state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Mid-Atlantic Mid-Atlantic or Mid Atlantic can refer to: *The middle of the Atlantic Ocean *Mid-Atlantic English, any mix between British and American English *Mid-Atlantic Region (Little League World Series), one of the United States geographic divisions of the ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

the American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), which was formed in 1861 by states that had seceded f ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

yeoman Yeoman is a noun originally referring either to one who owns and cultivates land or to the middle ranks of Serfdom, servants in an Peerage of England, English royal or noble household. The term was first documented in Kingdom of England, mid-1 ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Harpers Ferry Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 269 at the 2020 United States census. Situated at the confluence of the Potomac River, Potomac and Shenandoah River, Shenandoah Rivers in the ...

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

Upland South The Upland South and Upper South are two overlapping cultural and geographic subregions in the inland part of the Southern United States. They differ from the Deep South and Atlantic coastal plain by terrain, history, economics, demographics, a ...

Southeastern United States The Southeastern United States, also known as the American Southeast or simply the Southeast, is a geographical List of regions in the United States, region of the United States located in the eastern portion of the Southern United States and t ...

Appalachian Regional Commission The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a United States federal–state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life. Congress established A ...

Appalachia Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidder, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or trunk (botany), logs onto logging truck, trucks and its

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

and

labor history Labor history is a sub-discipline of social history which specializes on the history of the working classes and the labor movement. Labor historians may concern themselves with issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and other factors besides class ...

. It is also known for its tourism and a wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities, including

skiing Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow for basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International S ...

,

whitewater rafting Rafting and whitewater rafting are recreational outdoor activities which use an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other body of water. This is often done on whitewater or different degrees of rough water. Dealing with risk is often a ...

,

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

,

hiking A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time. "Hi ...

,

backpacking Backpacking may refer to: * Backpacking (travel), low-cost, independent, international travel * Backpacking (hiking), trekking and camping overnight in the wilderness * Ultralight backpacking, a style of wilderness backpacking with an emphasis on ...

,

mountain biking Mountain biking (MTB) is a sport of riding bicycles off-road, often over rough terrain, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes share similarities with other bikes but incorporate features designed to enhance durability ...

,

rock climbing Rock climbing is a climbing sports discipline that involves ascending climbing routes, routes consisting of natural rock in an outdoor environment, or on artificial resin climbing walls in a mostly indoor environment. Routes are documented in c ...

, and

hunting Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...

. From the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

to the 1990s, the state voted heavily for the Democratic Party due to its tradition of union-based politics. Since then, the state has become heavily Republican, and is considered a "deep red" state at the federal level.

History

Many ancient manmade earthen mounds from various prehistoric mound builder cultures survive in West Virginia, especially in the areas of present-day Moundsville, South Charleston, and Romney. Artifacts uncovered in these give evidence of village societies with a tribal trade system culture that crafted cold-worked

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

pieces. In the 1670s, during the

Beaver Wars The Beaver Wars (), also known as the Iroquois Wars or the French and Iroquois Wars (), were a series of conflicts fought intermittently during the 17th century in North America throughout the Saint Lawrence River valley in Canada and the Great L ...

, the powerful

Iroquois The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...

, five allied nations based in present-day New York and Pennsylvania, drove out other Native American tribes from the region to reserve the upper Ohio Valley as a hunting ground.

Siouan language Siouan ( ), also known as Siouan–Catawban ( ), is a language family of North America located primarily in the Great Plains, Ohio and Mississippi valleys and southeastern North America with a few other languages in the east. Name Authors who ...

tribes, such as the

Moneton The Moneton were a historical Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe from West Virginia. In the late 17th century, they lived in the Kanawha Valley near the Kanawha River, Kanawha and New River (Kanawha River), New Rivers. ...

, had previously been among the earliest recorded in the area. Conflicts with European settlers resulted in various displaced Native tribes settling in West Virginia, where they were known as ''Mingo'', meaning "remote affiliates of the Iroquois Confederacy". The area now identified as West Virginia was contested territory among Anglo-Americans as well, with the colonies of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

claiming territorial rights under their colonial charters to this area before the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. Some speculative land companies, such as the

Vandalia Company Vandalia was the name in the late 1700s of a proposed British colony in North America. The colony would have been located south of the Ohio River, primarily in what are now West Virginia and northeastern Kentucky. Vandalia was never approved b ...

, the

Ohio Company The Ohio Company, formally known as the Ohio Company of Virginia, was a land speculation company organized for the settlement by Virginians of the Ohio Country (approximately the present U.S. state of Ohio) and to trade with the Native Ameri ...

and the

Indiana Company Indiana ( ) is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the south and southeast, and the Wabash Riv ...

, tried but failed to legitimize their claims to land in parts of West Virginia and present-day Kentucky. This rivalry resulted in some settlers petitioning the Continental Congress to create a new territory called

Westsylvania Westsylvania was a proposed state of the United States located in what is now West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, and small parts of Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia. First proposed early in the American Revolution, Westsylvania would hav ...

. With the federal settlement of the Pennsylvania and Virginia border dispute, creating

Kentucky County, Virginia Kentucky County (aka Kentucke County), later the District of Kentucky, was formed by the Commonwealth of Virginia from the western portion (beyond the Big Sandy River and Cumberland Mountains) of Fincastle County effective 1777. The name ...

, Kentuckians "were satisfied ..and the inhabitants of a large part of West Virginia were grateful." The Crown considered the area of West Virginia part of the British

Virginia Colony The Colony of Virginia was a British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colony lasted for t ...

from 1607 to 1776. The United States considered this area the western part of the state of

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

(commonly called ''Trans-Allegheny Virginia'') from 1776 to 1863, before West Virginia's formation. Its residents were discontented for years with their position in Virginia, as the government was dominated by the planter elite of the

Tidewater Tidewater may refer to: * Tidewater (region), a geographic area of southeast Virginia, southern Maryland, and northeast North Carolina. ** Tidewater accent, an accent of American English associated with the Tidewater region of Virginia * Tidewater ...

and

Piedmont Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...

areas. The legislature had electoral malapportionment, based on the counting of slaves toward regional populations, and western white residents were underrepresented in the state legislature. More subsistence and yeoman farmers lived in the west, and they were generally less supportive of slavery, although many counties were divided on their support. Residents of that area became more sharply divided after the planter elite of eastern Virginia voted to secede from the Union during the Civil War. Residents of the western and northern counties set up a separate government under Francis Pierpont in 1861, which they called the Restored Government. Most voted to separate from Virginia, and the new state was admitted to the Union in 1863. In 1864 a state constitutional convention drafted a constitution, which was ratified by the legislature without putting it to popular vote. West Virginia abolished

slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

by a gradual process and temporarily

disenfranchised Disfranchisement, also disenfranchisement (which has become more common since 1982) or voter disqualification, is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing someo ...

those who had held Confederate office or fought for the Confederacy. West Virginia's history has been profoundly affected by its mountainous terrain, numerous and vast river valleys, and rich natural resources. These were all factors driving its economy and the lifestyles of its residents, who tended to live in many small, relatively isolated communities in the mountain valleys.

Prehistory

A 2010 analysis of a local

stalagmite A stalagmite (, ; ; ) is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, but may consist ...

revealed that Native Americans were burning forests to clear land as early as 100BCE. Some regional late-prehistoric

Eastern Woodland The Eastern Woodlands is a cultural region of the Indigenous people of North America. The Eastern Woodlands extended roughly from the Atlantic Ocean to the eastern Great Plains, and from the Great Lakes region to the Gulf of Mexico, which is now ...

tribes were more involved in hunting and fishing, practicing the

Eastern Agricultural Complex The Eastern Agricultural Complex in the woodlands of eastern North America was one of about 10 independent centers of plant domestication in the pre-historic world. Incipient agriculture dates back to about 5300 BCE. By about 1800 BCE the Native ...

gardening method which used fire to clear out underbrush from certain wooded areas. Another group progressed to the more time-consuming, advanced companion crop fields method of gardening. Also continuing from the ancient

Indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

of the state, they cultivated

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

through to early historic times. It was used in numerous social and religious rituals. "

Maize Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...

(corn) did not make a substantial contribution to the diet until after 1150 BP", to quote Mills (OSU 2003). Eventually, tribal villages began depending on corn to feed their

turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

flocks, as Kanawha Fort Ancients practiced bird

husbandry Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, management, production, nutrition, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. ...

. The local Natives made cornbread and a flat rye bread called "bannock" as they emerged from the protohistoric era. A horizon extending from a little before the early 18th century is sometimes called the acculturating ''Fireside Cabin culture''. Trading posts were established by European traders along the Potomac and James rivers. Tribes that inhabited West Virginia as of 1600 were the Siouan

Monongahela Culture The Monongahela culture were an Iroquoian Native American cultural manifestation of Late Woodland peoples from AD 1050 to 1635 in present-day Western Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern Ohio, and West Virginia. The culture was named by Mary ...

to the north, the

Fort Ancient The Fort Ancient culture is a Native American archaeological culture that dates back to . Members of the culture lived along the Ohio River valley, in an area running from modern-day Ohio and western West Virginia through to northern Kentucky ...

culture along the Ohio River from the Monongahela to Kentucky and extending an unknown distance inland,Ellis, Laura Elizabeth "Investigating the Orchard Site: A Protohistoric Fort AncientSite in West Virginia" 2015 and the Eastern Siouan

Tutelo The Tutelo (also Totero, Totteroy, Tutera; Yesan in Tutelo) were Native American people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia. They spoke a dialect of the Siouan Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of th ...

and

Moneton The Moneton were a historical Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe from West Virginia. In the late 17th century, they lived in the Kanawha Valley near the Kanawha River, Kanawha and New River (Kanawha River), New Rivers. ...

tribes in the southeast. There was also the Iroquoian

Susquehannock The Susquehannock, also known as the Conestoga, Minquas, and Andaste, were an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian people who lived in the lower Susquehanna River watershed in what is now Pennsylvania. Their name means “people of the muddy river.” T ...

in the region approximately east of the Monongahela River and north of the Monongahela National Forest, a possible tribe called the Senandoa, or Shenandoah, in the Shenandoah Valley and the easternmost tip of the state may have been home to the

Manahoac The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, were a Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who lived in northern Virginia at the time of European contact. They spoke a Siouan language and numbered approximately 1,000. They lived primarily a ...

people. The Monongahela may have been the same as a people known as the Calicua, or Cali. The following may have also all been the same tribe—Moneton, Moheton, Senandoa, Tomahitan. During the Beaver Wars, other tribes moved into the region. The Iroquoian Tiontatecaga (also Little Mingo, Guyandotte) seem to have split off from the Petun after they were defeated by the Iroquois. They eventually settled somewhere between the Kanawha and Little Kanawha Rivers. During the 1750s, when the Mingo Seneca seceded from the Iroquois and returned to the Ohio River Valley, they contend that this tribe merged with them. The

Shawnee The Shawnee ( ) are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language. Their precontact homeland was likely centered in southern Ohio. In the 17th century, they dispersed through Ohi ...

arrived as well; though primarily stationed within former Monongahela territory approximately until 1750, they extended their influence throughout the Ohio River region. They were West Virginia's last Native tribe and were driven out by the United States during the Shawnee Wars (1811–1813). The Erie, who were chased out of Ohio around 1655, are now believed to be the same as the

Westo The Westo were an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribe encountered in what became the Southeastern U.S. by Europeans in the 17th century. They probably spoke an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian la ...

, who invaded as far as South Carolina before being destroyed in the 1680s. If so, their path would have brought them through West Virginia. The historical movement of the Tutelo and carbon dating of the Fort Ancients seem to correspond with the given period of 1655–1670 as the time of their removal. The Susquehannocks were original participants in the Beaver Wars but were cut off from the Ohio River by the Iroquois around 1630 and found themselves in dire straits. Suffering from disease and constant warfare and unable to provide for themselves financially, they began to collapse and moved further and further east, to the Susquehanna River of Eastern Pennsylvania. The Manahoac were probably forced out in the 1680s when the Iroquois began to invade Virginia. The Siouan tribes there moved into

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

and later returned as one tribe, known as the Eastern Blackfoot, or Christannas. The Westo did not secure the territory they conquered. Even before they were gone, displaced natives from the south flooded into freshly conquered regions and took them over. These became known as the Shattaras, or West Virginia Cherokees. They took in and merged with the Monetons, who began to call themselves the Mohetons. The Calicua also began to call themselves Cherokees soon after, showing an apparent further merger. These Shattaras were closely related to the tribes that formed to the south in the aftermath of the Westo—the Yuchi and Cherokee. From 1715 to 1717, the Yamasee War sprang up. The Senandoa allegedly sided with the Yuchi and were destroyed by Yamasee allies. Therefore, if the Senandoa were the same tribe as the Moneton, this would mean the collapse of Shattara-Moneton culture. Another tribe that appeared in the region was the Canaragay, or Kanawha. It later migrated to Maryland and merged into colonial culture.

European exploration and settlement

In 1671, General

Abraham Wood Abraham Wood (1610–1682), sometimes referred to as "General" or "Colonel" Wood, was an English fur trader, militia officer, politician and explorer of 17th century colonial Virginia. Wood helped build and maintained Fort Henry at the falls o ...

, at the direction of Royal Governor William Berkeley of the

Virginia Colony The Colony of Virginia was a British colonial settlement in North America from 1606 to 1776. The first effort to create an English settlement in the area was chartered in 1584 and established in 1585; the resulting Roanoke Colony lasted for t ...

, sent a party from Fort Henry led by Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam to survey this territory. They were the first Europeans recorded as discovering

Kanawha Falls Kanawha Falls is a waterfall on the Kanawha River in the U.S. state of West Virginia that has been a barrier to fish movement for more than 1 million years. The waterfall is formed by a diagonal sandstone ledge across the river about downstrea ...

. Some sources state that Governor

Alexander Spotswood Major-General Alexander Spotswood (12 December 1676 – 7 June 1740) was a British army officer, explorer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1710 to 1722. After an unsatisfactory military career, in 1710 ...

