When all of Huntington’s many mayors are ranked, a select few stand head and shoulders superior. George I. Neal is one of them. In his “Cabell County Annals and Families,” George S. Wallace singled him out as a man “destined to be a dominant factor in city, county and state politics for a generation.”
Neal was born just outside Milton in 1868, attended the Milton schools, taught school for a brief period, and then attended West Virginia University, graduating from the WVU College of Law in 1888.
He was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Huntington in 1892. He then was elected to that post in 1893, serving until 1895. Neal was only 24 years old when he was elected. Thus, Huntington had to go 23 days without a mayor until Neal became old enough to be sworn into office.
During the Neal administration, the city saw many workers lose their jobs in what was called the “Cleveland Panic.” The C&O Shops laid off a great number of its employees and the Ensign rail car plant closed down entirely. Urged on by Neal, the city undertook construction of a railroad underpass at 16th Street and a trunk sewer line, also located at 16th Street. The two projects provided jobs for a number of the city’s unemployed.
Neal’s services to the city didn’t come to a halt when he left the mayor’s office. Over a period of years, he spearheaded the efforts to bring Central City and Guyandotte into the City of Huntington. Those efforts were crowned with success when Central City agreed to be annexed in 1909 and Guyandotte agreed in 1911. And he played an instrumental role in bringing about the commission form of government in Huntington.
An early president of the Huntington Chamber of Commerce, he was a deacon and Sunday school teacher at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church. He capped his legal career with his appointment as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.
