WETZEL COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA ****************************************************************** Submitted to the West Virginia Biographies Project by: Valerie & Tommy Crook vfcrook@earthlink.net July 23, 2000 ****************************************************************** The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 530 Wetzel CHARLES E. KREBS, of Charleston, is a mining engineer and geologist of thirty years' experience and an acknowl- edged authority among the engineers and economic geol- ogists in the coal districts of West Virginia. He is also an authority on oil and. gas deposits in West Virginia, and a member of the Western states. Mr. Krebs was born at New Martinsville, Wetzel County, West Virginia, May 19, 1870, a son of John W. and Eliz- abeth (Hubacher) Krebs. His grandfather, Nicholas Krebs, was a native of Alsace-Lorraine, served as a soldier under the great Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, and a year after that battle came with his family to America and settled in Ohio, where he lived until his death, in 1855, at the age of seventy years. John W. Krebs was born in Ohio, and spent his active life as a farmer and carpenter in Wetzel County, West Virginia, where he died in 1908, at the age of seventy-seven years. Up to the age of sixteen Mr. Krebs lived on a farm, attended common schools, and from sixteen to nineteen he taught in rural schools. He then entered West Virginia University, where he pursued a scientific and engineering course, and graduated with the degree Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering in 1894. The work he has done since graduation comprises a notable volume of professional interests. Up to 1897 he was engineer on location and construction of the Charles- ton-Clendenin & Sutton Railroad from Charleston to Elkins. During 1898-1900 he was a mining engineer in the New River coal field. In 1900 he became a member of the firm Clark & Krebs, and for eight years did prospecting and development work on coal properties, railroad con- struction, the building of coke ovens and the study of the different coal measures in West Virginia and Kentucky. In 1908 Mr. Krebs was appointed assistant geologist of the West Virginia Geological Survey, and worked as as- sistant to the distinguished Dr. I. C. White, West Virginia's grand old man of science. For six years he gathered ata, made investigations of the resources of West Vir- ginia, and submitted these data for publication to Doctor White. The detailed reports published by the survey, based on the data supplied by Mr. Krebs, are as follows: Detailed report of Jackson, Mason and Putnam counties, 1911; Cabell, Wayne and Lincoln counties, 1913; Kanawha County, 1914; Boone County, 1915; Raleigh, Summers and Mercer counties, 1916. Since 1915 Mr. Krebs has been engaged in general geological work and mining engineering in West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and several Western states. He has made a specialty of reports and valuation of coal, oil and gas properties. In 1919 he published the Fuel Ratio of Coal, showing the qualities of the West Virginia coals as com- pared with those of Ohio. During the years 1921-22 he assisted the state tax commissioner of West Virginia in making a small valuation of the coal lands in West Virginia for state taxation purposes. Mr. Krebs is a member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, and has been secre- tary of the Charleston section of that association. He is also a member of the West Virginia Coal Mining Institute. Before a convention of coal and mining engineers at Huntington in September, 1921, he read a carefully pre- pared article on coal deposits and production of Southern West Virginia. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, is a Knight Templar and Thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and is a charter member of the Rotary Club. In 1899 Mr. Krebs married Miss Donnie Carr, of Clay County, West Virginia. She died two years later. In 1905 he married Josephine Stephens, of Paden City, West Virginia. They have one son, Charles Gregory, born Decem- ber 10, 1907, and is now attending high school.