The history and prehistory of West Virginia reveal a fascinating journey from ancient Native American cultures to its role in America’s story. Prehistoric sites, such as the Grave Creek Mound, showcase the region’s mound-building cultures that left behind impressive burial mounds and earthworks. Later, European settlers ventured into the rugged Appalachian Mountains, forging frontier communities and thriving amidst challenging terrain. During the American Civil War, West Virginia famously seceded from Virginia to remain loyal to the Union, becoming the 35th state in 1863. Coal mining played a vital role in shaping West Virginia’s economy and identity, fueling America’s industrial growth and leaving a lasting legacy in the state’s communities and culture. Today, visitors can explore historic towns, Civil War battlefields, and preserved pioneer homesteads that tell the rich, enduring story of West Virginia’s resilient spirit and deep mountain roots.
POINT PLEASANT, W.Va. — On Aug. 18, 1749, French soldiers stopped at the mouth of the Kanawha River in present-day Point Pleasant and buried a lead plate beneath an elm tree—a declaration of ownership in a territorial struggle that, within five years, would draw a young George Washington into combat and help ignite a war … Read more
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — One hundred seventy-five years ago this week, a boy was born along the Kanawha River in Putnam County who would become a bestselling author, a nationally known economic crusader, a presidential candidate, and, eventually, the architect of an extraordinary concrete monument intended to explain to people in the distant future why American … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Fifty-eight years ago this week, one of the most extraordinary political corruption cases in West Virginia history began in a federal courtroom in Charleston, where a former governor and five other men stood accused in a conspiracy involving state contracts, secret payments and money moving through corporations hundreds of miles away. The … Read more
HINTON, W.Va. — In the darkness of Aug. 10, 1862, about 150 Union soldiers moved through the mountains of southern West Virginia toward an isolated industrial complex along the New River, carrying orders from an Ohio officer who would eventually become president of the United States. Their objective was the Mercer Saltworks, a salt-producing operation … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — By the final days of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln faced one of the most unusual decisions of his presidency. The Civil War had entered its second winter, Confederate armies still occupied much of the South, and the Union’s future remained uncertain. Yet waiting on Lincoln’s desk was legislation unlike anything any previous … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Most Americans know there is a Virginia and a West Virginia, but far fewer know why. The answer is not simply that the Civil War divided the nation. It also divided Virginia, producing the only permanent change to the map of the United States during the conflict. Before the war began in … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In one of the strangest episodes in American political history, half of the West Virginia state Senate fled the state Capitol, boarded a train to Ohio, and effectively shut down state government. They weren’t prompted by war, natural disaster, or criminal charges. It was political. For more than a week in 1911, … 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
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
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
