Virgil A. Lewis was an educator and historian born near West Columbia on July 6, 1848, who died in Mason City on December 5, 1912, and was buried in Point Pleasant. He founded the Southern Historical Magazine in 1892, served as State Superintendent of Schools from 1893 to 1897, and was the first State Historian and Archivist from 1905 to 1912. He wrote many books, among them How West Virginia Was Made, History and Government of West Virginia, and Hand Book of West Virginia.