's 1716

Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition, also known as the Transmontane Expedition, took place in 1716 in the British Colony of Virginia. The Royal Governor and a number of prominent citizens traveled westward, across the Blue Ridge Mount ...

(for which the state's Golden Horseshoe Competition for 8th graders is named) had penetrated as far as Pendleton County, but modern historians interpret the original accounts of the excursion as suggesting that none of the expedition's horsemen ventured much farther west of the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...

than

Harrisonburg, Virginia Harrisonburg is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is also the county seat of the surrounding Rockingham Cou ...

. John Van Metre, a Native trader, penetrated into the northern portion in 1725. The same year,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

settlers from Pennsylvania founded New Mecklenburg, the present Shepherdstown, on the

Potomac River The Potomac River () is in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and flows from the Potomac Highlands in West Virginia to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography D ...

, and others followed. King

Charles II of England Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651 and King of England, Scotland, and King of Ireland, Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. Charles II was the eldest su ...

, in 1661, granted to a company of gentlemen the land between the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers, known as the

Northern Neck The Northern Neck is the northernmost of three peninsulas (traditionally called "necks" in Virginia) on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in the Commonwealth of Virginia (along with the Middle Peninsula and the Virginia Peninsula). The P ...

.

Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (22 October 16939 December 1781) was a British-born planter. The only member of the British peerage to permanently reside in British America, Fairfax owned the Northern Neck Proprietary in the Colony ...

ultimately took possession of this grant, and in 1746 a

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

was erected at the source of the

North Branch Potomac River The North Branch Potomac River flows from Fairfax Stone in West Virginia to its confluence with the South Branch Potomac River near Green Spring, West Virginia, where it turns into the Potomac River proper. Course From the Fairfax Stone, th ...

to mark his grant's western limit.

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

surveyed a considerable part of this land between 1748 and 1751. His diary recorded that there were already many squatters, largely of German origin, along 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 ...

.

Christopher Gist Christopher Gist (1706–1759) was an explorer, surveyor, and frontiersman active in Colonial America. He was one of the first white explorers of the Ohio Country (the present-day states of Ohio, eastern Indiana, western Pennsylvania, and nort ...

, a surveyor in the employ of the first

Ohio Company The Ohio Company, formally known as the Ohio Company of Virginia, was a land speculation company organized for the settlement by Virginians of the Ohio Country (approximately the present U.S. state of Ohio) and to trade with the Native Ameri ...

, which was composed chiefly of Virginians, explored the country along the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

north of the mouth of the

Kanawha River The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its watershed has been a significant industrial region of th ...

between 1751 and 1752. The company sought to have a 14th colony established with the name " Vandalia". Many settlers crossed the mountains after 1750, though they were hindered by Native American resistance. Few Native Americans lived permanently within the state's present limits, but the region was a common hunting ground, crossed by many trails. During the

French and Indian War The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, was a colonial conflict in North America between Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of France, France, along with their respective Native Americans in the United States, Native American ...

(the North American front of the Seven Years' War in Europe),Native allies of the French nearly destroyed the scattered British settlements. Shortly before the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

, in 1774 Crown Governor of Virginia

John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730 – 25 February 1809) was a British colonial administrator who served as the List of colonial governors of Virginia, governor of Virginia from 1771 to 1775. Dunmore was named List of colonial governors of ...

, led a force over the mountains. A body of militia under then-Colonel Andrew Lewis dealt the

Shawnee Natives The Shawnee ( ) are a Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian languages, Algonquian language. Their Pre-Columbian era, ...

, under

Hokoleskwa Cornstalk ( – November 10, 1777) was a Shawnee leader in the Ohio Country in the 1760s and 1770s. His name in the Shawnee language was ''Hokoleskwa''. Little is known about his early life. He may have been born in the Province of Pennsylvania. I ...

(or "Cornstalk"), a crushing blow during the

Battle of Point Pleasant The Battle of Point Pleasant, also known as the Battle of Kanawha and the Battle of Great Kanawha, was the only major action of Dunmore's War. It was fought on October 10, 1774, between the Virginia militia and Shawnee and Mingo warriors. Along ...

at the junction of the Kanawha and the Ohio rivers. At the Treaty of Camp Charlotte concluding

Dunmore's War Lord Dunmore's War, also known as Dunmore's War, was a brief conflict in the fall of 1774 between the British Colony of Virginia and the Shawnee and Mingo in the trans-Appalachia region of the colony south of the Ohio River. Broadly, the war in ...

, Cornstalk agreed to recognize the Ohio River as the new boundary with the " Long Knives". But by 1776 the Shawnee returned to war, joining the Chickamauga, a band of

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

known for the area where they lived. Native American attacks on settlers continued until after the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. During the war, the settlers in western Virginia were generally active Whigs; many served in the

Continental Army The Continental Army was the army of the United Colonies representing the Thirteen Colonies and later the United States during the American Revolutionary War. It was formed on June 14, 1775, by a resolution passed by the Second Continental Co ...

. Claypool's Rebellion of 1780–1781, in which a group of men refused to pay taxes to the Continental Army, showed war-weariness in what became West Virginia.

Trans-Allegheny Virginia

Social conditions in western Virginia were entirely unlike those in the eastern part. The population was not homogeneous, as a considerable part of the immigration came by way of Pennsylvania and included Germans, Protestant Scotch-Irish, and settlers from states farther north. Counties in the east and south were settled mostly by eastern Virginians. During the American Revolution, the movement to create a state beyond the

Alleghenies The Allegheny Mountain Range ( ) — also spelled Alleghany or Allegany, less formally the Alleghenies — is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada. Historically it represented a significant barr ...

was revived and a petition for the establishment of "

Westsylvania Westsylvania was a proposed state of the United States located in what is now West Virginia, southwestern Pennsylvania, and small parts of Kentucky, Maryland, and Virginia. First proposed early in the American Revolution, Westsylvania would hav ...

" was presented to

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

, on the grounds that the mountains presented an almost impassable barrier to the east. The rugged terrain made slavery unprofitable, and time only increased the social, political, economic, and cultural differences (''see''

Tuckahoes and Cohees In the Colony of Virginia, Anglican planters of eastern Virginia were called Tuckahoes, to differentiate them from Cohees—German, Irish and Scotch-Irish immigrants that settled in the Shenandoah Valley, west of the Blue Ridge Mountains in what ...

) between Virginia's two sections. In 1829, a constitutional convention met in Richmond to consider reforms to Virginia's outdated constitution.

Philip Doddridge Philip Doddridge D.D. (26 June 1702 – 26 October 1751) was an English Nonconformist (specifically, Congregationalist) minister, educator, and hymnwriter. Early life Philip Doddridge was born in London, the last of the twenty children ...

of Brooke County championed the cause of western Virginians who sought a more democratic frame of government, but western reforms were rejected by leaders from east of the

Alleghenies The Allegheny Mountain Range ( ) — also spelled Alleghany or Allegany, less formally the Alleghenies — is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the Eastern United States and Canada. Historically it represented a significant barr ...

who "clung to political power in an effort to preserve their plantation lifestyles dependent on enslaving blacks". Virginia leaders maintained a property qualification for

suffrage Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...

, effectively disenfranchising poorer farmers in the west whose families did much of the farm work themselves. In addition, the 1829–30 convention gave slaveholding counties the benefit of three-fifths of their slave population in apportioning the state's representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. As a result, every county west of the Alleghenies except one voted to reject the constitution, which nevertheless passed because of eastern support. The eastern planter elite's failure to make constitutional reforms exacerbated existing east–west sectionalism in Virginia and contributed to its division. The Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850–51, the Reform Convention, addressed a number of issues important to western Virginians. It extended the vote to all white males 21 years or older. The governor, lieutenant governor, the judiciary, sheriffs, and other county officers were to be elected by public vote. The General Assembly's composition was changed. Representation in the House of Delegates was apportioned based on the census of 1850, counting whites only. The Senate representation was arbitrarily fixed at 50 seats, with the west receiving 20 senators and the east 30. This was made acceptable to the west by a provision that required the General Assembly to reapportion representation based on the white population in 1865, or else put the matter to a public referendum. But the east also gave itself a tax advantage in requiring a property tax at true and actual value, except for slaves. Slaves under age 12 were not taxed and slaves over that age were taxed at only $300, a fraction of their true value, but small farmers had all their assets, animals, and land taxed at full value. Despite this tax and the lack of

internal improvements Internal improvements is the term used historically in the United States for public works from the end of the American Revolution through much of the 19th century, mainly for the creation of a transportation infrastructure: roads, turnpikes, can ...

in the west, the vote was 75,748 for and 11,063 against the new constitution. Most of the opposition came from delegates from eastern counties, who did not like the compromises made for the west. Given these differences, many in the west had long contemplated a separate state. In particular, men such as lawyer Francis H. Pierpont from Fairmont had long chafed under the Tidewater and Piedmont slaveholders' political dominance. In addition to differences over slavery, he and allies felt the Virginia government ignored and refused to spend funds on needed internal improvements in the west, such as turnpikes and railroads.

Separation from Virginia

West Virginia was the only state in the Union to separate from a Confederate state (

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

) during the Civil War. In Richmond on April 17, 1861, the

Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 The Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 was called in the state capital of Richmond to determine whether Virginia would secede from the United States, govern the state during a state of emergency, and write a new Constitution for Virginia, whi ...

voted to secede from the Union, but of the 49 delegates from the northwestern corner (which ultimately became West Virginia) only 17 voted in favor of the

Ordinance of Secession An Ordinance of Secession was the name given to multiple resolutions drafted and ratified in 1860 and 1861, at or near the beginning of the American Civil War, by which each seceding slave-holding Southern state or territory formally Secession in ...

, while 30 voted against (with two abstentions). Almost immediately after that vote, a mass meeting at Clarksburg recommended that each county in northwestern Virginia send delegates to a convention to meet in Wheeling on May 13, 1861. When this First

Wheeling Convention The 1861 Wheeling Convention was an assembly of Southern Unionist delegates from the northwestern counties of Virginia, aimed at repealing the Ordinance of Secession, which had been approved by referendum, subject to a vote. The first of its t ...

met, 425 delegates from 25 counties were present, though more than one-third of the delegates were from the northern panhandle area. Soon there was a division of sentiment. Some delegates led by pro-Union slaveowner

John S. Carlile John Snyder Carlile (December 16, 1817October 24, 1878) was an American merchant, lawyer, slaveowner and politician, including a United States senator. A strong supporter of the Union cause during the American Civil War, he represented the loy ...

favored the immediate formation of a new state, while others led by

Waitman Willey Waitman Thomas Willey (October 18, 1811May 2, 1900) was an American lawyer and politician from Morgantown, West Virginia. One of the founders of the state of West Virginia during the American Civil War, he served in the United States Senate repr ...

argued that, as Virginia's secession had not yet been passed by the required referendum (as happened on May 23), such action would constitute revolution against the United States. The convention decided that if Virginians adopted the secession ordinance (of which there was little doubt), another convention including the members-elect of the legislature would meet in Wheeling in June 1861. On May 23, 1861, secession was ratified by a large majority in Virginia as a whole, but in the western counties 34,677 voted against and 19,121 voted for the ordinance. The Second Wheeling Convention met as agreed on June 11 and declared that, since the Secession Convention had been called without popular consent, all its acts were void and all who adhered to it had vacated their offices. The Wheeling Conventions, and the delegates themselves, were never actually elected by public ballot to act on behalf of western Virginia. Of its 103 members, 33 had been elected to the Virginia General Assembly on May 23. This included some hold-over state senators whose four-year terms had begun in 1859, and some who vacated their offices to convene in Wheeling. Other members "were chosen even more irregularly—some in mass meetings, others by county committee, and still others were seemingly self-appointed". An act for the reorganization of the government was passed on June 19. The next day, convention delegates chose Francis H. Pierpont as governor of Virginia and elected other officers to a rival state government and two U.S. senators (Willey and Carlile) to replace secessionists before adjourning. The federal government promptly recognized the new government and seated the two new senators. Thus there were two state governments in Virginia: one pledging allegiance to the United States and one to the Confederacy. The second Wheeling Convention had recessed until August 6, then reassembled on August 20 and called for a popular vote on the formation of a new state and for a convention to frame a constitution if the vote were favorable. In the October 24, 1861, election, 18,408 votes were cast for the new state and 781 against. The election results were questioned since the Union army then occupied the area and Union troops were stationed at many of the polls to prevent Confederate sympathizers from voting. This was also election day for local offices, and elections were also held in camps of Confederate soldiers, who elected rival state officials, such as

Robert E. Cowan Robert Edwin Cowan (November 9, 1830 – July 14, 1887) was a Virginia lawyer and politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 and as a Confederate officer. After the American Civil War ...

