Hancock House: Duke Ellington's West Virginia Stop

The Hancock House in Bluefield, West Virginia was built in nineteen oh seven as a prosperous merchant's home. Charles Hancock had made his money in mining hardware, and his large American Foursquare house reflected that success. By nineteen sixty-two, the house had passed to the Alpha Zeta Lambda Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, becoming the largest house owned by African Americans in the region.

Under fraternity stewardship it became the cultural center of Bluefield's Black community. Duke Ellington, a member of the fraternity, performed here in nineteen sixty-six. The house hosted civil rights organizing and NAACP gatherings through the nineteen seventies.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen ninety, it stands as a record of Black civic life in the coalfield era.