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.

A young George Washington surveys the lands along the Ohio River during one of his frontier expeditions in the early 1770s. As a Virginia surveyor, soldier, and land speculator, Washington traveled the upper Ohio Valley to evaluate its forests, waterways, and settlement potential, helping shape the region's early colonial history. (WVExplorer Illustration)
Culture

Before the American Revolution, West Virginia almost became Britain’s 14th colony, Vandalia

by David Sibray

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

A secluded road near present-day Countsville recalls the isolated Roane-Jackson border country, where a series of murders and acts of vigilante violence unfolded in 1877.
Culture

The West Virginia farmer that some believed God struck down with lightning

by David Sibray

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

The collapsed Silver Bridge lies submerged in the Ohio River after its catastrophic failure on Dec. 15, 1967. Although not the deadliest disaster in West Virginia history, the collapse claimed 46 lives and transformed bridge inspection standards across the United States.
Culture

West Virginia’s deadliest disasters—10 tragedies that changed U.S. history

by David Sibray

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

Rev. Dyke Garrett, the mountain preacher who rode horseback through the rugged hills of southwestern West Virginia for more than 50 years, ministers to a gathering of Appalachian families. Garrett became one of the few trusted figures among both the Hatfield and McCoy families during the infamous feud.
Culture

Devil Anse Hatfield’s mountain preacher ended America’s most famous family feud

by David Sibray

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

Excitement builds as Scouts check in for Scouting America's National Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in southern West Virginia. The 10-day event introduces thousands of young people and their families to the Mountain State through outdoor adventure, leadership, and service.
Culture

Thousands gather in W.Va. for the Jamboree, America’s largest outdoor youth adventure

by David Sibray

MOUNT HOPE, W.Va. — Tens of thousands of scouts, volunteers, leaders, and family members are arriving in southern West Virginia this week as Scouting America’s National Jamboree transforms the mountains of the New River Gorge region into one of the nation’s largest youth adventure camps. Held at the 14,000-acre Summit Bechtel Reserve in Fayette County, … Read more

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