West Virginia Explorer West Virginia Explorer News
Browse

Culture

West Virginia culture is a captivating blend of rich Appalachian traditions and vibrant high culture infused with the jazz of surrounding U.S. cities like Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. The state is renowned for its deep-rooted Appalachian heritage, which is showcased through folk music, storytelling, and traditional crafts such as quilting and woodcarving. Visitors can experience this authentic culture at local festivals and heritage museums throughout the Mountain State. At the same time, West Virginia also embraces high culture, with world-class performances at the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, acclaimed theater productions at the Greenbrier Valley Theatre, and art exhibitions at the Huntington Museum of Art. This unique mix of mountain traditions and refined artistic offerings makes West Virginia a true cultural gem in the heart of Appalachia.

An illustration contrasts two American frontiers—the forested mountains of early West Virginia and the open prairie later immortalized by Laura Ingalls Wilder—revealing how pioneer life unfolded across very different landscapes and generations.
Culture

Loved Little House on the Prairie? Discover West Virginia’s earlier frontier

by Clyde Craig

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Netflix’s new adaptation of Little House on the Prairie is introducing a new generation to the hardships and hope of life on the American frontier. Viewers are following the Ingalls family as they struggle to build a home on the Kansas prairie, where survival depends on hard work, perseverance, and family strength. For West Virginians—and … Read more

Bob and Jeff Tinnell speak about their filmmaking.
Culture

Netflix success gives West Virginia filmmakers new credibility in Hollywood

by David Sibray

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia filmmakers have reached a milestone few would have imagined a decade ago. Earlier this year, two films produced by the Morgantown-based Allegheny Image Factory—Gaslit and The Bad Guardian—simultaneously ranked among Netflix’s five most-watched movies in the United States, an achievement that producer Jeff Tinnell believes is unprecedented for a homegrown … Read more

Water Divining: A water diviner walks an Appalachian hillside with a forked branch in this artist's rendering, illustrating a folk tradition that generations of mountain families sometimes consulted when choosing locations for new wells.
Culture

Water divining endures as one of Appalachia’s most distinctive folk traditions

by Clyde Craig

BECKLEY, W.Va. — Long before hydrogeologists, groundwater maps, or drilling contractors, families across Europe and North America sometimes sought the help of a water diviner before digging a well. Few places, however, embraced the tradition as enduringly as Appalachia. Carried to the mountains by English and German settlers, water divining became part of everyday rural … Read more

A young girl gathers ripe blackberries from a fencerow during the height of midsummer berry season, a tradition that has marked summers in rural America for generations. (Getty Image)
Culture

How midsummer wild berries connect people, wildlife, and West Virginia’s forests

by David Sibray

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In midsummer, West Virginia’s forests yield one of their richest annual harvests. Blackberries spill over abandoned fence rows. Raspberries brighten sunny hillsides. Blueberries and huckleberries ripen on the state’s highest mountains. For generations, families have carried buckets into the woods to gather berries for cobblers, jams, and pies. Yet these fruits nourish … Read more