-webfont.woff') format('woff'), Had you guys just ditched school even more, you might have won this whole thing. It would be hard to doubt this gracious man except that you cant find another person who knew Luna who doesnt remember her as being blue. 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.". In 2021, the novel Blue-Skinned Gods by S. J. Sindu references a family from Kentucky with methemoglobinemia but does not use the surname Fugate. She gets upset at all the talk of inbreeding among the Fugates. One could inherit the gene, not get the blood disorder, but pass the gene on to a child. This condition does, in fact, cause blue-tinted. The couple had eight children, including Luna. Cawein advised giving the child methylene blue and not worrying about it. 1: Mothman The granddaddy of all West Virginia monsters, Mothman has gained worldwide notoriety. Her face and her fingernails were almost indigo blue. al. 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. It was almost purple, his father recalls. Google Maps, KCR Barrel Saloon, Charles Town, WV. 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. Mary (Dawley) Fugate, who answers quite a few queries and also helped compile the genealogy book, indicates that the siblings of Martin Fugate were not blue but he must have been a carrier. (Baltimore: Gateway Press 1986). valley in the mountains in West Virginia with a barn and cows visible West Virginia Mountains Fall Foliage The Mountain Spruce Fall Colors Beautiful Pictures On a hypothesis, he gave a substance called methylene blue to family members who were willing to take it. Elizabeth had pale white skin, almost translucent. Hereditary diaphorase deficiency and methemoglobinemia. Cawein was determined to find a cause and possibly a solution to help this small group of isolated Appalachian people. Cherokee Indians were the main Native American group of the Southern Appalachian and Blue Ridge region, but there were also Iroquois, Powhatan, and Shawnee people.. Direct report to President, directed the development and execution of . Their inbreeding led to several medical problems and recessive genes being passed down through each child, such as one that gave some of the offspring blue skin. [9], Benjamin Stacy, born in 1975, was the last known descendant of the Fugates to have been born exhibiting the characteristic blue color of the disorder, though he quickly lost his blue skin tone, exhibiting only blue tinges on his lips and fingertips when he became cold or agitated.[5]. Excise tax on bottled soft drinks, syrups and dry mixtures; disposition thereof. @font-face { He knew the same thing was happening in this secluded corner of Appalachia. 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