. Most pro-statehood votes came from 16 counties around the northern panhandle. Over 50,000 votes had been cast on the Ordinance of Secession, yet the vote on statehood garnered little more than 19,000. In Ohio County, home to Wheeling, only about a fourth of the registered voters cast votes. In most of what would become West Virginia, there was no vote at all, as two-thirds of the territory of West Virginia had voted for secession, and county officers remained loyal to Richmond. Votes recorded from pro-secession counties were mostly cast elsewhere by Unionist refugees from these counties. Despite that controversy, delegates (including many Methodist ministers) met to write a constitution for the new state, beginning on November 26, 1861. During that constitutional convention, a Mr. Lamb of Ohio County and a Mr. Carskadon claimed that in Hampshire County, out of 195 votes only 39 were cast by citizens of the state; the rest were cast illegally by Union soldiers. One of the key figures was Gordon Battelle, who also represented Ohio County, and who proposed resolutions to establish public schools, as well as to limit the movement of slaves into the new state, and to gradually abolish slavery. The education proposal succeeded, but the convention tabled the slavery proposals before finishing its work on February 18, 1862. The new constitution was more closely modeled on Ohio's than Virginia's, adopting a township model of government rather than the "

courthouse clique A courthouse clique, courthouse machine, courthouse ring, courthouse gang, or courthouse crowd is a type of political machine in the United States principally composed of county-level public officials. Historically, they were especially predominant ...

s" of Virginia which Carlile criticized, and a compromise demanded by the Kanawha region (Charleston lawyers Benjamin Smith and Brown) allowed counties and municipalities to vote subsidies for railroads or other improvement organizations. The resulting instrument was ratified (18,162 for and 514 against) on April 11, 1862. WVSlaveBroadside

On May 13, 1862, the state legislature of the reorganized government approved the formation of the new state. An application for admission to the Union was made to Congress, introduced by Senator

Waitman Willey Waitman Thomas Willey (October 18, 1811May 2, 1900) was an American lawyer and politician from Morgantown, West Virginia. One of the founders of the state of West Virginia during the American Civil War, he served in the United States Senate repr ...

of the Restored Government of Virginia. Carlile sought to sabotage the bill, first trying to expand the new state's boundaries to include the Shenandoah Valley, and then to defeat the Willey amendment at home. On December 31, 1862, President

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

approved an enabling act admitting West Virginia on the condition that a provision for the gradual abolition of slavery be inserted in its constitution (as Battelle had urged in the ''Wheeling Intelligencer'' and also written to Lincoln). While many felt West Virginia's admission as a state was both illegal and unconstitutional, Lincoln issued his ''Opinion on the Admission of West Virginia'' finding that "the body which consents to the admission of West Virginia is the Legislature of Virginia", and that its admission was therefore both constitutional and expedient. The convention was reconvened on February 12, 1863, and the abolition demand of the federal enabling act was met. The revised constitution was adopted on March 26, 1863, and on April 20, 1863, Lincoln issued a proclamation admitting the state 60 days later on June 20, 1863. Meanwhile, officers for the new state were chosen, while Pierpont moved his pro-Union Virginia capital to Union-occupied

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

, where he asserted and exercised jurisdiction over all the remaining Virginia counties within the federal lines. The question of the constitutionality of the formation of the new state was later brought before the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

in ''

Virginia v. West Virginia ''Virginia v. West Virginia'', 78 U.S. (11 Wall.) 39 (1871), is a 6–3 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that if a governor (United States), governor has discretion in the conduct of the election, the legislature is boun ...

.''

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

and Jefferson counties, lying on the Potomac east of the mountains, voted in favor of annexation to West Virginia in 1863, with the consent of Virginia's reorganized government. Many voters of the strongly pro-secessionist counties were absent in the Confederate Army when the vote was taken and refused to acknowledge the transfer when they returned. The

Virginia General Assembly The Virginia General Assembly is the legislative body of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the oldest continuous law-making body in the Western Hemisphere, and the first elected legislative assembly in the New World. It was established on July 30, ...

repealed the act of secession and in 1866 brought suit against West Virginia asking the court to declare the counties part of Virginia, which would have made West Virginia's admission as a state unconstitutional. Meanwhile, on March 10, 1866, Congress passed a joint resolution recognizing the transfer. The Supreme Court decided in West Virginia's favor in 1870.

Claims by Maryland

The original charters for Maryland and Virginia were silent as to which branch of the upper Potomac was the boundary. This was settled by the 1785

Mount Vernon Conference The Mount Vernon Conference was a meeting of delegates from Virginia and Maryland held at Mount Vernon on March 21–28, 1785, to discuss navigational rights in the states' common waterways. On March 28, 1785, the group drew up a thirteen-point pr ...

. Nevertheless, when West Virginia seceded from Virginia, Maryland claimed West Virginia land north of the South Branch (all of

Mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

and Grant Counties and parts of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

,

Hardy Hardy may refer to: People * Hardy (surname) * Hardy (given name) * Hardy (singer), American singer-songwriter Places Antarctica * Mount Hardy, Enderby Land * Hardy Cove, Greenwich Island * Hardy Rocks, Biscoe Islands Australia * Hardy, ...

,

Tucker Tucker may refer to: Places United States * Tucker, Arkansas * Tucker, Georgia * Tucker, Mississippi * Tucker, Missouri * Tucker, Utah, ghost town * Tucker County, West Virginia Outer space * Tucker (crater), a small lunar impact crater in ...

and Pendleton Counties). The Supreme Court rejected these claims in two separate decisions in 1910.

In the Civil War

During the Civil War, Union General

George B. McClellan George Brinton McClellan (December 3, 1826 – October 29, 1885) was an American military officer and politician who served as the 24th governor of New Jersey and as Commanding General of the United States Army from November 1861 to March 186 ...

's forces gained possession of the greater part of the territory in the summer of 1861, culminating at the

Battle of Rich Mountain The Battle of Rich Mountain took place on July 11, 1861, in Randolph County, Virginia (now West Virginia) as part of the Operations in Western Virginia Campaign during the American Civil War. Background Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan assumed c ...

, and Union control was never again seriously threatened. In 1863, General

John D. Imboden John Daniel Imboden (; February 16, 1823August 15, 1895) was an American lawyer, Virginia state legislator, and Confederate army general. During the American Civil War, he commanded an irregular cavalry force. After the war, he resumed practicin ...

, with 5,000 Confederates, raided a considerable portion of the state and burned Pierpont's library, although Willey escaped their grasp. Bands of guerrillas burned and plundered in some sections, and were not entirely suppressed until the war ended. The eastern panhandle counties were more affected by the war, with military control of the area repeatedly changing hands. The area that became West Virginia actually furnished about an equal number of soldiers to the Union and Confederate armies, about 22,000–25,000 each. In 1865, the Wheeling government found it necessary to strip voting rights from returning Confederates in order to retain control. James Ferguson, who proposed the law, said if it was not enacted he would lose the election by 500 votes. Confederates' property might also be confiscated, and in 1866 a constitutional amendment disfranchising all who had given aid and comfort to the Confederacy was adopted. The addition of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution caused a reaction. The Democratic party secured control in 1870, and in 1871 the constitutional amendment of 1866 was abrogated.

Republicans Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

had taken the first steps toward this change in 1870. On August 22, 1872, an entirely new constitution was adopted. Beginning in

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

, and for several decades thereafter, the two states disputed the new state's share of the prewar Virginia government's debts, which had mostly been incurred to finance public infrastructure improvements, such as canals, roads, and railroads under the

Virginia Board of Public Works The Virginia Board of Public Works was a governmental agency which oversaw and helped finance the development of Virginia's transportation-related internal improvements during the 19th century. In that era, it was customary to invest public funds ...

. Virginians—led by former Confederate general

William Mahone William Mahone (December 1, 1826October 8, 1895) was a Confederate States Army general, civil engineer, railroad executive, prominent Virginia Readjuster Party, Readjuster and ardent supporter of former slaves. He later represented Virginia in th ...

—formed a political coalition based upon this: the

Readjuster Party The Readjuster Party was a bi-racial state-level political party formed in Virginia across party lines in the late 1870s during the turbulent period following the Reconstruction era that sought to reduce outstanding debt owed by the state. Readj ...

. West Virginia's first constitution provided for the assumption of a part of the Virginia debt, but negotiations opened by Virginia in 1870 were fruitless, and in 1871 Virginia funded two-thirds of the debt and arbitrarily assigned the remainder to West Virginia. The issue was finally settled in 1915, when the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

ruled that West Virginia owed Virginia $12,393,929.50. The final installment of this sum was paid in 1939.

Development of natural resources

After

Reconstruction Reconstruction may refer to: Politics, history, and sociology *Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company *''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...

, the new 35th state benefited from the development of its mineral resources more than any other single economic activity.

Saltpeter Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with a sharp, salty, bitter taste and the chemical formula . It is a potassium salt of nitric acid. This salt consists of potassium cations and nitrate anions , and is therefore an alkali metal nitrate ...

caves had been employed throughout Appalachia for munitions; the border between West Virginia and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

includes the "Saltpeter Trail", a string of

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

rns containing rich deposits of

calcium nitrate Calcium nitrate are inorganic compounds with the formula Ca(NO3)2(H2O)x. The anhydrous compound, which is rarely encountered, absorbs moisture from the air to give the tetrahydrate. Both anhydrous and hydrated forms are colourless salts. Hydrated ...

which were rendered and sold to the government. The trail stretched from Pendleton County to the western terminus of the route in the town of Union, Monroe County. Nearly half of these caves are on the West Virginia side, including

Organ Cave Organ Cave is a large and historic cave in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, Greenbrier County, West Virginia, USA. The Organ Cave, West Virginia, surrounding community takes its name from the cave. In 1973, the Organ Cave System—also known ...

and

Haynes Cave Haynes Cave is a cave within the Greenbrier River watershed in West Virginia. It sits within the complex hydrology of the historic Second Creek watershed in Monroe County. Haynes Cave has been the only contender against Organ Cave as the disco ...

. In the late 18th century, saltpeter miners in

Haynes Cave Haynes Cave is a cave within the Greenbrier River watershed in West Virginia. It sits within the complex hydrology of the historic Second Creek watershed in Monroe County. Haynes Cave has been the only contender against Organ Cave as the disco ...

found large animal bones in the deposits. These were sent by a local historian and frontier soldier Colonel John Stuart to

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

. The bones were named ''

Megalonyx jeffersonii ''Megalonyx'' (Greek, "great-claw") is an extinct genus of ground sloths of the family Megalonychidae, native to North America. It evolved during the Pliocene Epoch and became extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene, living from ~5 million ...

'', or great-claw, and became known as Jefferson's three-toed sloth. It was declared the official

state fossil Most states in the US have designated a state fossil, many during the 1980s. It is common to designate a fossilized species, rather than a single specimen or a category of fossils. State fossils are distinct from other state emblems like state d ...

of West Virginia in 2008. The West Virginia official

state rock Leaders of states in the U.S. which have significant mineral deposits often create a state mineral, rock, stone or gemstone to promote interest in their natural resources, history, tourism, etc. Not every state has an official state mineral, rock, ...

is

bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the coal seam, ...

, and the official

state gemstone Leaders of states in the U.S. which have significant mineral deposits often create a state mineral, rock, stone or gemstone to promote interest in their natural resources, history, tourism, etc. Not every state has an official state mineral, rock, ...

is silicified Mississippian fossil Lithostrotionella coral. The limestone also produced a useful

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

industry. Usually small, and softer, high-calcium seams were burned to produce industrial lime. This lime was used for agricultural and construction purposes; for many years a specific portion of the C & O Railroad carried limestone rock to

Clifton Forge, Virginia Clifton Forge is a town in Alleghany County, Virginia, United States which is part of the greater Roanoke Region. The population was 3,555 at the 2020 census. The Jackson River flows through the town, which as a result was once known as Ja ...

as an industrial flux.

Salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...

mining had been underway since the 18th century, though it had largely played out by the time of the American Civil War, when the red salt of

Kanawha County Kanawha County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 180,745, making it West Virginia's most populous county. The county seat is Charleston, which is also the state capital and most po ...

was a valued commodity of first Confederate, and later Union, forces. In the years following, more sophisticated mining methods would restore West Virginia's role as a major producer of salt. However, in the second half of the 19th century, there was an even greater treasure not yet developed:

bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the coal seam, ...

. It would fuel much of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

in the U.S. and the steamships of many of the world's navies. The residents (both Native Americans and early European settlers) had long known of the underlying coal, and that it could be used for heating and fuel. However, for a long time, "personal" or

artisanal mining Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is a blanket term for a type of subsistence mining involving a miner who may or may not be officially employed by a List of mining companies, mining company but works independently, mining minerals using the ...

was the only practical development. After the War, with the new

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

s came a practical method to transport large quantities of coal to expanding U.S. and export markets. As the

anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a lustre (mineralogy)#Submetallic lustre, submetallic lustre. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy densit ...

mines of northwestern New Jersey and Pennsylvania began to play out during this same time period, investors and industrialists focused new interest in West Virginia.

Geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

s such as Dr.

David T. Ansted David Thomas Ansted Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (5 February 181413 May 1880) was an English professor of geology and author of numerous books on geology. His role as a teacher at Addiscombe Military Seminary, where future East India Company ...

surveyed potential coal fields and invested in land and early mining projects. The completion of the

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis Potter Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Rich ...

(C&O) across the state to the new city of Huntington on the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

in 1872 opened access to the New River Coal Field. Soon, the C&O was building its huge

coal pier A coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of coal between rail and ship. The typical facility for loading ships consists of a holding area and a system of conveyors for transferring the coal to dockside and loading it into ...

at

Newport News, Virginia Newport News () is an Independent city (United States), independent city in southeastern Virginia, United States. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 186,247. Located in the Hampton Roads region, it is the List of c ...

, on the large harbor of

Hampton Roads Hampton Roads is a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond, and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's Point near whe ...

. In 1881, the new Philadelphia-based owners of the former

Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (AM&O) was formed in 1870 in Virginia from three east–west railroads which traversed across the southern portion of the state. Organized and led by former Confederate States of America, Confederate gen ...

(AM&O), which stretched across Virginia's southern tier from

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, had sights clearly set on West Virginia, where the owners had large landholdings. Their railroad was renamed

Norfolk and Western The Norfolk and Western Railway , commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precisio ...

(N&W), and a new railroad city was developed at Roanoke to handle planned expansion. After its new president

Frederick J. Kimball Frederick James Kimball (March 6, 1844 – July 27, 1903) was a civil engineer. He was an early president of the Norfolk and Western Railway and helped develop the Pocahontas coalfields in Virginia and West Virginia. Railroad career At 18 ...

and a small party journeyed by horseback and saw firsthand the rich bituminous coal seam, which Kimball's wife named ''Pocahontas'', the N&W redirected its planned westward expansion to reach it. Soon, the N&W was also shipping from new coal piers at Hampton Roads. In 1889, in the southern part of the state, along the Norfolk and Western rail lines, the important coal center of

Bluefield, West Virginia Bluefield is a city in Mercer County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 9,658 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the principal city of the Bluefield micropolitan area extending into Virginia, which had a populatio ...

, was founded. The "capital" of the

Pocahontas coalfield Pocahontas Coalfield, which is also known as the Flat Top-Pocahontas Coalfield, is located in Mercer County/ McDowell County, West Virginia and Tazewell County, Virginia. The earliest mining of coal in the coalfield was in Pocahontas, Virgini ...

