WALKER ROAD MAN BOB MOLLOHAN, A PERSON OF PLACE - Floe Post Office Operated 40-Years By Family

(10/06/2024)

Person of place Bob Mollohan holds forth at Floe, WV, the head
of Walker Creek with a thousand memories of backwoods life

By Bob Weaver 8-2022

Seventy-seven year old Bob Mollohan is a porch-sitter along the headwaters of Walker Creek, which winds its way from Chloe WV to a spot where Calhoun, Clay and Braxton counties join.

Walker Creek is a rugged backwoods place, filled with the history of its settlers.

Mollohan lives on his birthplace, the faded Village of Floe (originally called Liddy), where his mother was postmistress for about 40 years.

When neighbors were asked about Bob Mollohan, likely a distant relative of the late Calhoun US Congressman Bob Mollohan, they said the elderly bachelor is a quiet, reclusive man who always waves at every car that goes by - a man of place, only leaving the valley for a few years to work in Ohio.

Roy Mollohan's homeplace, he never
cottoned to leaving the mountains

His father, Roy O. Mollohan (1914-2002) and mother Hazel Santy (1917-1995) Mollohan, had four children, raised in a single-story Jenny Lind house along the creek.

"I've never wanted to venture far," Mollohan graciously said, who still drives to Gassaway for groceries.

Floe Post Office (above) perhaps one of smallest in the USA,
shown here is the Postmistress Hazel Mollohan, requir-
ing users to drive across Walker Creek or use a footbridge

His mother, Hazel, woke up every morning to insert the American flag on the tiny 8-10 foot Floe post office, originally operated by Ora D. Siers. She recalled a time the PO had 75 customers.

Hazel, in a story written in 1983 by Charleston reporter Ferrell Friend said, "Nothing much happens here, a farming community. It's off the beaten path. I've never traveled much, and don't care to."

She recalled the Floe Post Office was broken into many years ago, "They stole one soldier boys government check, and they caught three fellows a few days later, the check still with them."