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.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Which are the five most haunted towns in West Virginia? That’s hard to say, such things being difficult to pin down. (We encourage readers to add their favorite haunted towns in the comments at the end of the article.) By and large, West Virginians love ghost stories, and as a result of … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — When I moved to West Virginia in 2013, just out of grad school and anxious to learn more about the local archaeology, it didn’t take long to be introduced to the idea that West Virginia was too rugged and remote for Native Americans to live here permanently. I was told that the … Read more
BULLTOWN, W.Va. — On a quiet October morning in 1863—the year Abraham Lincoln declared slaves free—the hills above the Little Kanawha River erupted in gunfire. Col. William L. “Mudwall” Jackson and his troops launched what they hoped would be a decisive strike against a Union fort on a knoll above the bridge. What followed was … Read more
CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — In the Zion Episcopal churchyard in Charles Town, West Virginia, lies the grave of John Yates Beall, one of the state’s most audacious Confederate partisans. Beall was born in Jefferson County, Virginia, in 1835, and grew up in a wealthy, slave owning family. When the American Civil War broke out in … Read more
GLEN DALE, W.Va. — Lone graves aren’t rare in West Virginia. Many pioneers and settlers perished in its mountains, far from friends and family. However, one burial stands out as a remarkable and mysterious example. The grave of an unknown priest on a ridge high above Middle Grave Creek near the Ohio River illustrates religious … Read more
MAPLEWOOD, W.Va. — How did “Shades-of-Death Creek” in southern West Virginia gain such a strange name? The mystery has long been a subject of speculation in the highlands east of the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. Such a clear and beautiful stream, the waters of which help turn the world-renowned gristmill at Babcock … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — On a typical Saturday night in the 1930s, when coal dust and church bells marked the rhythm of daily life, radios across the Ohio Valley crackled with music that echoes like the hills themselves. The signal came from WWVA in Wheeling, a small but powerful West Virginia station whose Saturday night broadcast … Read more
SAULSVILLE, W.Va. — While reports of the Polk Hollow Monster haven’t reached the frequency they had in the 1970s and ’80s, there’s no doubt in the minds of a few locals that something haunts the vicinity of the hollow in Twin Falls Resort State Park. State officials even developed a hiking trail, the “Poke Hollow … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In the cool clarity of an autumn morning in West Virginia, a ring of people gather around a blackened copper kettle hung over an open fire. Steam rises in slow, fragrant clouds of cinnamon, clove, and baked apple. A long wooden paddle stirs a darkening, bubbling mixture until it reaches the glossy, … Read more
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — In the spring of 1974, an unassuming school board meeting in Kanawha County ignited a tempest that would engulf classrooms, coal mines, homes, and headlines in a bitter clash over textbooks and values. It was no ordinary curriculum dispute. It erupted into what historians and educators recall as one of the most … Read more
