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.
STRANGE CREEK, W.Va. — Too much time may have passed to confirm anything of the indomitable legend of Strange Creek, long among the most haunting tales in West Virginia history. Few travelers now pass through the old town by that name or ascend the stream that follows a winding course from the Elk River into … Read more
Though its speakers are aging and declining in number, there are still places in West Virginia where folks speak in what’s known as the Southern Mountain Dialect, more often called Appalachian Speech. Professor Wylene Dial was one of several authorities on the matter and studied it after she arrived in West Virginia in 1945 to … Read more
First Lady Cathy Justice and the West Virginia Department of Education have announced the names of the five finalists for its Golden Horseshoe Sword-Smithing Design Contest. This contest is the 10th installment of the First Lady’s Student Artist Series, a program designed to promote the importance of art in West Virginia schools. High school students … Read more
DUNKARD BOTTOM, W.Va. — The history of West Virginia is filled with stories of religious diversity — of hermits and prophets who escaped the clamor and confines of civilization. Beyond the edge of the American frontier, in what would become West Virginia, the mountains west of the Blue Ridge promised both freedom and isolation in … Read more
BURNING SPRINGS, W.Va. — Curious motorists traveling the valley of the Little Kanawha River southwest of Parkersburg may or may not stop at historic Burning Springs. There, a defunct country museum filled with oil-drilling paraphernalia may cause curious travelers to slow down, but too few stop. The museum itself is a bit of a mystery. … Read more
PETERSTOWN, W.Va. — Diamonds don’t exist naturally in West Virginia, yet one of the largest ever found was discovered in a horseshoe pit in Monroe County in 1928. Geologists are still unable to explain how it got there, and speculation has never died. The Punch Jones Diamond—also known as the Horseshoe Diamond—remains the largest alluvial … Read more
Historians once assumed that West Virginia had been shaded by a vast unbroken forest, but an expert on old forests in the Mountain State says the region was, instead, a patchwork landscape of woodlands and fields opened by Native Americans. “I’ve heard it said that a squirrel could run limb-to-limb across West Virginia without touching … Read more
In the late 1990s, I was asked to pen a book of West Virginia folklore. I opted instead to create my own tales based on local legends, but other legends are more closely grounded in the soil of West Virginia. Maybe you haven’t heard such tales. Perhaps you’re planning a trip to the state. Well, … Read more
One of the most publicized cases of extrasensory perception (ESP) reported in West Virginia involved the deaths of a mother and six children in the town of Sutton, near the very center of West Virginia, on February 19, 1911. The tragedy unfolded shortly after midnight in Sutton, though the incidence of second sight was reported … Read more
A husband and wife living in a remote corner of Fayette County in southern West Virginia claim to have encountered and photographed a bigfoot only a stone’s throw from America’s newest national park, the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. Billy Humphrey, of Danese, says that before the incident he had ridiculed such claims … Read more