, this city would remain the largest city in the southern portion of the state for several decades. It shares its name with a sister city, Bluefield, in Virginia. In the northern portion of the state and elsewhere, the older

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the oldest railroads in North America, oldest railroad in the United States and the first steam engine, steam-operated common carrier. Construction of the line began in 1828, and it operated as B&O from 1830 ...

(B&O) and other lines also expanded to take advantage of coal opportunities. The B&O developed coal piers in

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

and at several points on the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

. Other significant rail carriers of coal were the

Western Maryland Railway The Western Maryland Railway was a small American Class I railroad (1852–1983) that operated in 3 Southern United States, Southern US States, Maryland (Western Maryland, Western Region), West Virginia (Potomac Highlands of West Virginia, Easte ...

(WM), Southern Railway (SOU), and the

Louisville and Nashville Railroad The Louisville and Nashville Railroad , commonly called the L&N, was a Class I railroad that operated freight and passenger services in the southeast United States. Chartered by the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1850, the road grew into one of ...

(L&N). Particularly notable was a latecomer, the

Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. History ...

(VGN). By 1900, only the most rugged terrain of southern West Virginia was any distance from the existing railroads and mining activity. Within this area west of the New River Coalfield in Raleigh and Wyoming counties lay the

Winding Gulf Coalfield The Winding Gulf Coalfield is located in western Raleigh County and eastern Wyoming County, in southern West Virginia. It is named after the Winding Gulf stream, a tributary of the Guyandotte River. In the early 20th century, it was promoted as ...

, later promoted as the "Billion Dollar Coalfield". A protégé of Dr. Ansted was

William Nelson Page William Nelson Page (January 6, 1854 – March 7, 1932) was an American civil engineer and industrialist. He was active in the Virginias following the U.S. Civil War. Page was widely known as a metallurgy, metallurgical expert by other indust ...

(1854–1932), a

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing i ...

and mining manager in Fayette County. Former West Virginia governor

William A. MacCorkle William Alexander MacCorkle (May 7, 1857 – September 24, 1930), was an American teacher, lawyer, prosecutor, the ninth governor of West Virginia and state legislator of West Virginia, and financier. His residence in Charleston, known as Sunris ...

described him as a man who knew the land "as a farmer knows a field". Beginning in 1898, Page teamed with northern and European-based investors to take advantage of the undeveloped area. They acquired large tracts of land in the area, and Page began the

Deepwater Railway The Deepwater Railway was an intrastate short line railroad located in West Virginia in the United States which operated from 1898 to 1907. William N. Page, a civil engineer and entrepreneur, had begun a small logging railroad in Fayette County, W ...

, a

short-line railroad A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that operates over a relatively short distance relative to larger, national railroad networks. The term is used primarily in the United States and Canada. In the former, railroads are ...

chartered to stretch between the C&O at its line along the

Kanawha River The Kanawha River ( ) is a tributary of the Ohio River, approximately 97 mi (156 km) long, in the U.S. state of West Virginia. The largest inland waterway in West Virginia, its watershed has been a significant industrial region of th ...

and the N&W at Matoaka—a distance of about . Although the Deepwater plan should have provided a competitive shipping market via either railroad, leaders of the two large railroads did not appreciate the scheme. In secret collusion, each declined to negotiate favorable rates with Page, nor did they offer to purchase his railroad, as they had many other short-lines. However, if the C&O and N&W presidents thought they could thus kill the Page project, they were to be proved mistaken. One of the

silent partner A silent partner is one who shares in the profits and losses of a business, but is not involved in its management. Silent partner or Silent Partners may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Silent Partner'', a 2005 film starring Tara Reid ...

investors Page had enlisted was millionaire industrialist

Henry Huttleston Rogers Henry Huttleston Rogers (January 29, 1840 – May 19, 1909) was an American industrialist and financier. He made his fortune in the oil refining business, becoming a leader at Standard Oil. He also played a major role in numerous corporations a ...

, a principal in

John D. Rockefeller John Davison Rockefeller Sr. (July 8, 1839 – May 23, 1937) was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was one of the List of richest Americans in history, wealthiest Americans of all time and one of the richest people in modern hist ...

's

Standard Oil Trust Standard Oil Company was a corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller. The ...

and an old hand at developing natural resources and transportation. A master at competitive "warfare", Henry Rogers did not like to lose in his endeavors and also had "deep pockets". Instead of giving up, Page (and Rogers) quietly planned and then built their tracks all the way east across Virginia, using Rogers' private fortune to finance the $40 million cost. When the renamed

Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. History ...

(VGN) was completed in 1909, no fewer than three railroads were shipping ever-increasing volumes of coal to export from Hampton Roads. West Virginia coal was also in high demand at

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes spanning the Canada–United States border. The five lakes are Lake Superior, Superior, Lake Michigan, Michigan, Lake Huron, H ...

ports. The VGN and the N&W ultimately became parts of the modern

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

system, and the VGN's well-engineered 20th-century tracks continue to offer a favorable gradient to Hampton Roads. As coal mining and related work became major employment activities in the state, there was considerable labor strife as working conditions, safety issues and economic concerns arose. Even in the 21st century, mining safety and ecological concerns are still challenging to the state whose coal continues to power electrical generating plants in many other states. Coal is not the only valuable mineral found in West Virginia, as the state was the site of the 1928 discovery of the 34.48 carat (6.896 g)

Jones Diamond The Jones Diamond, also known as the Punch Jones Diamond, The Grover Jones Diamond, or The Horseshoe Diamond, was a 34.48 carat (6.896 g) alluvial diamond found in Peterstown, West Virginia by members of the Jones family. It remains the largest all ...

.

Geography

Located in the

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

, West Virginia covers an area of , with of land and of water, making it the 41st-largest state in the United States. West Virginia borders

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

and

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

in the northeast,

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

in the southeast,

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

in the northwest, and

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

in the southwest. Its longest border is with Virginia at , followed by Ohio at , Maryland at , Pennsylvania at , and Kentucky at .

Geology and terrain

West Virginia is located entirely within the Appalachian Region, and the state is almost entirely mountainous, giving the reason for the nickname ''The Mountain State'' and the motto ''Montani Semper Liberi'' ("Mountaineers are always free"). The elevations and ruggedness drop near large rivers like the Ohio River or

Shenandoah River The Shenandoah River is the principal tributary of the Potomac River, long with two River fork, forks approximately long each,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August ...

. About 75% of the state is within the

Cumberland Plateau The Cumberland Plateau is the southern part of the Appalachian Plateau in the Appalachian Mountains of the United States. It includes much of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and portions of northern Alabama and northwest Georgia. The terms " Al ...

and

Allegheny Plateau The Allegheny Plateau ( ) is a large dissected plateau area of the Appalachian Mountains in western and central New York, northern and western Pennsylvania, northern and western West Virginia, and eastern Ohio. It is divided into the unglacia ...

regions. Though the relief is not high, the plateau region is extremely rugged in most areas. The average elevation of West Virginia is approximately above sea level, which is the highest of any U.S. state east of the Mississippi River. On the eastern state line with

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, high peaks in the

Monongahela National Forest The Monongahela National Forest is a U.S. National Forest, national forest located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, US. It protects over of federally managed land within a proclamation boundary that includes much of the Po ...

region give rise to an island of colder

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

and

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...

s similar to those of northern

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

and eastern Canada. The highest point in the state is atop

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 (), ...

, at , and is covered in a

boreal forest Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by pinophyta, coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. I ...

of dense

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' ( ), a genus of about 40 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal (taiga) regions of the Northern hemisphere. ''Picea'' ...

trees at altitudes above . Spruce Knob lies within the Monongahela National Forest and is a part of the

Spruce Knob–Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area Spruce Knob–Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area is a national recreation area in the Monongahela National Forest of eastern West Virginia. The national recreation area protects three prominent West Virginia landmarks: * Spruce Knob, the hig ...

. A total of six

wilderness Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...

areas can also be found within the forest. Outside the forest to the south, the New River Gorge is a canyon deep, carved by the New River. The

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

manages a portion of the gorge and river that has been designated as the

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is a United States national park and preserve designed to protect and maintain the New River Gorge in southern West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains. Established in 1978 as a national river ...

. Other areas under protection and management include: JudyRocks

Most of West Virginia lies within the

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests The Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests is an ecoregion of the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. It consists of mesophytic plants west of the Appalachian Mountains in the Southeastern United Sta ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

, while the higher elevations along the eastern border and in the panhandle lie within the

Appalachian–Blue Ridge forests The Appalachian–Blue Ridge forests are an ecoregion in the Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Biome, in the Eastern United States. The ecoregion is located in the central and southern Appalachian Mountains, including the Ridge-and-Valley Ap ...

. The native

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...

for most of the state was originally mixed

hardwood Hardwood is wood from Flowering plant, angiosperm trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal ecosystem, boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostl ...

forest of oak,

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Description ...

,

maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...

,

beech Beech (genus ''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to subtropical (accessory forest element) and temperate (as dominant element of Mesophyte, mesophytic forests) Eurasia and North America. There are 14 accepted ...

, and

white pine ''Pinus'', the pines, is a genus of approximately 111 extant tree and shrub species. The genus is currently split into two subgenera: subgenus ''Pinus'' (hard pines), and subgenus ''Strobus'' (soft pines). Each of the subgenera have been further ...

, with

willow Willows, also called sallows and osiers, of the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 350 species (plus numerous hybrids) of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions. Most species are known ...

and

American sycamore ''Platanus occidentalis'', also known as American sycamore, American planetree, western plane, occidental plane, buttonwood, and water beech, is a species of ''Platanus'' native to the eastern and central United States, the mountains of northeast ...

along the state's waterways. Many of the areas are rich in

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

and scenic beauty, a fact appreciated by native West Virginians, who refer to their home as ''Almost Heaven'' (from the song "

Take Me Home, Country Roads "Take Me Home, Country Roads", also known simply as "Country Roads", is a song written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver. It was released as a single performed by Denver on April 12, 1971, peaking at number two on ''Billboard''s U ...

" by

John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American Country music, country and Folk music, folk singer, songwriter, and actor. He was one of the most popular acoustic m ...

). Before the song, it was known as "The Cog State" (Coal, Oil, and Gas) or "The Mountain State". The underlying rock strata are

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

Era

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

s,

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...

s,

bituminous coal Bituminous coal, or black coal, is a type of coal containing a tar-like substance called bitumen or asphalt. Its coloration can be black or sometimes dark brown; often there are well-defined bands of bright and dull material within the coal seam, ...

beds, and

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

s laid down in near-shore environments. The sandstones and shales were derived from

sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

s eroded from former mountains to the east, then deposited in a shallow inland sea to the west. The limestones were derived from biomineralizing marine organisms such as calcareous algae, brachiopods, and crinoids. Coals were formed in coastal swamp environments, and deltaic environments formed near the mouths of ancient rivers. Sea level rose and fell many times during the

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

Period (

Mississippian Mississippian may refer to: * Mississippian (geology), a subperiod of the Carboniferous period in the geologic timescale, roughly 360 to 325 million years ago * Mississippian cultures, a network of precontact cultures across the midwest and Easte ...

and

Pennsylvanian Pennsylvanian may refer to: * A person or thing from Pennsylvania * Pennsylvanian (geology) The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, on the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesc ...

Subperiods), yielding a variety of rock

strata In geology and related fields, a stratum (: strata) is a layer of Rock (geology), rock or sediment characterized by certain Lithology, lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by v ...

that dominate the bedrock today. The

Appalachian Mountains The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are a mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range, and its surrounding terrain ...

, which are a major influence on the present-day geography of West Virginia, formed more than three hundred million years ago. The State Fossil of West Virginia is the giant ground sloth ''

Megalonyx jeffersonii ''Megalonyx'' (Greek, "great-claw") is an extinct genus of ground sloths of the family Megalonychidae, native to North America. It evolved during the Pliocene Epoch and became extinct at the end of the Late Pleistocene, living from ~5 million ...

,'' which lived during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Epoch (the most recent "Ice Age"). The genus was described by

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

in 1799 from remains collected in Haynes Cave, Monroe County, West Virginia. In 1799, that area was considered to belong to the western part of the State of Virginia. ''Megalonyx'' was the first genus of fossil vertebrate animal named from the United States.

Climate

The climate of West Virginia is generally a

humid subtropical climate A humid subtropical climate is a subtropical -temperate climate type, characterized by long and hot summers, and cool to mild winters. These climates normally lie on the southeast side of all continents (except Antarctica), generally between ...

(

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

''Cfa'', except ''Dfb'' at the higher elevations) with warm to hot, humid summers and chilly winters, increasing in severity with elevation. Some southern highland areas also have a mountain temperate climate (Köppen ''Cfb'') where winter temperatures are more moderate and summer temperatures are somewhat cooler. However, the weather is subject in all parts of the state to change. The

hardiness zone A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most widely ...

s range from zone 5b in the central Appalachian Mountains to zone 7a in the warmest parts of the lowest elevations. In the eastern panhandle and the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

valley, temperatures are warm enough to see and grow subtropical plants such as southern magnolia (''

Magnolia grandiflora ''Magnolia grandiflora'', commonly known as the southern magnolia or bull bay, is a tree of the family Magnoliaceae native to the Southeastern United States, from Virginia to central Florida, and west to East Texas. Reaching in height, it is a ...

''),

crepe myrtle ''Lagerstroemia'' (), commonly known as crape myrtle (also spelled crepe myrtle or crêpe myrtle), is a genus of around 50 species of deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs native to the Indian subcontinent, southeast Asia, northern Australia ...

, ''

Albizia julibrissin ''Albizia julibrissin'', the Persian silk tree, pink silk tree, or mimosa tree, is a species of tree in the Fabaceae family, native to Western Asia, southwestern and East Asia, eastern Asia. Taxonomy It was introduced to Europe in the mid-18th ...

