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.
West Virginans love their lore, so it should be no surprise on this most-monstrous-of-weekends that the crowd at the double-feature at The Elk in rural
The 2018 Culturefest World Music & Arts Festival will awaken musical magic again in the Pipestem highlands near Athens in southern West Virginia Sept. 6-9. As many as a thousand fans of world music and the arts are expected to attend the 15th annual festival being celebrated at the Appalachian South Folklife Center near Pipestem Resort … Read more
Do you believe in monsters? David Sibray hasn’t come clean on whether he does but admits the legend of the Grafton Monster of northern West Virginia is a subject that deserves investigation, at least where folklore is concerned. West Virginia Explorer has released the third in a series of video interviews that regard the lore … Read more
I hardly remember a time when the U.S. 19 expressway didn’t climb Powell Mountain on its journey between Sutton and Beckley in southern West Virginia. Raised in Beckley by parents who hailed from the Monongahela Valley, I spent countless hours on the route visiting grandparents, and later, while attending West Virginia University, spent many more … Read more
Editor’s note: the third installment in John Barton’s examination of a map of the soon-to-be-released Fallout 76 video game investigates the Toxic Valley region, which, he points out, shares many similarities with West Virginia’s Chemical Valley. “Toxic Valley” occupies the northernmost region on the Fallout 76 map produced by Oscerlot, though I think it’s likely … Read more
Rural and mountainous, West Virginia is home to some of the most star-spangled skies in the eastern U.S. — a circumstance of which photographer Jesse Thornton has made good use. https://wvexplorer.com/2018/08/17/west-virginia-night-jesse-thornton/2/h Seen from the top of Seneca Rocks, car lights trace US-33 and WV-55 through the vale of the North Fork of the South Branch … Read more
The “White Thing” or “White Creature” of southwestern West Virginia may be the most ferocious of monsters alleged to haunt the Mountain State and is one of several believed to appear in a soon-to-be-released video-game Fallout 76. David Sibray, publisher of West Virginia Explorer, revealed in a video interview with Al Clark that the legendary … Read more
The weather was turning cold in mid-November 1966 when stories of a strange creature began to scatter like autumn leaves across West Virginia. Men digging a grave near Clendenin claimed to see “a brown human being” gliding through the trees above. The following night, two couples in a wood near Point Pleasant reported being chased … Read more
WVExplorer.com has published the first of five videos that discuss the backstories for legendary monsters apparently featured in the soon-to-be-released video game Fallout 76. According to publisher David Sibray, who is interviewed by Alfred Clark throughout the series, the strange beasts are among those introduced in 2014 by author Ted Fauster in “The top five … Read more
Editor’s Note: This is the second installation in John Barton’s exploration of the Fallout 76 map of West Virginia. Here, he surveys Cranberry Bog. Go here to read the first part of Barton’s map exploration: Boardwalk at Cranberry Glades[/caption] In West Virginia, the southeastern part of the state would include Monroe, Webster, Randolph, Greenbrier, Nicholas, … Read more
