Inside Sandra Mitchell’s living room, family photos — some in black and white and others in color — line the wall. On an adjacent wall, graduation portraits and pictures of her grandchildren hang in wooden frames.
While sitting in her recliner, she pointed out each photo and recalled each memory beyond the frames. She’s lived in the community of Henderson all of her life.
Nestled on the banks of two major rivers — the Kanawha and the Ohio — Henderson is now being eyed for redevelopment. The community is just a 15-minute drive from the new Nucor Steel plant being built in Apple Grove.
Mason County development officials want to capitalize on the surge of industries moving in and the jobs they’ll create, and they’re trying to buy land and bulldoze homes to do it.
“We’ll bring in box stores, restaurants, hotels. It will be an ideal location for any major given company that we’d want to deal with,” John Musgrave, then-executive director of the Mason County Development Authority (MCDA), told West Virginia Public Broadcasting in 2023.
Last year, an official approached Mitchell, offering $41,000 for her home. But she declined. And this past summer when they returned with another offer of $45,000, she refused again.
She said she wasn’t willing to accept what they offered because her home is more valuable on the market and housing is too expensive everywhere else.
“I’m on a fixed income,” she said. “Where am I supposed to go?”
Some residents in Henderson have sold, and others are fighting to stay, saying they don’t want to be pushed out to make way for new developments.
Musgrave said the MCDA is not enforcing eminent domain or working to force residents out and is not looking to profit from selling properties.
“We’ve told everybody if you feel you can’t sell, and it’s to your benefit to stay right where you are, that’s fine,” Musgrave told WCHS in 2023.
Musgrave retired on Tuesday. Last month, the county commission dissolved the MCDA board over concerns of financial conflicts of interest among some board members and referenced the ongoing state police investigation that began last year.
As Henderson is quickly sold for development, and the community whittles away, residents have demanded answers.
Mitchell is trying to fight back with help from her son and daughter-in-law. She said they’ve started tearing down homes on her block and the other end of town, including an old building that used to be a coffee shop.
“They haven’t started building anything,” she said.
Sandra’s daughter-in-law, Summer Mitchell, said residents aren’t being offered a fair value for their properties and the family has been left in the dark by the MCDA.
“We haven’t heard anything,” she said. “We just continue to watch everything around my mother-in-law get bulldozed over.”
Officials are anticipating rapid growth in Mason County
Since before the pandemic, Mason County’s population has declined annually, according to the county’s most recent economic development plan. The plan also highlighted an analysis of Mason County’s workforce using federal data.
Between 2010 and 2019, the county witnessed a 17% decline in full-time and part-time jobs. The healthcare and social services sector employed the most residents.
Officials wrote in the plan they hoped proposed development projects would increase the population and workforce.
“With Nucor and the new industries in the county, finding employees from the area will be a challenge,” said the Mason County Family Resource Network executive director Greg Fowler.
Because of Mason County’s declining population, state and local economic development officials are working aggressively to pursue development projects to create jobs and stimulate growth.
State officials have handed out hundreds of millions of tax dollars to Nucor Steel and Fidelis New Energy with the promise of creating more jobs.
Markee Schindler, spokesperson for Nucor Steel’s West Virginia office, said construction of the steel mill is about 40% complete, and they expect it to be finished by the end of next year.
“We are so excited to be part of the Mason County community, and we are grateful for the support from local community organizations and the State of West Virginia,” Schindler said.
The MCDA has sought to redevelop the county in anticipation of population growth once the Nucor and Fidelis plants are completed.
“I think in the next 10 years, Mason County has the opportunity to triple in population,” Musgrave told West Virginia Public Broadcasting in 2023.
Schindler said the company has already hired 300 local full-time employees and is working to find more.
The Henderson redevelopment project
County development officials have identified 65 acres of land in Henderson to purchase and develop, according to a letter of intent between the MCDA and Tennessee-based Interstate Development signed in August 2024 that outlines the proposal to redevelop the area.
The project will be funded primarily from state grants, but any remaining costs could be paid by property taxes and special tax revenue.
Once properties are obtained, the land will be raised by 10 feet out of the flood plain and then ownership will be transferred to Interstate Development to build and find business tenants. According to the agreement, the MCDA will provide the company with a list of approved tenants.
The development company’s co-owner Brent Roswall declined to comment, citing the project’s early development stages. The MCDA also did not answer questions after multiple calls and emails and a visit to the authority’s office.
County development officials said they would offer to pay residents the tax-assessed value of their homes — which are assessed every three years by the Mason County tax assessor. Homeowners also could get their own appraisal for the value of their homes.
Last week, a local TV station reported that the development authority owned 65% of the former town. Some residents have sold for less than the tax assessed value of their homes, and some have sold for far more, according to publicly available deeds of sale for the properties.
However, Musgrave has insisted that the project can still move forward if residents decide not to sell.
“We’ll try to work around if we can. If we can’t, we’ll do a smaller project,” Musgrave told WCHS in 2023.
Staci McClellan sold her property to the authority in September 2023. She decided to sell after a community meeting where development officials described their plans for Henderson.
“We were led to believe that if we didn’t sell, we’d have to move eventually and we’d get nothing,” she said.
She accepted a $53,000 offer after trying to counter despite officials offering her less than the tax assessment value. She said she was told she could take everything with her including the trailer on the land.
However, after she signed the necessary paperwork, development officials told her they needed the title to her trailer, forcing her to spend more money on a new one, she said.
Now, McClellan lives a few miles away in Gallipolis Ferry in a smaller trailer and on new property with her grandchildren.
But she still leaves behind precious memories and priceless possessions, including the porcelain claw-foot tub her mother gifted her in Henderson.
“If you want the truth, they screwed us,” she said.