'',

American sweetgum ''Liquidambar styraciflua'', commonly known as the American sweetgum among other names, is a deciduous tree in the genus ''Liquidambar'' native to warm temperate areas of eastern North America and tropical montane regions of Mexico and Central A ...

and even the occasional

needle palm ''Rhapidophyllum hystrix'', the needle palm, is a palm native to coastal margins of the subtropical eastern Gulf and south Atlantic states of the United States. Populations can be found from coastal southeast South Carolina, southward to Florida ...

and

sabal minor ''Sabal minor'', commonly known as the dwarf palmetto, is a small species of Arecaceae, palm. It is native to the deep southeastern and south-central United States and northeastern Mexico. It is naturally found in a diversity of habitats, includi ...

. These plants do not thrive as well in other parts of the state. The

eastern prickly pear ''Opuntia humifusa'', commonly known as the devil's-tongue, eastern prickly pear or Indian fig, is a cactus of the genus '' Opuntia'' present in parts of the eastern United States and northeastern Mexico. Description As is the case in other ' ...

grows well in many portions of the state. Average January temperatures range from around 26 °F (−4 °C) near the

Cheat River The Cheat River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in eastern West Virginia and southwestern Pennsylvania in the Un ...

to 41 °F (5 °C) along sections of the border with Kentucky. July averages range from 67 °F (19 °C) along the

North Branch Potomac River The North Branch Potomac River flows from Fairfax Stone in West Virginia to its confluence with the South Branch Potomac River near Green Spring, West Virginia, where it turns into the Potomac River proper. Course From the Fairfax Stone, th ...

to 76 °F (24 °C) in the western part of the state. It is cooler in the mountains than in the lower sections of the state. The highest recorded temperature in the state is at Martinsburg on July 10, 1936, and the lowest recorded temperature in the state is at Lewisburg on December 30, 1917. Annual precipitation ranges from less than in the lower eastern section to more than in higher parts of the Allegheny Front. Valleys in the east have lower rainfall because the Allegheny mountain ridges to the west create a partial

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 ...

. Slightly more than half the rainfall occurs from April to September. Dense fogs are common in many valleys of the Kanawha section, especially the

Tygart Valley The Tygart Valley River — also known as the Tygart River — is a principal tributary of the Monongahela River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed ...

. West Virginia is also one of the cloudiest states in the nation, with the cities of Elkins and Beckley ranking 9th and 10th in the U.S. respectively for the number of cloudy days per year (over 210). In addition to persistent cloudy skies caused by the damming of moisture by the Alleghenies, West Virginia also experiences some of the most frequent precipitation in the nation, with

Snowshoe Snowshoes are specialized outdoor gear for walking over snow. Their large footprint spreads the user's weight out and allows them to travel largely on top of rather than through snow. Adjustable bindings attach them to appropriate winter footw ...

averaging nearly 200 days a year with either rain or snow. Snow usually lasts only a few days in the lower sections but may persist for weeks in the higher mountain areas. An average of of snow falls annually in Charleston, although during the winter of 1995–1996 more than three times that amount fell as several cities in the state established new records for snowfall. Average snowfall in the Allegheny Highlands can range up to per year. Severe weather is somewhat less prevalent in West Virginia than in most other eastern states, and it ranks among the least tornado-prone states east of the Rockies.

Flora and fauna

Major cities

There are 232 incorporated municipalities in West Virginia. Charleston is the state's

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

and most populous city; the Charleston metropolitan area has approximately 200,000 residents. The

Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area The Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area is a metropolitan area in the Appalachian Plateau region of the United States. Referred to locally as the "Tri-state area, Tri-State area," and colloquially as "Kyova" (Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia), ...

is anchored by Huntington, the state's second-most populous city. Other metro areas in the state include Morgantown, Wheeling, Weirton, Beckley, and Parkersburg–Vienna. Other metropolitan areas that contain cities in West Virginia, but are primarily in other states include

Cumberland, Maryland Cumberland is a city in Allegany County, Maryland, United States, and its county seat. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 19,075. Located on the Potomac River, Cumberland is a regional business and comm ...

;

Hagerstown, Maryland Hagerstown is a city in Washington County, Maryland, United States, and its county seat. The population was 43,527 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Hagerstown ranks as Maryland's List of municipalities in Maryland, sixth-most popu ...

;

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

; and

Winchester, Virginia Winchester is the northwesternmost Administrative divisions of Virginia#Independent cities, independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It is the county seat of Frederick County, Virginia, Frederi ...

. Another six cities function as the centers of micropolitan statistical areas, which are predominantly more rural: Bluefield, Clarksburg, Elkins, Fairmont,

Logan Logan may refer to: Places * Mount Logan (disambiguation) Australia * Logan (Queensland electoral district), an electoral district in the Queensland Legislative Assembly * Logan, Victoria, small locality near St. Arnaud * Logan City, local gove ...

, and Point Pleasant. Originally, the state capital was located in Wheeling, from 1863 to 1870. It was then moved to Charleston, a more central city, from 1870 to 1875, when it returned to Wheeling. In 1885, the capitol burned down and it was moved back to Charleston that year, where a vote was held to determine the permanent capital between Charleston, Clarksburg, and Martinsburg. Charleston was selected, and it has remained the capital since.

Demographics

As of the 2020 United States census, West Virginia's population was 1,793,716, a 3.2% decrease from the 2010 United States census. West Virginia's

center of population In Demography, demographics, the center of population (or population center) of a region is a geographical point that describes a centerpoint of the region's population. There are several ways of defining such a "center point", leading to dif ...

is in Gassaway. According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 1,375

homeless Homelessness, also known as houselessness or being unhoused or unsheltered, is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and functional housing. It includes living on the streets, moving between temporary accommodation with family or friends, liv ...

people in West Virginia. As of 2019, West Virginia has an estimated population of 1,792,147, which is a decrease of 10,025 (0.55%) from the prior year and a decrease of 47,162 (2.55%) since the previous census. This includes a natural decrease of 3,296 (108,292 births minus 111,588 deaths) and an increase from net

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

of 14,209 into the state. West Virginia is the least populous southeastern state.

Immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as Permanent residency, permanent residents. Commuting, Commuter ...

from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 3,691, and migration within the country produced a net increase of 10,518. In 2018, The top countries of origin for West Virginia's immigrants were

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

,

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

and

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. Only 1.6% of the state's residents were foreign-born, placing West Virginia last among the 50 states in that statistic. It also has the lowest percentage of residents who speak a language other than English at home (2.6%). The five largest ancestry groups in West Virginia according to the American Community Survey are:

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

22%,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

17%,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

13%, Irish 10% and

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

4% Large numbers of people of

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

ancestry are present in the northeastern counties of the state. People of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

ancestry are present throughout the entire state. Many West Virginians who self-identify as Irish are actually Scots-Irish Protestants.

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

are concentrated in Metro Valley in the vicinity of Charleston and Huntington. African Americans also live in the New River/Greenbrier Valley. There are also small numbers of Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans in West Virginia. There is also a

Romani Romani may refer to: Ethnic groups * Romani people, or Roma, an ethnic group of Indo-Aryan origin ** Romani language, an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities ** Romanichal, Romani subgroup in the United Kingdom * Romanians (Romanian ...

community in West Virginia. There are also Melungeons in the state. Ethnic Origins in West Virginia

2010 census data show that 16 percent of West Virginia's residents are 65 or older (exceeded only by Florida's 17 percent). There were 20,928 births in 2006. Of these, 19,757 (94.40% of the births, 95.19% of the population) were to non-Hispanic whites. There were 22 births to Native American (0.11% of the births and 0.54% of the population), 177 births to Asians (0.85% of the births and 0.68% of the population), 219 births to Hispanics (1.05% of the births and 0.88% of the population) and 753 births to blacks and others (3.60% of the births and 3.56% of the population). The county with the highest percentage of residents under 18 is Berkeley County with 23.5% and Gilmer County with the lowest percentage at 15.3%. The state's northern panhandle and north-central region feel an affinity for

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

. Also, those in the eastern panhandle feel a connection with the Washington, D.C. suburbs in

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

and

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, and

southern West Virginia Southern West Virginia is a culturally and geographically distinct region in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Southern West Virginia has coal mining heritage and Southern affinity, including being part of the Bible Belt. The region is also close ...

ns often consider themselves Southerners. Finally, the towns and farms along the mid-

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

, which forms most of the state's western border, have an appearance and culture somewhat resembling the

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

. ;Birth data ''Births in table do not add up, because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.'' * Since 2016, data for births of

White Hispanic White Hispanic and Latin Americans, also called Euro-Hispanics, Euro-Latinos, White Hispanics, or White Latinos, are Americans who self-identify as white of European (diaspora) or West Asian descent with origins from Hispanic countries or Lat ...

origin are not collected, but included in one ''Hispanic'' group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.

Native American tribes

Languages

In 2010 97.67% (1,697,042) of West Virginia residents aged 5 years and older spoke English as their primary language. 2.33% of residents spoke a mother language other than English.

Religion

Several surveys of West Virginians' religious affiliation have been made in recent years, including in 2008 by the American Religion Identity Survey, and in 2010 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The Pew survey results admit to a 6.5% margin of error, while the ARIS survey says "estimates are subject to larger sampling errors in states with small populations." A characteristic of religion in Appalachian communities is the abundance of independent, non-affiliated churches, which "remain unnoted and uncounted in any census of church life in the United States". This sometimes leads to the belief that these communities are "unchurched". The largest denomination as of 2010, according to

Association of Religion Data Archives The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) is a free source of online information related to American and international religion. One of the primary goals of the archive is to democratize access to academic information on religion by making t ...

, was the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant Christian denomination, denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was ...

with 136,000 members in 1,200 congregations. The second-largest Protestant church was the

American Baptist Churches USA The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a mainline Protestant and Baptist Christian denomination. It is a reorganization from 1907 of the Triennial Convention. The Triennial Convention was renamed as the Northern Baptist Convention in ...

, with 88,000 members and 381 congregations. The

Southern Baptist The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), alternatively the Great Commission Baptists (GCB), is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist organization, the largest Protestantism in the United States, Pr ...

church had 44,000 members and 232 congregations. The

Churches of Christ The Churches of Christ, also commonly known as the Church of Christ, is a loose association of autonomous Christian congregations located around the world. Typically, their distinguishing beliefs are that of the necessity of baptism for salvation ...

had 22,000 members and 287 congregations. The

Presbyterian Church (USA) The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination, denomination in the Religion in the United States, United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States too. Its th ...

had 200 congregations and 20,000 members. By the 2020 ARDA study, non-denominational Protestantism became the largest Christian group, with 152,518 adherents. A 2015 survey by the

Pew Research Center The Pew Research Center (also simply known as Pew) is a nonpartisan American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It provides information on social issues, public opinion, and demographic trends shaping the United States and the world. It ...

found that West Virginia was the seventh-most "highly religious" state in the nation. A 2020 survey by the

Public Religion Research Institute The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) is an American nonprofit, nonpartisan research and education organization that conducts public opinion polls on a variety of topics, specializing in the quantitative and qualitative study of politic ...

found that 69% of the adult population was Christian, reflecting a slight decrease since the Pew Research Center's 2015 survey. In 2020, a survey of nearly 1,900 West Virginians reported that 78.6% were Christian and 16.2% were unaffiliated. In 2022, the Public Religion Research Institute estimated 67% of the state was Christian (53% Protestant, 11% Catholic, 2% Jehovah's Witness, and 1% Mormon), 28% unaffiliated, 3%

New Age New Age is a range of Spirituality, spiritual or Religion, religious practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western world, Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclecticism, eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise d ...

r, and 2%

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

.

Economy

According to the World Bank, West Virginia's economy would nominally be the world's 69th-largest, behind

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

and ahead of

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. The state has a projected nominal GDP of $85.434 billion in 2009 according to the

Bureau of Economic Analysis The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) of the United States Department of Commerce is a U.S. government agency that provides official macroeconomic and industry statistics, most notably reports about the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United ...

report as of 2021, and a real GDP of $71.343 billion. The state's real GDP growth of 1.3% in 2021 was the 8th-best in the country. While per capita income fell 2.6% nationally in 2009, West Virginia's grew at 1.8%."West Virginia improves per capita ranking"
, Catherine Zacchi. West Virginia Department of Commerce. 2010. Accessed December 11, 2010 Through the first half of 2010, exports from West Virginia topped $3 billion, growing 39.5% over the same period from the previous year and ahead of the national average by 15.7%. ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

'' ranked Morgantown as the 10th-best small city in the nation to conduct business in 2010. The city is also home to

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

, the 95th-best public university, according to ''U.S. News & World Report'' in 2011. The proportion of West Virginia's adult population with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

is the lowest in the U.S., at 17.3%. The net corporate income tax rate is 6.5% while business costs are 13% below the national average. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that in 2014 West Virginia's economy grew twice as fast as the next fastest-growing state east of the Mississippi River, ranking third alongside Wyoming and just behind North Dakota and Texas among the fastest-growing states.

Tourism

Seneca Rocks by Asilverstein Oct 2013 High Dynamic Range Merge from 7 Exposures

Tourism contributed $4.27 billion to the state's economy and employed 44,400 people in 2010, making it one of the state's largest industries. Many tourists, especially in the eastern mountains, are drawn to the region's notable opportunities for outdoor recreation.

Canaan Valley Canaan Valley () is a large bathtub-shaped upland valley in northeastern Tucker County, West Virginia, USA. Within it are extensive wetlands and the headwaters of the Blackwater River which spills out of the valley at Blackwater Falls. It is a w ...

is popular for winter sports,

Seneca Rocks Seneca Rocks is a large cliff, crag and local landmark in Pendleton County, West Virginia, Pendleton County in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, United States. The south peak is the only peak inaccessible except by technical rock climbing ...

is one of the premier rock climbing destinations in the eastern U.S., the

New River Gorge The New River Gorge National Park and Preserve is a United States national park and preserve designed to protect and maintain the New River Gorge in southern West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountains. Established in 1978 as a national rive ...

