David Sibray
COWEN, W.Va. — Travelers can now spend the night 80 feet above a remote West Virginia forest, sleeping in a restored fire lookout for as little as $100 a night. The Red Oak Fire Lookout opened Tuesday for overnight stays in the Monongahela National Forest. Its 14-by-14-foot cab sits atop a steel tower at an … Read more
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — One of West Virginia’s most famous outlaw stories holds that members of the James Gang rode into Huntington in 1875, robbed a bank in broad daylight, and fled toward the mountains with thousands of dollars. The robbery certainly happened, but whether the famous outlaws were responsible remains another matter. Contemporary newspaper accounts, later … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Daniel Boone is remembered as a great figure of the Kentucky frontier, but a surviving document in his own hand illuminates a lesser-known chapter of his life. The famed frontiersman spent years in what’s now West Virginia, where he surveyed land, served in the militia, and represented Kanawha County in the Virginia … Read more
NEW CUMBERLAND, W.Va. — More than 20 brick plants once crowded what’s now a scenic stretch of the Ohio River, producing millions of bricks shipped to Pittsburgh and to cities hundreds of miles away, transforming a small West Virginia community into a nationally important industrial center. The concentration became so extensive that riverboat crews called … Read more
ALMA, W.Va. — When lightning struck one of the world’s most powerful gas wells in 1895, flames reportedly leaped 200 feet into the air, illuminating the rural countryside as crowds traveled to see what a Parkersburg newspaper described as a scene both “grand and awful.” The spectacle lasted only about two hours. Gas escaped from … Read more
RAINELLE, W.Va. — Several weeks after the Meadow River Rail Trail completed its 18-mile route through southern West Virginia, bicycles are appearing outside businesses, cars carrying bikes are arriving from other states, and visitors to the nearby New River Gorge National Park and Preserve are finding their way to a valley that many West Virginians have … Read more
RICHWOOD.. W.Va. — For generations, one of West Virginia’s most remarkable frontier stories held that a white boy born in western Virginia was captured by the Shawnee Indians, adopted their way of life, and eventually became Blue Jacket, one of the most important Native American leaders to resist U.S. expansion into the Ohio Valley. The … Read more
RICHWOOD, W.Va. — A historic district in this Nicholas County mountain town could roughly double in size, encompassing distinctive homes, churches, and other landmarks as preservationists work to protect the character of a community at the western gateway to the Monongahela National Forest. The proposed expansion would extend the existing Downtown Richwood Historic District eastward … Read more
CAIRO, W.Va. — For nearly six decades, people have gathered in the woods of a West Virginia state park to find, prepare, and eat foods most visitors might simply walk past. The tradition will continue Sept. 11–13, when Nature Wonder Weekend, commonly known as Wild Foods Weekend, returns to North Bend State Park in Ritchie County … Read more
FORT GAY, W.Va. — A West Virginia high school that closed 13 years ago is being converted into apartments, offices and community space, giving a new purpose to a landmark that has stood in this small Wayne County town since 1931. Eight affordable apartments on the second floor of the former Fort Gay High School … Read more
