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Upper Tract is an
The community lies along U.S. Highway 220 at the
unincorporated community
An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in Pendleton County, West Virginia
West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...
, United States.
Description
The community lies along U.S. Highway 220 at the confluence
In geography, a confluence (also ''conflux'') occurs where two or more watercourses join to form a single channel (geography), channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main ...
of Reeds Creek and the South Branch Potomac River
The South Branch Potomac River has its River source, headwaters in northwestern Highland County, Virginia, near Hightown, Virginia, Hightown along the eastern edge of the Allegheny Front. After a river distance of ,U.S. Geological Survey. Nationa ...
. It has a post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
with a ZIP Code of 26866.
The community took its name from a nearby 18th-century pioneer settlement. Two local structures — the Cunningham-Hevener House and the Pendleton County Poor Farm — are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
Upper Tract is notable as one of the driest places in the United States east of the Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
, owing to an isolated rain shadow
A rain shadow is an area of significantly reduced rainfall behind a mountainous region, on the side facing away from prevailing winds, known as its leeward side.
Evaporated moisture from body of water, bodies of water (such as oceans and larg ...
from Spruce Knob
Spruce Mountain, located in eastern West Virginia, is the highest ridge of the Allegheny Mountains. The whale-backed ridge extends for only from northeast to southwest, but several of its peaks exceed in elevation. The summit, Spruce Knob (), ...
to the west. Between 1899 and 1930 Upper Tract averaged only of precipitation, and in the extreme drought year of 1930 it received a remarkably low for the entire year — the lowest annual precipitation ever recorded in the US east of the Mississippi, and indeed less than fell during that year in such dry cities as Tucson
Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...
and San Diego
San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...
.
See also
References
External links
Unincorporated communities in Pendleton County, West Virginia Unincorporated communities in West Virginia {{PendletonCountyWV-geo-stub