/

Fayetteville Fayetteville may refer to: *Fayetteville, Alabama *Fayetteville, Arkansas ** The Fayetteville Formation *Fayetteville, Georgia *Fayetteville, Illinois *Fayetteville, Indiana *Fayetteville, Washington County, Indiana *Fayetteville, Missouri *Fayette ...

area draws rock climbers as well as

whitewater Whitewater forms in the context of rapids, in particular, when a river's Stream gradient, gradient changes enough to generate so much turbulence that air is trapped within the water. This forms an unstable current that foam, froths, making t ...

rafting enthusiasts, and the

Monongahela National Forest The Monongahela National Forest is a U.S. National Forest, national forest located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, US. It protects over of federally managed land within a proclamation boundary that includes much of the Po ...

is popular with hikers, backpackers, hunters, and anglers. Also drawing tourism to the state is the West Virginia State Park &

State Forest A state forest or national forest is a forest that is administered or protected by a sovereign state, sovereign or federated state, or territory (country subdivision), territory. Background State forests are forests that are Administration (gov ...

system, which comprises 45 units covering 164,000 acres. In 2021, over 9 million people visited a West Virginia State Park, the highest number on record. This is partly due to a recent $151 million improvement project that has seen improvements at every park and forest. In addition to such outdoor recreation opportunities, the state offers a number of historic and cultural attractions.

Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, originally Harpers Ferry National Monument, is located at the confluence of the Potomac River, Potomac and Shenandoah River, Shenandoah rivers in and around Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. The park includes ...

is a historic town situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.

Harpers Ferry Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 269 at the 2020 United States census. Situated at the confluence of the Potomac River, Potomac and Shenandoah River, Shenandoah Rivers in the ...

was the site of

John Brown John Brown most often refers to: *John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859), American who led an anti-slavery raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859 John Brown or Johnny Brown may also refer to: Academia * John Brown (educator) (1763–1842), Ir ...

's 1859

raid RAID (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...

on the U.S. Armory and Arsenal. Located at the approximate midpoint of the

Appalachian Trail The Appalachian Trail, also called the A.T., is a hiking trail in the Eastern United States, extending almost between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine, and passing through 14 states.Gailey, Chris (2006)"Appalachian Tra ...

, Harpers Ferry is the base of the

Appalachian Trail Conservancy The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC; formerly Appalachian Trail Conference) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of the Appalachian Trail, a route in the eastern United States that runs from Maine to Georgia. Founded in 1 ...

.

The Greenbrier The Greenbrier is a luxury resort located in the Allegheny Mountains near White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, in the United States. Since 1778, visitors have traveled to this part of the state to "take the waters" of t ...

hotel and

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that aims to provide most of a vacationer's needs. This includes food, drink, swimming, accommodation, sports, entertainment and shopping, on the premises. A hotel ...

, originally built in 1778, has long been considered a premier hotel, frequented by numerous world leaders and U.S. presidents over the years. West Virginia is the site of the

National Radio Astronomy Observatory The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a federally funded research and development center of the United States National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. for the purpose of radi ...

, which features the

Green Bank Telescope The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in Green Bank, West Virginia, US is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, surpassing the Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope in Germany. The Green Bank site was part of the National Rad ...

. For the 1963 Centennial of the State, it hosted two high school graduate delegates from each of the 50 States at the

National Youth Science Camp The National Youth Science Camp (NYSCamp) is a free residential honors program for two accomplished high school graduates from each state in the USA, plus Washington, DC. As of 2020, NYSCamp also accepts two delegates to represent Argentina, Boli ...

near Bartow, and has continued this tradition ever since. The main building of

Weston State Hospital The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum was a psychiatric hospital located in Weston, West Virginia, and known by other names, such as West Virginia Hospital for the Insane and Weston State Hospital. The asylum was open to patients from October 1864 u ...

is the largest hand-cut sandstone building in the western hemisphere, second worldwide only to the Kremlin in Moscow. Tours of the building, which is a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

and part of the National Civil War Trail, are offered seasonally and by appointment year-round. West Virginia has numerous popular festivals throughout the year.

Energy

One of the major resources in West Virginia's economy is

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

. According to the

Energy Information Administration The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System responsible for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and pub ...

, West Virginia is a top coal producer in the United States, second only to Wyoming. West Virginia is located in the heart of the Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Bed, which stretches from Tennessee north to New York in the middle of Appalachia. As of 2017, the coal industry accounted for 2% of state employment. Nearly all the electricity generated in West Virginia is from coal-fired power plants. West Virginia produces a surplus of electricity and leads the nation in net interstate electricity exports. Farming is also practiced in West Virginia, but on a limited basis because of the mountainous terrain over much of the state. An assessment from 2012 estimated that West Virginia had the potential to generate 8,627 GWh/year from 2,772 MW of 100-meter

wind turbines A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each y ...

, and 60,000 GWh from 40,000 MW of photovoltaics, including 3,810 MW of rooftop

photovoltaics Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commerciall ...

. This was based on then-existing technologies and apparently was based on some assumed requirements for the economic performance of the respective resources.

Taxes

West Virginia personal

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

is based on federal adjusted gross income (not taxable income), as modified by specific items in West Virginia law. Citizens are taxed within five income brackets, which range from 3.0% to 6.5%. The state's consumer

sales tax A sales tax is a tax paid to a governing body for the sales of certain goods and services. Usually laws allow the seller to collect funds for the tax from the consumer at the point of purchase. When a tax on goods or services is paid to a govern ...

is levied at 6% on most products except for non-prepared foods. West Virginia counties administer and collect

property tax A property tax (whose rate is expressed as a percentage or per mille, also called ''millage'') is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or Wealth t ...

es, although property tax rates reflect levies for state government, county governments, county boards of education and municipalities. Counties may also impose a hotel occupancy tax on lodging places not located within the city limits of any municipality that levies such a tax. Municipalities may levy license and

gross receipts tax A gross receipts tax or gross excise tax is a tax on the total gross revenues of a company, regardless of their source. A gross receipts tax is often compared to a sales tax; the difference is that a gross receipts tax is levied upon the seller o ...

es on businesses located within the city limits and a hotel occupancy tax on lodging places in the city. Although the Department of Tax and Revenue plays a major role in the administration of this tax, less than half of one percent of the property tax collected goes to state government. The primary beneficiaries of the property tax are county boards of education. Property taxes are paid to the

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...

of each of the state's 55 counties. Each county and municipality can impose its own rates of property taxation within the limits set by the West Virginia Constitution. The West Virginia legislature sets the rate of tax of county boards of education. This rate is used by all county boards of education statewide. However, the total tax rate for county boards of education may differ from county to county because of excess levies. The Department of Tax and Revenue supervises and otherwise assists counties and municipalities in their work of assessment and tax rate determination. The total tax rate is a combination of the tax levies from four state taxing authorities: state, county, schools and municipal. This total tax rate varies for each of the four classes of property, which consists of personal, real and intangible properties. Property is assessed according to its use, location and value as of July 1. WV Assessments has a free searchable database of West Virginia real estate tax assessments, covering current and past years. All property is reappraised every three years; annual adjustments are made to assessments for property with a change of value. West Virginia does not impose an

inheritance tax International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and pro ...

. Because of the phase-out of the federal

estate tax International tax law distinguishes between an estate tax and an inheritance tax. An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and pr ...

credit, West Virginia's estate tax is not imposed on estates of persons who died on or after January 1, 2005.

Largest private employers

Quality of life

Economy

West Virginia coal exports declined 40% in 2013—a loss of $2.9 billion and overall total exports declined 26%. West Virginia ranked last in the Gallup Economic Index for the fourth year running. West Virginia's score was −44, or a full 17 points lower than the average of −27 for the other states in the bottom ten. West Virginia ranked 48th in the CNBC "Top States for Business 2013" based on measures of competitiveness such as economy, workforce and cost of living—ranking among the bottom five states for the last six years running. West Virginia ranked 49th in the 2014 State New Economy Index and has ranked in the bottom three states since 1999. West Virginia ranked last or next-to-last in critical indicators such as Workforce Education, Entrepreneurial Activity, High-Tech Jobs, and Scientists and Engineers.

Employment

In 2012, West Virginia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 3.3%. The state issued a report highlighting the state's GDP as indicating a fast-growing economy, but did not address employment indicators. In 2009–2013, the U.S. real GDP increased 9.6% and total employment increased 3.9%. In West Virginia during the same time period, its real GDP increased about 11%, while total employment decreased by 1,000 jobs from 746,000 to 745,000. In 2013, West Virginia ranked last in the nation with an

employment-to-population ratio Employment-to-population ratio, also called the employment rate, is a statistical ratio that measures the proportion of a country's working age population (statistics are often given for ages 15 to 64) that is employed. This includes people that ...

of only 50%, compared to the national average of 59%. The state lost 5,600 jobs in its labor force in four critical economic sectors: construction (1,900), manufacturing (1,100), retail (1,800), and education (800), while gaining just 400 in mining and logging. The state's Civilian Labor Force dropped by 15,100.

Wages and poverty

Personal income growth in West Virginia during 2013 was only 1.5%—the lowest in the nation—and about half the national average (2.6%). Overall income growth in West Virginia in the last thirty years has been only 13%—about a third of the national average (37%). Wages of the impoverished bottom 1% income earners decreased by 3%, compared to the national average, which increased 19%. West Virginia's

poverty rate Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse

is one of the highest in the nation. 2017 estimates indicate that 19% of the state's population lives in poverty, exceeding the national average of 13%.

Population

United Van Lines 37th Annual Migration Study showed in 2013 that 60% more people moved out of West Virginia than moved in. West Virginia's population is expected to decline by more than 19,000 residents by 2030, and West Virginia lost one of its three seats in the United States House of Representatives in the 2020 census. West Virginia is the only state where death rates exceed birth rates. During 2010–2013, about 21,000 babies per year were born in West Virginia, but over these three years West Virginia had 3,000 more deaths than births."2012 County/Metro Population Estimates"
, U.S. Census Bureau. March 14, 2013. Accessed April 12, 2014.

Family

Gallup-Healthways annual "State of American Well-Being" rankings reports that 1,261 concerned West Virginians rated themselves as "suffering" in categories such as Quality of Life, Physical Health, and Access to Basic Needs. Overall, West Virginia citizens rated themselves as being more miserable than people in all other states—for five years running. In addition, the Gallup Well-Being Index for 2013 ranked Charleston, the state capital, and Huntington last and next-to-last out of 189 U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas. The Annie E. Casey Foundation's National Index of Children's Progress ranked West Virginia 43rd in the nation for all kids, and last for white kids. The Annie E. Casey Foundation's 2013 KIDS COUNT Data Book also ranked West Virginia's education system 47th in the nation for the second straight year. Charleston, West Virginia has the worst divorce rate among 100 cities in the nation. Stephen Smith, the executive director of the West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition, said poor employment prospects are to blame: "The pressure to make a good living puts strain on a marriage, and right now it is infinitely harder to make a living here than it was 40 years ago."

Health

United Health Foundation's "America's Health Rankings" for 2013 found that Americans are making considerable progress in key health measures. West Virginia, however, ranked either last or second-to-last in twenty categories, including cancer, child immunization, diabetes, disabilities, drug deaths, teeth loss, low birth weight, missed work days due to health, prescription drug overdose, preventable hospitalizations, and senior clinical care. Wisconsin Population Health Institute annual "Health Rankings" for 2012 showed West Virginia spends $9,671 per capita on health care annually. El Salvador spends just $467, yet both have the same life expectancy. In 2012, according to the Census Bureau, West Virginia was the only state where death rates exceed birth rates. During 2010–2013, about 21,000 babies per year were born in West Virginia, but there were 24,000 deaths. In demographics, this is called a "net mortality society". The National Center for Health Statistics says national birth rates for teenagers are at historic lows—during 2007–2010, teen birth rates fell 17% nationally. West Virginia, however, ranked last with a 3% increase in birth rates for teenagers. A study by West Virginia's Marshall University showed that 19% of babies born in the state have evidence of drug or alcohol exposure. This is several times the national rate, where studies show that about 5.9% of pregnant women in the U.S. use illicit drugs, and about 8.5% consume any alcohol. An Institute for Health Policy Research study determined that mortality rates in Appalachia are correlated with coal production. In twenty West Virginia coal counties mining more than a million tons of coal per year and having a total population of 850,000, there are about 10,100 deaths per year, with 1,400 of those statistically attributed to deaths from heart, respiratory and kidney disease from living in an Appalachian coal county. In 2015, McDowell County had the highest rate of drug-induced deaths of any county in the United States, with a rate of 141 deaths per 100,000 people. Four of the five counties with the highest rates of drug-induced deaths are in West Virginia (McDowell, Wyoming, Cabell and Raleigh Counties). In 2022, West Virginia had the highest drug overdose death rate of any US state, at 80.9 per 100,000 people. American environmental attorney

Robert Bilott Robert Bilott (born August 2, 1965) is an American environmental attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio. Bilott is known for the lawsuits against DuPont on behalf of plaintiffs injured by chemical waste dumped in rural communities in West Virginia. Bilot ...

exposed how

DuPont Dupont, DuPont, Du Pont, duPont, or du Pont may refer to: People * Dupont (surname) Dupont, also spelled as DuPont, duPont, Du Pont, or du Pont is a French surname meaning "of the bridge", historically indicating that the holder of the surname re ...

had been knowingly polluting water with

perfluorooctanoic acid Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA; conjugate acid, conjugate base perfluorooctanoate; also known colloquially as C8, from its chemical formula C8HF15O2) is a perfluorinated carboxylic acid produced and used worldwide as an industrial surfactant in ch ...

(PFOA) in

Parkersburg, West Virginia Parkersburg is a city in Wood County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. Located at the confluence of the Ohio River, Ohio and Little Kanawha River, Little Kanawha rivers, it is the state's List of municipalities in West Virginia ...

, since the 1980s. This battle with DuPont is depicted in the film '' Dark Waters''.

