David Sibray
BECKLEY, W.Va. — West Virginia’s food scene has entered a period of national recognition, but many travelers outside Appalachia still think of its cuisine in terms of old stereotypes rather than contemporary excellence, according to Chef Matt Welsch. Welsch, owner of Vagabond Kitchen in Wheeling, said the most significant change isn’t what’s being served in … Read more
WINONA, W.Va. — Every small town carries a reputation, and once that reputation takes hold, it can become remarkably difficult to change, particularly in communities that have endured decades of economic decline, population loss, and the quiet assumption that their best years are behind them. Winona, a former coal community along the New River Gorge, … Read more
CLIFFTOP, W.Va. — Every summer, thousands of musicians carrying fiddles, banjos, guitars, mandolins, and dulcimers wind their way up a narrow mountain road in southern West Virginia. They come from nearly every corner of the United States and from countries as far away as Japan, Australia, England, Germany, and Sweden. Few are household names, and … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Long before West Virginia became America’s 35th state, it came remarkably close to becoming something very different—Britain’s 14th colony. Only a few years after Britain’s victory in the French and Indian War, influential English politicians, wealthy land speculators, and prominent Americans—including Benjamin Franklin—proposed creating a new colony west of the Allegheny Mountains. … Read more
GANDEEVILLE, W.Va. — In the turbulent years after the Civil War, a remote corner of the border country between Roane and Jackson counties became the scene of one of West Virginia’s least remembered outbreaks of vigilante violence. A string of ambushes, assassinations, lynchings, and retaliatory killings shattered the isolated farming community of Countsville in 1877, … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s mountains are often celebrated for their beauty, but they have also shaped some of the deadliest disasters in American history. Narrow river valleys have turned heavy rains into catastrophic floods. Rich coal seams fueled an industry that built communities while also exposing workers to extraordinary dangers. Tornadoes, blizzards, epidemics, explosions, … Read more
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton remains a defining episode in early American history. Even those with only a passing knowledge of the nation’s founding may remember how the sitting vice president fatally shot Hamilton in 1804, ending the life of one of America’s foremost statesmen and bringing Burr’s own … Read more
PAW PAW, W.Va. — Every autumn, a remarkable fruit ripens quietly beneath the forests of Appalachia. It has a creamy texture, a flavor often compared to banana, mango, and vanilla, and a history stretching back thousands of years. Yet many Americans have never tasted one. In the tiny Morgan County community of Paw Paw (410 … Read more
SARAH ANN, W.Va. — Long before highways reached into the mountains of southwestern West Virginia, people traveled narrow creek bottoms and mountain paths threading through some of Appalachia’s most rugged country. Families identified with the watersheds where they lived as much as with any town or county. That landscape, in some senses quintessentially Appalachian, fostered … Read more
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As tourism continues to reshape rural communities across Appalachia, researchers at West Virginia University in Morgantown are helping local leaders answer a difficult question: How can towns welcome more visitors without sacrificing the qualities that make people want to live there? A new study led by West Virginia University Extension found that … Read more
