Railroad figurines at the Hinton Railroad Museum.
Check out where the miners had dinner while working in a coal mine.
More railroad figurines at the Hinton Railroad Museum.
If traveling to Charleston, just over an hour’s drive west of the New River Gorge Bridge, a stop at the State Capitol complex is worth a visit. Off the shores of the Kanawha River, the Capitol’s copper and gold leaf dome is a glittering landmark reaching even higher than the U.S. Capitol. Outside the front entrance stands a statue known as Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, depicting a somber 16th president cloaked in a long robe. It’s suggested his humble look might be symbolic of the country’s strife during the Civil War. In fact, it was during Lincoln’s term when West Virginia became a state in 1863, formed in part when northern counties broke off from secessionist Virginia and remained loyal to the U.S. Amust see within the Capitol complex is theWest Virginia State Museum, its 26 discovery rooms highlighting prehistoric through modern-day history. Exhibits range from stone arrowheads and weapons and uniforms from two world wars to a recreated coal mine and diorama of the New River Gorge Bridge at twilight. Catching my attention are frontiersman Daniel Boone’s late 18th- century musket and walking stick, as does what the museum believes could possibly be the noose used to hang abolitionist John Brown for his pre-Civil War siege at Harpers Ferry.
Shop at Tamarack Market in Beckley for West Virginia treasures.
History buffs might also like to see South Charleston’s Criel Mound, a Native American burial site dating back to the second century B.C. and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It’s now part of a municipal park often used for community fairs and carnivals. My visit was a great opportunity to learnmore about West Virginia’s natural beauty, history and culture, recalling a quick lesson from Adventure on the Gorge’s hiking guide Brenna Craig. “To get the Appalachian accent correct, you have to say Appalachia (ap-a-latch-a),” she told me. “We don’t say Appalachia (ap-a-lay-cha”). If you say that, we’ll throw an apple at ya!”
FOR MORE INFORMATION https://wvtourism.com • https://adventuresonthegorge.com/
VISIT SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA
COAST TO COAST SPRING MAGAZINE 2022
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