Life expectancy

The residents of West Virginia have a lower life expectancy than the national average. In 2014 life expectancy for both sexes in the state was 76.0 years compared to 79.1 years for the United States as a whole. In 2014, males in West Virginia lived an average of 73.6 years compared to a national average of 76.7 years and females lived an average of 77.5 years compared to a national average of 81.5 years. Male life expectancy in West Virginia between 1980 and 2014 increased by 4.7 years, compared to a national average of a 6.7-year increase. Life expectancy for females in West Virginia between 1980 and 2014 increased by 1.7 years, compared to a national average of a 4.0-year increase. Life expectancy for both sexes is among the lowest of all states. Life expectancies in 2014 for both sexes in West Virginia counties ranged from a low of 70.3 years in McDowell County to a high of 79.3 years in Pendleton County. McDowell and several other West Virginia counties are among the counties in the U.S. with the lowest life expectancies.

Government and politics

The West Virginia Capitol in Charleston LCCN2015631770

The

West Virginia Legislature The West Virginia Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of West Virginia. A bicameral legislative body, the legislature is split between the upper Senate and the lower House of Delegates. It was established under Article VI ...

is

bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature that is divided into two separate Deliberative assembly, assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate ...

. It consists of the House of Delegates and the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

, both housed in the

West Virginia State Capitol The West Virginia State Capitol is the seat of government for the U.S. state of West Virginia, and houses the West Virginia Legislature and the office of the Governor of West Virginia. Located in Charleston, West Virginia, the building was dedi ...

. It is a citizen's legislature, meaning that legislative office is not a full-time occupation, but rather a part-time position. Consequently, the legislators often hold full-time jobs in their community of residence. Typically, the legislature is in session for 60 days between January and early April. The final day of the regular session ends in a bewildering fury of last-minute legislation to meet a constitutionally imposed midnight deadline. During the remainder of the year, monthly interim sessions are held in preparation for the regular session. Legislators also gather periodically for 'special' sessions when called by the governor. The

governor A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

, elected every four years on the same day as the U.S. presidential election, is sworn in during the following January. Governors of West Virginia can serve two consecutive terms but must sit out a term before serving a third term in office. The title of

Lieutenant Governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...

is assigned by statute to the senate president. West Virginia's current governor is

Patrick Morrisey Patrick James Morrisey (born December 21, 1967) is an American politician and attorney serving as the 37th governor of West Virginia since 2025. He served as the 34th attorney general of West Virginia from 2013 to 2025. A member of the Repub ...

. West Virginia's highest court is the Supreme Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia is the busiest appellate court of its type in the United States. West Virginia is one of 11 states with a single appellate court. The state constitution allows for the creation of an intermediate court of appeals, but the Legislature has never created one. The Supreme Court is made up of five justices, elected in nonpartisan elections to 12-year terms. For the purpose of courts of general jurisdiction, the state is divided into 31 judicial circuits. Each circuit is made up of one or more counties. Circuit judges are elected in non-partisan elections to serve eight-year terms. West Virginia is an

alcoholic beverage control state Alcoholic beverage control states, generally called control states, less often ABC states, are 17 states in the United States that have state monopolies over the wholesaling or retailing of some or all categories of alcoholic beverages, such as ...

, but unlike most such states, it does not operate retail outlets, having exited that business in 1990. It retains a monopoly on wholesaling of

distilled spirits Liquor ( , sometimes hard liquor), spirits, distilled spirits, or spiritous liquor are alcoholic drinks produced by the distillation of grains, fruits, vegetables, or sugar that have already gone through alcoholic fermentation. While the w ...

only. West Virginia is one of 27 states that do not have a

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in s ...

, and it was the only state in the southeastern United States to have abolished it until 2021, when

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

did so as well.

Politics

West Virginia is regarded as a heavily Republican, "deep red" state at the federal level. Since

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

, West Virginians have supported the Republican candidate in every presidential election. In the

2024 presidential election This is a list of elections that were held in 2024. The National Democratic Institute also maintains a calendar of elections around the world. *2024 United Nations Security Council election *2024 national electoral calendar *2024 local electoral ...

, Republican

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

won all of the state's counties and 69.97% of the vote, the highest percentage any party has won in the state's history. West Virginia was Trump's best performance in 2016. The 2008 presidential election was the last to date in which the Democratic nominee won any of the state's counties. At the state level, West Virginia's politics were largely dominated by the Democratic Party from the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

through the 2000s. This was a legacy of West Virginia's very strong tradition of union membership. After the 2014 midterm elections Democrats controlled the governorship, the majority of statewide offices, and one U.S. Senate seat, while Republicans held one U.S. Senate seat, all three of the state's

U.S. House The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

seats, and a majority in both houses of the

West Virginia Legislature The West Virginia Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of West Virginia. A bicameral legislative body, the legislature is split between the upper Senate and the lower House of Delegates. It was established under Article VI ...

. In the 2016 elections, the Republicans held on to their seats and made gains in the State Senate and gained three statewide offices. Evangelical Christians comprised 52% of the state's voters in 2008. A poll in 2005 showed that 53% of West Virginia voters are

anti-abortion Anti-abortion movements, also self-styled as pro-life movements, are involved in the abortion debate advocating against the practice of abortion and its Abortion by country, legality. Many anti-abortion movements began as countermovements in r ...

, the seventh highest in the country. A 2014 poll by Pew Research found that 35% of West Virginians supported legal abortion in "all or most cases" while 58% wanted it to be banned "in all or most cases". A September 2011

Public Policy Polling Public Policy Polling (PPP) is an American polling firm affiliated with the Democratic Party. Founded in 2001 by businessman Dean Debnam, the firm is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Debnam died in 2024. Tom Jensen serves as the firm's directo ...

survey found that 19% of West Virginia voters thought

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same legal Legal sex and gender, sex. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 38 countries, with a total population of 1.5 ...

should be legal, while 71% thought it should be illegal and 10% were not sure. A separate question on the same survey found that 43% of West Virginia voters supported the legal recognition of same-sex couples, with 17% supporting same-sex marriage, 26% supporting civil unions but not marriage, 54% favoring no legal recognition and 3% not sure. In 2008, 58% favored troop withdrawal from Iraq while just 32% wanted troops to remain. On fiscal policy in 2008, 52% said raising taxes on the wealthier individuals would benefit the economy, while 45% disagreed. In a 2020 study, West Virginia was ranked as the 16th hardest state for citizens to vote in.

Transportation

Highways form the backbone of transportation systems in West Virginia, with over of public roads in the state. Airports, railroads, and rivers complete the commercial transportation modes for West Virginia. Commercial air travel is facilitated by airports in Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Beckley, Lewisburg, Clarksburg, and Parkersburg. All but Charleston and Huntington are subsidized by the federal Department of Transportation's

Essential Air Service Essential Air Service (EAS) is a U.S. government program enacted to guarantee that small communities in the United States, which had been served by certificated airlines prior to deregulation in 1978, maintain commercial service. Its aim is ...

program. The cities of Charleston, Huntington, Beckley, Wheeling, Morgantown, Clarksburg, Parkersburg and Fairmont have bus-based public transit systems.

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

in Morgantown boasts the PRT (personal rapid transit) system, the state's only single-rail public transit system. Developed by

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

, the WVU School of Engineering and the Department of Transportation, it was a model for low-capacity light transport designed for smaller cities. Recreational transportation opportunities abound in West Virginia, including hiking trails,

rail trails A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corridor with active railways, lig ...

, ATV off-road trails, white water rafting rivers, and two tourist railroads, the

Cass Scenic Railroad Cass Scenic Railroad State Park is a state park and heritage railroad located in Cass, Pocahontas County, West Virginia. It consists of the Cass Scenic Railroad, a long 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge heritage railway owned by the ...

and the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad. Rail lines in the state used to be more prevalent, but many lines have been discontinued because of increased automobile traffic. Many old tracks have been converted to

rail trails A rail trail or railway walk is a shared-use path on a railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed but may also share the rail corridor with active railways, lig ...

for recreational use, although the coal-producing areas still have railroads running at near capacity.

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's ''

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal most commonly refers to * Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of three species in the family Cardinalidae ***Northern cardinal, ''Cardinalis cardinalis'', the common cardinal of ...

'' roughly parallels I-64's path through the state.

MARC Marc or MARC may refer to: People * Marc (given name), people with the first name * Marc (surname), people with the family name Acronyms * MARC standards, a data format used for library cataloging, * MARC Train, a regional commuter rail system ...

trains serve commuters to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

in the eastern panhandle. In 2006

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

along with the West Virginia and U.S. Government approved a plan to modify many of the rail tunnels in West Virginia, especially in the southern half of the state, to allow for double-stacked cars (see inter-modal freight). This is expected to also help bring economic growth to the southern half of the state. An Intermodal Freight Facility is located at Prichard, just south of Huntington. Because of the mountainous nature of the entire state, West Virginia has several notable tunnels and bridges. The most famous of these is the

New River Gorge Bridge The New River Gorge Bridge is a steel arch bridge long over the New River Gorge near Fayetteville, West Virginia, in the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. With an arch long, the New River Gorge Bridge was the world's longest ...

, which was at a time the longest steel single-arch bridge in the world with a 3,031-foot (924 m) span. The bridge is also pictured on the West Virginia State quarter. The Fort Steuben Bridge (Weirton-Steubenville Bridge) was at the time of its construction one of only three cable-stayed steel girder trusses in the United States. "The Veterans Memorial Bridge was designed to handle traffic from the Fort Steuben Bridge as well as its own traffic load", to quote the ''Weirton Daily Times'' newspaper. The 80-year-old Fort Steuben Bridge (Weirton-Steubenville Bridge) was permanently closed on January 8, 2009. The

Wheeling Suspension Bridge The Wheeling Suspension Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the main channel of the Ohio River at Wheeling, West Virginia. It was the largest suspension bridge in the world from 1849 until 1851. Charles Ellet Jr. (who also worked on the ...

was the first bridge built across the

Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...

in 1849 and for a time was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It is still the oldest vehicular suspension bridge in the United States still in use.

Roads

West Virginia is crossed by seven

Interstate Highways The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National H ...

.

I-64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at the Bowers Hill ...

enters the state near White Sulphur Springs in the mountainous east, and exits for

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

in the west, near Huntington.

I-77 Interstate 77 (I-77) is a north–south Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. It traverses diverse terrain, from the mountainous state of West Virginia to the rolling farmlands of North Carolina and Ohio. It largely supplants the ...

enters from

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

in the south, near Bluefield. It runs north past Parkersburg before it crosses into

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

.

I-64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at the Bowers Hill ...

and

I-77 Interstate 77 (I-77) is a north–south Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. It traverses diverse terrain, from the mountainous state of West Virginia to the rolling farmlands of North Carolina and Ohio. It largely supplants the ...

between Charleston and Beckley are merged as toll road known as the

West Virginia Turnpike Interstate 77 (I-77) in the US state of West Virginia is a major north–south Interstate Highway. It extends for between Bluefield, West Virginia, Bluefield at the Virginia state line and Williamstown, West Virginia, Williamstown at the ...

, which continues as I-77 alone from Beckley to Princeton. It was constructed beginning in 1952 as a two-lane road, but rebuilt beginning in 1974 to Interstate standards. Today almost nothing of the original construction remains. I-68's western terminus is in Morgantown. From there it runs east into

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

. At the I-68 terminus in Morgantown, it meets I-79, which enters from Pennsylvania and runs through the state to its southern terminus in Charleston.

I-70 Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to I-695 and Maryland Route 570 (MD 570) in Woodlawn, just outside Baltimore, Maryland. I-70 appr ...

briefly runs through West Virginia, crossing the northern panhandle through Wheeling, while I-470 is a bypass of Wheeling (making Wheeling among the smallest cities with an interstate bypass).

I-81 Interstate 81 (I-81) is a north–south (physically northeast–southwest) Interstate Highway in the eastern part of the United States. Its southern terminus is at I-40 in Dandridge, Tennessee; its northern terminus is on Wellesley Isla ...

also briefly runs in West Virginia through the eastern panhandle where it goes through Martinsburg. The interstates are supplemented by roads constructed under the Appalachian Corridor system. Four Corridors are complete. Corridor D, carrying US 50, runs from the Ohio River, and I-77, at Parkersburg to I-79 at Clarksburg. Corridor G, carrying US 119, runs from Charleston to the Kentucky border at Williamson. Corridor L, carrying US 19, runs from the Turnpike at Beckley to I-79 near Sutton (and provides a shortcut of about and bypasses Charleston's urban traffic for travelers heading to and from Florida). Corridor Q, carrying US 460, runs through Mercer County, entering the state from

Giles County, Virginia Giles County is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Virginia on the West Virginia state line. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 16,787. Its county seat is Pearisburg, Virginia, Pearis ...

and then reentering Virginia at Tazewell County. Work continues on the long-delayed Corridor H, which will carry US 48 from Weston to the Virginia line near Wardensville. As of 2018, a section from Weston to Kerens just past Elkins, and another section from Wardensville to Davis are complete. Other projects under development are a four-lane upgrade of US 35 from Scott Depot to the Ohio River at Point Pleasant, which is about two-thirds complete; a four-lane upgrade of WV 10 from Logan to Man and then of WV 80 from Man to Gilbert, which is about half completed; and four-lane upgrades to US 52 from Bluefield to Williamson, known as the "King Coal Highway" and from Williamson to Huntington, known as the "Tolsia Highway" which are many years from completion. A project known as the "Coalfields Expressway" is also ongoing, and will carry US 121 from Beckley west across Raleigh, Wyoming, and McDowell counties, entering Virginia near Bishop.

Education

West Virginia is one of the lowest-scoring U.S. states for

education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...

. According to The National Assessment of Educational Progress, it is significantly below the national average in mathematics, reading, writing, and science. The surrounding states of Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania score higher than or equal to the national average.

Colleges and universities

*

American Public University System American Public University System (APUS) is a private, for-profit, online university system with its headquarters in Charles Town, West Virginia. It is composed of American Military University (AMU) and American Public University (APU). APUS i ...

* Appalachian Bible College * Bethany College *

Bluefield State University Bluefield State University is a public historically black university (HBCU) in Bluefield, West Virginia. The university is a member-school of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund. History The Bluefield Colored Institute was founded in 1895 as a " ...

