Amanda Larch Hinchman
MIDDLEWAY, W.Va. — The Wizard Clip haunting, the first documented poltergeist in America, occurred in the late 1700s in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. Though centuries have passed, its legend endures, earning residents the nickname “Clippers” to this day. Referred to as the “truest ghost story ever told” by the late James Cardinal Gibbons, … Read more
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Rising above the end of this city’s central avenue, the prehistoric Criel Mound—one of the largest burial mounds in West Virginia—has long captivated both onlookers and archaeologists alike. Over the years, its origins have sparked countless theories—ranging from tales of mythic giants to speculation about a lost tribe of Israelites. In … Read more
FAIRMONT, W.Va. — A lesser-known encounter with an extraordinary Mountain State cryptid is still capturing the imagination of West Virginians a half century later. On a warm July day in 1968, in the hills near Grant Town, West Virginia, Jennings Frederick was hunting for groundhogs when he heard a high-pitched noise that morphed into a … Read more
RIFFLE, W.Va.— The blockbuster Men in Black film franchise might seem a world away from the hills of West Virginia, but the legend starts here in a quiet corner of the Mountain State where an obscure and mysterious writer sat pecking away on his typewriter. Gray Barker, born 100 years ago in Riffle, in Braxton … Read more
MARLINTON, W.Va. — Traveling through a remote, windswept landscape of spruce and cranberry, a scenic parkway that explores some of the highest elevations in West Virginia is attracting more visitors as tourism in the Mountain State increases. The Highland Scenic Highway is now among the most popular scenic routes in the Mountain State, and it’s … Read more
SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — The eastern panhandle of West Virginia reaches more than 100 miles across the eastern U.S. from the quiet springs of the Potomac River in central West Virginia to the urban edge of Washington, D.C. How did this oddity come to be? More than anything else, according to a resident historian of the … Read more
WEIRTON, W.Va — West Virginia’s remarkable shape is partly defined by its odd northern panhandle, a finger of land that extends northward more than 60 miles from the central region of the state. The early history of the northern panhandle of West Virginia Home to its first capital, at Wheeling, the origins of the northern … Read more
SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Rising behind a series of pleasant neighborhoods, one of the largest manufacturing complexes in West Virginia seems to hide in the landscape of the Kanawha Valley. Now known as the South Charleston Industrial Park, a collection of six massive buildings established as the Charleston Ordnance Center, a naval ordnance plant, played … Read more
NORTH RIVER MILLS, W.Va.— One of West Virginia’s most fascinating natural wonders, Ice Mountain, where winter ice lingers in crevices until summer, is now open to guided hikes year-round. Long a puzzle to scientists who were determined to discover how its “ice vents” functioned, the mystery has been solved. However, the phenomena and the remarkable … Read more
HURRICANE, W.Va. — Early research on a Civil War engagement in West Virginia at Hurricane Bridge underestimated the number of soldiers involved. This led historians to mislabel the “battle” as a “skirmish,” according to historian Philip Hatfield, Ph.D. “A skirmish implies this small, sort of insignificant affair, but there were many more troops involved,” says … Read more
