Born in Ohio in 1878, Leon Stivers Wiles was the general manager of the Huntington Tobacco Warehouse Company.
He was elected mayor in May 1918.
In the fall of 1918, hundreds of people in Huntington fell victim to the Spanish Flu, the influenza epidemic that claimed the lives of so many millions around the world.
As the disease spread, Huntington’s hospitals were quickly filled to capacity. Families were forced to care for flu victims in their homes. The Huntington Rotary Club even issued a public appeal for volunteer nurses to care for those flu victims who had no families to help them.
By late October, newspaper accounts suggested the worst of the epidemic was over. But the deadly disease had one more life to claim in Huntington. On October 19, The Herald-Dispatch reported the death of Mayor Wiles, who had been caring for his stricken wife and two children. Like many other 1918 victims, Wiles succumbed to pneumonia, brought on by the flu.
