From GREATER WHEELING AND VICINITY
By Charles A. Winegerter, 1912; page 671.
     
Contributed by Linda Fluharty. 


LAWRENCE G. ORR, of Loudensville, is a successful business man who began life 
at the lowest grade of service in one of the great industries of the country 
and by hard work and business judgement promoted himself to independence and 
substantial success. He is one of the leading citizens of Moundsville and is 
president and general manager of the Mound City Coal Company. His associate 
in the ownership and management of this business is Mr. Claude B. Sharp, of 
Pittsburgh.  The tract, from under which they produce about eight hundred 
tons of coal a day, contains about eight hundred acres, and their operating 
force consists of an average of onc hundred and thirty. The business is one 
of 
the large industrial assets of Moundsville. The mechanical equipment of the 
mine is of the modern type, and the coal veins are worked through a shaft of 
one hundred and fifty-two feet drop.
     Mr. Orr is a native of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. where he was 
born in 1879. He was the second in the family of six children of David and 
Lena M. Orr, of Westmoreland county. His opportunities in the common and high 
school of the county he utilized for a practical preparation for life, and 
during boyhood he also gained the training for the main business of his 
career. He began by driving mules to coal cars, later handled the pick as an 
actual miner, and continued through the departments of the business until his 
ability brought him to the control and operation of one of the extensive 
mines of West Virginia. Mr. Orr was married in 1904 to Miss Charlotte B. 
Stephenson.