Museum installing monuments to commemorate Mine Wars
MATEWAN, W.Va. — The first of two monuments commemorating the Battle of Blair Mountain in West Virginia will be installed this weekend in Logan...
Hikers, paddlers can visit New River's lost "Island of the Dead"
THURMOND, W.Va. — Victims of a smallpox pandemic that swept through the New River Gorge in the late 1800s may have been buried in...
Notorious bank robber "Pretty Boy Floyd" hid in West Virginia
SAINT MARYS, W.Va. — As U.S. states go, West Virginia has always been a reasonably peaceful place. Violence erupts on occasion, though one might...
Roadside ghosts account for most popular W.Va. ghost stories
PAX, W.Va. — Tales of roadside ghosts account for many of the most popular ghost stories in West Virginia, according to the publisher of...
Little-known monument recalls origins of Farley family in W.Va.
PIPESTEM, W.Va.—Of the tens of thousands of people surnamed "Farley" who can claim to hail from southern West Virginia, almost all come from one...
Three little-known facts about West Virginia's moundbuilders
The term “moundbuilder” is often used to describe two ancient cultures that archaeologists now know as the Adena and the Hopewell. These peoples lived...
Strange haunting near Summersville Lake may be largely forgotten
SUMMERSVILLE, W.Va.—The tale of the "Ford Ghost" southwest of Summersville, West Virginia, makes its appearance several times in local lore, but this telling by...
Mass grave at Lewisburg unique among Confederate monuments
LEWISBURG, W.Va.—Of the many historic landmarks in Lewisburg, perhaps none is more remarkable than a cross-shaped Confederate grave on a hill above the city's...
How Pruntytown reformatory became a bogeyman in W.Va.
PRUNTYTOWN, W.Va.—If you were an unruly boy growing up in West Virginia before the 1980s, there's a chance your misbehaviors were met with the...
Devil's Saddle poem tells of girl's meeting with "granny witch"
Throughout the history of Appalachia, one may encounter the legend of granny witches—solitary women believed to possess uncanny powers. Many served in very real...
How the "Tug Fork" in southern West Virginia got its name
WILLIAMSON, W.Va.—Of all the placenames associated with West Virginia, that of the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River may be the subject of...
W.Va. Penitentiary at Moundsville focus of strange history
The former West Virginia State Penitentiary at Moundsville, West Virginia, in Marshall County, was a castellated gothic-style prison in operation from 1876 until 1995....