* Blue Ridge Community and Technical College * BridgeValley Community and Technical College *

Concord University Concord University is a public university in Athens, West Virginia. The institution traces back to February 28, 1872, when the West Virginia Legislature passed "an Act to locate a Branch State Normal School, in the town of Concord Church, in ...

*

Davis and Elkins College Davis & Elkins College (D&E) is a private college in Elkins, West Virginia, United States. It operates as a nonprofit Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and is affiliated with the Association of Presbyterian College ...

*

Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College Eastern West Virginia Community & Technical College (EWVCTC) is a public community college with its main campus in Moorefield, West Virginia Moorefield is a town in and the county seat of Hardy County, West Virginia, Hardy County, West Virgi ...

*

Fairmont State University Fairmont State University is a public university in Fairmont, West Virginia. History Fairmont State University’s roots reach back to the formation of public education in the state of West Virginia. The first private normal school in West Vi ...

*

Future Generations Graduate School Future Generations University (formerly Future Generations Graduate School) is a Private university, private Distance education, online Postgraduate education, graduate school headquartered in Franklin, West Virginia. It offers one degree program, ...

*

Glenville State University Glenville State University (GSU) is a public college in Glenville, West Virginia, United States. History Glenville State University was founded in 1872 as a branch of West Virginia Normal School. It became known as "Glenville State Normal Scho ...

*

Marshall University Marshall University is a public university, public research university in Huntington, West Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States, chief justice of the Uni ...

* Mountwest Community and Technical College *

New River Community and Technical College New River Community and Technical College (New River) is a public community college in Beaver, West Virginia. It was founded in 2003 and is West Virginia's newest college. The college was independently accredited in 2005 by the Higher Learning ...

*

Pierpont Community and Technical College Pierpont Community & Technical College (Pierpont) is a public community college in Fairmont, West Virginia. Founded in 1974, it has the second largest enrollment of the community and technical colleges that make up the West Virginia Community ...

*

Potomac State College of West Virginia University WVU Potomac State College is a public college in Keyser, West Virginia, United States. It is part of the West Virginia University system. Potomac State College is located approximately 90 miles (140 km) east of West Virginia University's campus ...

*

Salem International University Salem University is a private for-profit university in Salem, West Virginia. It has about 250 students on campus and about 600 online students that are enrolled in undergraduate as well as graduate programs. The university was founded by the S ...

*

Shepherd University Shepherd University is a public university in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, United States. It is Higher education accreditation in the United States, accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. In the fall of 2023, the university enrolled 3,274 ...

* Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College *

University of Charleston The University of Charleston (UC) is a private university with its main campus in Charleston, West Virginia. It also has a location in Beckley, West Virginia, known as UC-Beckley. History The school was founded in 1888 as the Barboursville Semin ...

*

West Liberty University West Liberty University (WLU) is a public university in West Liberty, West Virginia, United States. Located in the state's Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, Northern Panhandle, it was established as an academy in 1837 and is the oldest unive ...

*

West Virginia Northern Community College West Virginia Northern Community College (WVNCC) is a public community college with its main campus in downtown Wheeling, West Virginia. Established in 1972, WVNCC serves all six counties in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle. It is part of the ...

*

West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

*

West Virginia State University West Virginia State University (WVSU) is a Public university, public Historically black colleges and universities, historically black, land-grant university in Institute, West Virginia, United States. Founded in 1891 as the West Virginia Color ...

*

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

*

West Virginia University at Parkersburg West Virginia University at Parkersburg, abbreviated WVUP and WVU Parkersburg, is a public community college in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Although it was originally part of West Virginia University, it is now an independent public institution w ...

*

West Virginia University Institute of Technology West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech, WVIT, WVU Beckley, or West Virginia Tech) is a public college in Beckley, West Virginia. It is a divisional campus of West Virginia University. History The college was founded in 189 ...

*

West Virginia Wesleyan College West Virginia Wesleyan College is a private college in Buckhannon, West Virginia, United States. It has an enrollment of about 1,055 students from 35 U.S. states and 26 countries. The school was founded in 1890 by the West Virginia Conference of ...

*

Wheeling University Wheeling University (WU, formerly Wheeling Jesuit University) is a private Catholic university in Wheeling, West Virginia, United States. It was founded as "Wheeling College" in 1954 by the Society of Jesus (also known as the Jesuits) and was a ...

Culture

West "by God" Virginia

West Virginia is often called "West 'by God' Virginia." The term first appeared on online-accessible publications in 1926, when students at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

wrote an article in the Virginia Spectator claiming that West "by God" Virginia women could consume corn liquor on its own, without having to mix it with other liquids. A 1939 academic article by Harold Wentworth of the WVU History department had a footnote claiming that the term originated from when a native West Virginian, annoyed at being called a Virginian, claimed that he instead hailed from "West 'by God' Virginia."

Sports

West Virginia is home to college sports teams from two schools—West Virginia and Marshall—that play in NCAA DivisionI. West Virginia is also home to several professional minor league baseball, football, hockey, and other sports teams.

Music

Appalachian music

West Virginia's folk heritage is a part of the

Appalachian folk music Appalachian music is the music of the region of Appalachia in the Eastern United States. Traditional Appalachian music is derived from various influences, including the ballads, hymns and fiddle music of the British Isles (particularly Scotland), ...

tradition, and includes styles of

fiddling A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially syno ...

, ballad singing, and other styles that draw on Scots-Irish music. Camp Washington-Carver, a Mountain Cultural Arts Center located at Clifftop in Fayette County, hosts an annual Appalachian String Band Festival. The Capitol Complex in Charleston hosts The Vandalia Gathering, where traditional Appalachian musicians compete in contests and play in impromptu jam sessions and evening concerts over the weekend. The Augusta Heritage Center sponsored by Davis & Elkins College in Elkins in Randolph County produces the annual

Augusta Heritage Festival Augusta Heritage Center Summer Workshops is a music and heritage festival held by the Augusta Heritage Center, each summer since 1977 at, Elkins, West Virginia, Elkins, West Virginia. Over 50 years old, this three week festival covers music, dance ...

, which includes intensive week-long workshops in the summer that help preserve Appalachian heritage and traditions.

Classical music

The West Virginia Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1939, as the ''Charleston Civic Orchestra'', before becoming the ''Charleston Symphony Orchestra'' in 1943. The first conductor was William R. Wiant, followed by the conductor Antonio Modarelli, who was written about in the November 7, 1949 ''Time Magazine'' for his composition of the ''River Saga'', a six-section program piece about the Kanawha River according to the ''Charleston Gazette''s November 6, 1999, photo essay, "Snapshots of the 20th Century". Before coming to Charleston, Modarelli had conducted the

Wheeling Symphony Orchestra The Wheeling Symphony Orchestra is a regional orchestra based in Wheeling, 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 th ...

and the

Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription concerts, n ...

, according to the orchestra's website. The

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...

-winning 20th-century composer

George Crumb George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...

was born in Charleston and earned his bachelor's degree there before moving outside the state. There had also been a series of operatic-style concerts performed in Wheeling during mid-century as well.

Musical innovation

The West Virginia Cultural Center in Charleston is home to the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, which helps underwrite and coordinate a large number of musical activities. The center is also home to ''

Mountain Stage ''Mountain Stage'' is a two-hour music radio show, first aired in 1983, produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting and distributed worldwide by National Public Radio (NPR). Hosted by Larry Groce from the show's inception until 2021 and curr ...

'', an internationally broadcast live-performance music radio program established in 1983 which is carried by many affiliates of

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

. The program also travels to other venues in the state such as the

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia, United States. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Ins ...

Creative Arts Center in Morgantown. The center hosts concerts sponsored by the Friends of Old Time Music and Dance, which brings an assortment of acoustic roots music to West Virginians. The center also hosts the West Virginia Dance Festival, which features classical and modern dance. Huntington's historic Keith-Albee Theatre, built by brothers A.B. and S.J. Hyman, was originally opened to the public on May 7, 1928, and hosts a variety of performing arts and music attractions. The theatre was eventually gifted to

Marshall University Marshall University is a public university, public research university in Huntington, West Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States, chief justice of the Uni ...

and is currently going through renovation to restore it to its original splendor. Every summer Elkins hosts the Augusta Heritage Festival, which brings folk musicians from around the world. The town of Glenville has long been home to the annual West Virginia State Folk Festival. The Mountaineer Opera House in Milton hosts a variety of musical acts.

John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American Country music, country and Folk music, folk singer, songwriter, and actor. He was one of the most popular acoustic m ...

's hit song "

Take Me Home, Country Roads "Take Me Home, Country Roads", also known simply as "Country Roads", is a song written by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert and John Denver. It was released as a single performed by Denver on April 12, 1971, peaking at number two on ''Billboard''s U ...

" describes the experience of driving through West Virginia. The song mentions the

Shenandoah River The Shenandoah River is the principal tributary of the Potomac River, long with two River fork, forks approximately long each,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August ...

and the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the United States, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Highlands range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States and extends 550 miles southwest from southern ...

, both features traversing the easternmost extremity of the state's "eastern panhandle", in Jefferson County. On March 8, 2014, West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin signed House Concurrent Resolution 40 naming "Take Me Home, Country Roads" the fourth official state song of West Virginia. Symphony Sunday is an annual event hosted by the

West Virginia Symphony Orchestra The West Virginia Symphony Orchestra is a professional orchestra that performs primarily at the Clay Center in Charleston, West Virginia. The orchestra performs over 50 concerts annually around the state of West Virginia, and has a nationally ...

held in June. It is a day full of music by community groups, food, and family fun, culminating in a free performance by the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra with a fireworks display following. The event began in 1982 and is held on the front lawn of the

University of Charleston The University of Charleston (UC) is a private university with its main campus in Charleston, West Virginia. It also has a location in Beckley, West Virginia, known as UC-Beckley. History The school was founded in 1888 as the Barboursville Semin ...

. The

Daily Mail Kanawha County Majorette and Band Festival The Gazette-Mail Kanawha County Majorette and Band Festival (formerly Daily Mail) is an annual festival dedicated to the public high school marching bands and majorette corps in Kanawha County, West Virginia. It is the longest running music festiva ...

is West Virginia's longest-running music festival. It is for the eight public high schools in Kanawha County. The festival began in 1947. It is held at the

University of Charleston Stadium at Laidley Field The University of Charleston Stadium at Laidley Field is an 18,500-capacity stadium located in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, near the West Virginia State Capitol complex. It features a FieldTurf playing field for football and facilities f ...

in downtown Charleston.

References

Informational notes Citations Further reading * Charles H. Ambler, ''A History of Education in West Virginia From Early Colonial Times to 1949 '' (1951) * Charles H. Ambler and Festus P. Summers. ''West Virginia, the Mountain State'' (1958) * Jane S. Becker, ''Inventing Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction of an American Folk, 1930–1940'' 1998. * Richard A. Brisbin, et al. ''West Virginia Politics and Government'' (1996) * James Morton Callahan, ''History of West Virginia'' (1923) 3 vol * John C. Campbell, ''The Southern Highlander and His Homeland'' (1921) reissued 1969. * * Elizabeth Cometti, and Festus P. Summers. ''The Thirty-fifth State: A Documentary History of West Virginia''. Morgantown: West Virginia University Library, 1966. * Richard Orr Curry, ''A House Divided: A Study of Statehood Politics and Copperhead Movement in West Virginia'' (1964) * Donald Edward Davis. ''Where There Are Mountains: An Environmental History of the Southern Appalachians'' 2000. * Ronald D, Eller. ''Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of the Appalachian South, 1880–1930'' 1982. * Carl E. Feather, ''Mountain People in a Flat Land: A Popular History of Appalachian Migration to Northeast Ohio, 1940–1965''. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998. * Thomas R. Ford ed. ''The Southern Appalachian Region: A Survey''. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1967. * Horace Kephart, ''

Our Southern Highlanders ''Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life Among the Mountaineers'' is a book written by American author Horace Kephart (1862–1931), first published in 1913 and revised in 1922. Insp ...

''. Rev. ed. New York: Macmillan, 1922. Reprinted as ''Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life among the Mountaineers''. With an Introduction by George Ellison. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976. * Gerald Milnes, ''Play of a Fiddle: Traditional Music, Dance, and Folklore in West Virginia.'' Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1999. * Otis K. Rice, ''The Allegheny Frontier: West Virginia Beginnings, 1730–1830'' (1970), * Otis K. Rice and Stephen W. Brown, ''West Virginia: A History'', 2d ed. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), standard * Curtis Seltzer, ''Fire in the Hole: Miners and Managers in the American Coal Industry'' (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1985), conflict in the coal industry to the 1980s. * John E. Stealey III, ''West Virginia's Civil War-Era Constitution: Loyal Revolution, Confederate Counter-Revolution, and the Convention of 1872.'' Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2013. * Joe William Trotter Jr., ''Coal, Class, and Color: Blacks in Southern West Virginia, 1915–32'' (1990) * John Alexander Williams, ''West Virginia: A History for Beginners''. 2nd ed. Charleston, W.Virginia: Appalachian Editions, 1997. * John Alexander Williams. ''West Virginia: A Bicentennial History'' (1976) * John Alexander Williams. ''West Virginia and the Captains of Industry'' 1976. * John Alexander Williams. ''Appalachia: A History'' (2002)

External links

State government

State of West Virginia government website

West Virginia Department of Commerce

West Virginia Legislature website

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia website

Constitution of West Virginia

West Virginia Code

U.S. government

Energy Profile for West Virginia—Economic, environmental, and energy data

USGS real-time, geographic, and other scientific resources of West Virginia

West Virginia State Fact Sheet
from the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Other

Governor Earl Ray Tomblin's website

West Virginia Division of Tourism

Visiting West Virginia

West Virginia Archives and History

West Virginia Department of Education

West Virginia Explorer

West Virginia Encyclopedia
* {{coord, 39, -80, dim:300000_region:US-WV_type:adm1st, name=State of West Virginia, display=title States and territories established in 1863 States of the United States Mid-Atlantic states Southern United States Geography of Appalachia 1863 establishments in Virginia Contiguous United States

History

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West "by God" Virginia

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Appalachian music

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See also

References

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