The West Virginia University Press has announced plans to publish Pinnick Kinnick Hill, a book on the Spanish settlements in the Clarksburg area.

The book, written by the late Gavin Gonzalez, is a lightly fictionalized account of one Spanish familys experience in West Virginia following the emigration of Spanish zinc workers to the industrial hub of north central West Virginia shortly after 1900.

The introduction to the book is written by Suronda Gonzalez (no relation to author), a native of Harrison County, who now teaches at Binghamton University in New York. She is pursuing a doctorate degree in history, concentrating on the Spanish zinc workersemigration.

Suronda Gonzalez is a descendant of zinc-working immigrants from Asturias, Spain. She remembers family stories about the early days of the Spanish community in Harrison County, and brings a personal perspective to her research for this book.

Hundreds of Spaniards settled in the area, raising children in a unique mixture of customs and lifestyles from two continents, Gonzalez said. By 1920, the government of Spain had established a Spanish Vice Consulate in Clarksburg to aid Spaniards living in the area, and even ads for Coca-Cola were printed in Spanish, she added.

A couple of decades later, the decline in the zinc industry led to the slow dilution of this ethnic enclave. Though many Spanish-surnamed people still live in the region, few know the details about the community which once thrived there.

The WVU Press will publish Pinnick Kinnick Hill in the spring of 2003.