Mountaineer-A native of a mountainous area and other West Virginia, WV General Tips

Favorite Thing: Probably because of the mountains, it wasn't until 1669, over 60 years after the settlement of Jamestown, that the expedition of John Lederer, a German physician in the employ of colonial governor William Berkeley reached the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains and apparently become the first Europeans to see what is now West Virginia. And the first permanent settlement at Bunker Hill on Mill Creek in Berkeley County did not take place until 1726 almost 60 years after that. The needs and issues of the planter in eastern Virginia were not the same as those of the mountaineers who lived in the western part of the state.

When Viriginia voted to secede from the Union on April 17, 1861, the delegates from 25 counties met at the First Wheeling Convention and repudiated the secession from the Union. The popular vote western counties of Virginia opposed the secession also. Initially the state name was to be Kanawha after the valleys of the Kanawha River, but the 2nd Constitutional Convention decided on West Virginia instead.

In January of 1862, seven men meeting in Parkersburg formed the Colored School Board of Parkersburg, W. Va., and organized a day school for black children, the first public school for blacks in West Virginia. A newspaper article in 1888 stated, "In effect, it was a free school, and the only one manned by colored men in the United States, except the Gaines High School in Cincinnati, O., at that time, and the first school established for colored youth south of the 'Mason and Dixon' line."

On Dec. 31st. President Lincoln approved the act of admission to the Union, to take effect upon the insertion into the State constitution of a clause that would provide for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Finally in 1863 (April 20 th) President Lincoln issued a proclamation admitting West Virginia to the Union after a 60-day waiting period. On June 20th, 1863, West Virginia was admitted to the Union as 35th state

Fondest Memory: Except for one trip from Baltimore MD to California around Xmas 1964 in a snowstorm and one trip from Leonardtown to Lexington KY in 1983 while pulling a horse trailer (and the mountains made the trip a nightmare in both cases), I have rarely driven though West Virginia

On the trip out to Ohio, I decided not to go up into Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh as I usually did when we were going to visit our son and DIL. Instead we went to Morgantown and spent the night right off I-68. I realized that I didn't have any current maps for the area, but we were tired and didn't feel like trying to find the AAA office in the last afternoon, but the next morning the Morgantown office wasn't open early in the morning. So we drove up to I-79 and went north into Pennsylvania. It was very nasty rainy weather. After striking out in Allentown, we finally got to a AAA office in East Liverpool OH.

These pictures are pictures I took in the early morning as we were leaving West Virginia.

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Favorite Thing: Charleston West Virginia is the capitol of the state, and is quite different from the other better known Charleston in South Carolina which is in the "Low Country" an has an altitude of only about 118 feet. Charleston WV is HIGH country at over 500 feet higher

The land on which Charleston was build sold to Col. George Clendenin in 1786 by the Bullits who were the first owners. In 1788, Col. Clendenin and his company of Virginia Rangers built FOrt Lee. Some people think that Charleston is named after Col. Clendenin's father, Charles. Charles Town was later shortened to Charleston to avoid confusion with another Charleston Town in present day West Virginia

Fondest Memory: Charleston is part of Kanawha County. The origin of the word Kanawha (pronounced KAN-A-WA) comes from a West Indian Arawak word for dugout. In fact, a two-story jail was the first county structure ever built. The first floor literally dug into the bank of the Kanawha River.

After 1863, when West Virginia became a state, the capital alternated between Wheeling and Charleston. It wasn't until 1877 that Charleston was finally chose as the capitol.

We spent the night in Charleston on our way home in the spring of 2006.

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Favorite Thing: I've driven through West Virginia on I-64 twice. It is a quite reasonable highway going from Kentucky to Virginia although part of it is a toll road.

The towns along the way have very interesting names. Kenova is just over the Kentucky line at the meeting of the Big Sandy and Ohio Rivers, and then we skirt around Huntington on the Ohio River, then Pea Ridge on the Old Guyan River Road, Blue Sulphur (named for the spring with the highest sulphur content in the area), Hurricane (pronounced "her'-i-kin") and named for Hurricane Creek which was named by a party of surveyors commissioned by George Washington after a group of trees at the mouth of the river bent in one direction, and crossing the Kanawha River to Nitro, before we get to the capital Charleston.

I found Nitro a most interesting name. It comes from nitrocellulose, a component of modern gunpowder. The Nitro area was to be the US's ammunition production facility during WWI.

Fondest Memory: Then we follow the West Virginia Turnpike (and also I-77) into more sparsely inhabited territory - Coal Fork, Chesapeake {named for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway because it is a long way from the actual Chesapeake), Westerly, and Lick Fork until we get to Beckley.

Beckley was named in honor of John James Beckley, who was the first Clerk of the House of Representatives and the first Librarian of Congress. It was founded by his son Alfred Beckley. It is a major hub in southern WV. In addition to the two interstates, there is also US 19,WV 10,WV 210,WV 3,and WV 16. You can hardly go through the south or central section of WV without going through Beckley

In Beckley, the turnpike ends, and I-77 turns south again to go to Bluefield (named after chicory flowers) while I-64 continues east to Beaver, Sandstone on the New River which the highway crosses on a really high bridge, Dawson (a WV National Guard training camp), Smoot and Lewisburg and eventually exits into Virginia at White Sulphur Springs (photo 4) the home of The Greenbrier - the southern “Queen of the Watering Places.”

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