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Thursday, March 6, 2025

History

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.

Historical open house set at Level Tavern near Lewisburg April 27

LEWISBURG, W.Va. — An open house for historians and history buffs will be held from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 27, at the...

Remote monument recalls origins of Farley family in New River valley

A monument at Old Farley memorializes Drewry Farley.
PIPESTEM, W.Va. — Almost all of the thousands of people named "Farley" in the New River valley region in southern West Virginia come from...

Tragedy of the Rebecca affirms the danger of Ohio River in...

Artist's conception of wreck of steamboat Rebecca at Parkersburg in 1869.
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — While the interior of West Virginia remained a virtual wilderness through the late 1800s, wharves along the Ohio River bustled with...

Prehistoric West Virginia was never a so-called uninhabited hunting ground

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — When I moved to West Virginia in 2013, just out of grad school and anxious to learn more about the local...

Hidden waterfall near W.Va. capitol linked to remarkable manuscript

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Tucked away in a wooded gorge near the West Virginia Capitol, one of the highest waterfalls in the region also powered...

On the Ohio River, Wheeling was once proposed as a new...

WHEELING, W.Va. — There was a time when Wheeling was being proposed as the location for a new capital of the U.S., though the...

Decrepit West Virginia house recalls Dreamland murder-suicide tragedy

KENOVA, W.Va. — Every summer for nearly a century, people have flocked to Dreamland Pool in the small city of Kenova, West Virginia. On...

Herds of wild hog once roamed the hills and mountains of...

GRANTSVILLE, W.Va. — Occasionally, you might hear old-timers speak of a time when herds of wild hogs were hunted in the West Virginia hills....

How the Pruntytown reformatory became a bogeyman in West Virginia

A farmhouse at Pruntytown was once part of the infamous boys' reformatory complex.
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...

Here's how the West Virginia town of "Hundred" got its unique...

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 soon after the completion of the B&O Railroad when passengers would clamber to the car windows to...

The word "hillbilly" was once a term of endearment in Appalachia

"Dance" by Porte Crayon, an illustration for Harper's New Monthly Magazine; May 1872.
RICHWOOD, W.Va. — The word "hillbilly" was a term of endearment in the southern Appalachian Mountains region in the early 1800s, though it later...

Stonewall Jackson's cousin "Mudwall" led failed attack on fort in W.Va.

A line of trees follows a breastwork at the Bulltown Battlefield at Bulltown, West Virginia, in Braxton County.
BULLTOWN, W.Va. — During the first years of the U.S. Civil War, marauding bands of guerillas roamed the hills in what's now central West...

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