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Welcome to the History news directory at West Virginia Explorer, where you’ll find an archive of the most recent West Virginia history news published at West Virginia Explorer.

Word "hillbilly" once a term of endearment in Appalachia

"Dance" by Porte Crayon, an illustration for Harper's New Monthly Magazine; May 1872.
According to some authorities, the word "hillbilly" was a term of endearment in the Appalachian Mountains in the early 1800s, though it later developed...

Trail, climbing areas reopen after New River Gorge fire

Thunder Buttress at Beauty Mountain, Fayette County, New River Gorge Region
LANSING, W.Va. -- The Endless Wall Trail and adjacent climbing access areas above the New River south of the New River Gorge Bridge have...

Alliance urges Manchin, Capito to support preservation incentives

Boury Lofts at Wheeling, West Virginia
The Preservation Alliance of West Virginia is urging U.S. Senators Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., to support the availability of historic...

How the West Virginia town of "Hundred" got its name

In the 1850s, illustrator Porte Crayon (David Hunter Strother) captured Henry Church "Old Hundred" for Harper's Magazine.
HUNDRED, W.Va.—There was a time in the 1850s, soon after completion of the B&O Railroad, when passengers would clamber to the car windows to...

Nightmarish mummies attracting curious to rural Philippi

The fingers of a Philippi Mummy are drawn into crippled fists.
Stored for years in an old barn, the creations of a rural mad scientist, the hardened twin cadavers known as the "Phillipi Mummies" are...

Herds of wild hog once roamed the West Virginia hills

Wild hogs once roamed West Virginia in great numbers.
On occasion, you might hear old-timers speak of a time when herds of wild hogs were hunted in the West Virginia hills. Chances are, they...

Forest fire burning southeast of New River Gorge Bridge

Smoke wreaths Idol Point, New River Gorge, New River Gorge National Park and Preserve
UPDATE (9:47 a.m., 4-24-2014): The fire that swept the wall of the New River Gorge southeast of the New River Gorge Bridge was 90...

Join WVExplorer prehistoric landmarks initiative!

Exploring Shawnee Park Mound near Dunbar, West Virginia, for Prehistoric Landmarks Initiative
Burial mounds, mysterious carvings, inexplicable stone walls -- relics of the prehistoric past are found throughout West Virginia, but perhaps too few people know...

Strange carvings greeted early West Virginia explorers

Images of beasts and men decorate a boulder at the Half-Moon archaeological site, now submerged beneath the Ohio River.
When pioneers and other explorers first ventured into what would become West Virginia, they encountered artifacts of a much earlier age — carvings, burial...

Many early almanacs printed out of Wheeling, West Virginia

Farmers converse near old Fort Henry at Wheeling, c. 1777.
Thanks to the Internet, almanacs aren't printed as they once were, but in West Virginia, where communications were hampered by the mountains, these useful...

B&O Railroad completed to Wheeling on Jan. 1, 1853

Railroad architecture at Grafton, WV, Taylor County, Monongahela Valley Region
On January 1, 1853, the first train arrived in Wheeling, West Virginia, (then Virginia) on the newly completed Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the first...

New River Gorge region in W.Va. a classroom for Black History

The Quinnimont Missionary Baptist Church served the needs of segregated mining communities in the early 1900s.
FAYETTEVILLE, W. Va. — America's newest national park is also a classroom for Black History, says a spokesman for an adventure resort bordering the...

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