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Showing posts from 2024

Stone Cliff Trail

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  Stone Cliff Trail - 2.7 miles  This was the 3rd bike trail we rode in West VA and let me tell you they are rough and make you bones and body ache!!! We did 3 different trails and 3 different days ...This was the most difficult or one which had us both going OUCH! It was fun but messed up my hubs bike ...he is working on it ... bringing it back to health asap, so we can ride again soon. Hope you are well. Take Care and enjoy the day. Beth ( ; 

New River Gorge, West VA

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  Thomas Burford Pugh Memorial Bridge Stone Cliff Bridge, route 25 Tunney Hunsaker Bridge, Fayette Station Road, New River Gorge We met the nicest couple on this Tunny bridge, from Georgia ...so friendly and we chatted for a good long while we were there. So fun. I really enjoy meeting like minded folks who just wanna see what you are up on your travels. Just a blast!! Fun times!! Hope you are enjoying these views from a trip we took in late August 2024. Thanks for stopping in ... hope you are well. Take Care. Beth ( ; 

Sandstone Falls

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  Sand Stone Falls "found within the nation's 63rd national park, sandstone falls is the largest waterfall in the New River Gorge National Park & Preserve. spanning over 1,500 feet wide, large series of falls is divided by a collection of small islands." Such a gorgeous area, I know when we first visited this falls, it was not apart of the newly made national park ...so that is fun to see it now that the National Park is all fancy and so on. LOL! Really was a gorgeous day when we were there, a bit of a warmer day (humid) and we did get some water to drink ...but so worth the visit. amazing. Thanks for stopping bye. Hope you are well. Chat with you again soon. Take Care. Beth ( ; 

Prince, West VA

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  Prince, West VA 1870, 2 brothers, William & James Prince, purchased 300 acres of land. Brought from General Alfred Beckley would become the town of Prince. The brothers arrived in the gorge before the building of the railroad in 1873. The earliest business were the Prince Bros General Store and a ferry crossing. As the construction of the railroad began, their businesses flourished. The Stretcher's Neck tunnel construction and nearby bridge construction especially provided good business. The C & O Railroad passed through the Prince Bros.' land ... sold the right-of-way agreement to the train folks ... agreement allowed C&O to pass through their lands so long as every train stopped in Prince. Prince was never a mining town, one of the only few in the New River Gorge. No coal company ever own the town.    17 people call Prince their home today. Amtrak still uses the Prince depot as a stop three days a week with over 1,000 passengers a year. Although the Prince Store

Thurmond, West VA

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Thurmond, Fayette County, West Virginia. on the New River. During the heyday of the coal mining in the New River Gorge. Thurmond was a prosperous town with a number of businesses and facilities for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway... ... shipments of coal from the surrounding coal fields. The town of Thurmond grew as the coal and timber industries expanded in the gorge. The railroad expanded the rail yard to meet the railroad's needs.  1910, Thurmond was the chief railroad center on the C& O Railway mainline. 1910, Thurmond was the 1st in revenue receipts. It produced more freight tonnage than Cincinnati, Ohio and Richmond, VA combined. Freight was not the only key to this town's success. 7,500 passengers passed through Thurmond in 1910. Some visited as tourists, delighting in all Thurmond had to offer. Other came for business or new job opportunities. Peak of Thurmond, had 2 hotels and 2 banks. downtown area had restaurants, clothing stores, jewelry store, and dry-good stor

Indian Creek Covered Bridge

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  Indian Creek Covered Bridge, 1898, Monroe County Historical Society US 219, about 4 miles away from Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County,  West VA, USA. built 1898 by Ray and Oscar Weikel ...   This 2nd covered bridge I can not get close enough, well I can but when you do that plague doesn't give you any info. it is either too old to be seen or suchness?? So for that reason I am grouping these 2 together, and hoping they can be covered bridge friends. LOL!! Both are so purdy. Enjoy. Thank you so much for stopping in today. Hope you are well. Tell me a thing or 2. How is life? Weather? What's happening? Laters. Beth ( ; 

Cook's Mill

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  Cook's Mill, also known as The Old Mill and Greenville Roller Mill, Greenville, West Virginia "1797, Valentine Cook which includes a "gristmill" and we know that he had carved out a 650 acre tract here by the time of a 1774 survey. We can surmise that the mill was built soon after because much of the tillable farmland along Indian Creek had already been claimed and was presumably being cleared and farmed to some degree. So, there would have been a real need to grind corn and wheat in an area so remote from other facilities. The mill would have been small and powered by a waterwheel connected to at least one "run of millstones" by wooden shafts and gears. but a mill on the frontier would have been more basic. Valentine Cook also had a gunpowder mill by 1797. using saltpeter from local caves, but whether this was on this site is unknown.  A second mill must have been built in 1858, to judge by a contract signed late in 1857, by Jacob A. Cook, Riley B. Cook

Reed's Mill

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  Reed's Mill, Secondcreek, West Virginia 304 - 772- 5665 est. 1791 " main building was built in 1791, mortise and tenon frame structure held together with wooden pins and sits atop a raised cut stone basement. 3 story section with basement added in 1949. Also includes the mill dam, wing-dam, mill race lined with rock and ending in the mill pond and concrete mill race that carries water to the turbine (1872) which operates the grinding wheels in the mill. It is an operating mill. "   Sadly we were not there when it was open ...wish you could support folks who have mills still going but we have found they are often not open when we are visiting ...you still enjoy the views. Wishing them all the best and that they will continue to be business into the way on future. This beauty was right down the road from the mill and the hubs had to get a photo ... such character. How are you today? Doing well I sure do hope so. Thank you so kindly for stopping in ... Take Care and see yo

John Henry Memorial

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  Hinton, West Virginia "1972, on the 100th anniversary of the opening of the tunnel and the birth of the John Henry legend. The opening ceremony included the grand entrance of the John Henry statue through the Great Bend Tunnel on a special train." "primary contractor Capt. William R. Johnson who was educated as a civil engineer was served in that capacity in a Confederate regiment during the Civil War. He employed 800 - 1,000 workers were either African-American newly freed from enslavement, Irish immigrants, and other nationalities. Once completed, the tunnel was 6,450 feet in length with a slight curve at the east end due to an engineering error."    I recall singing this song as a kid ... do you? What fun to see this history and learn a thing or 2. Do you know the Johnny Cash song ... please look up "The Legend of John Henry's Hammer (Live In Las Vegas, 1979)" ... I was not familiar with it ...but after seeing this bit here on the info boards I h

Nuttallburg

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The Tipple  "where coal was sorted, stored, loaded into rail cars, or transferred to the site's coke ovens. tipple comes from the practice in some mines of tipping ore cars to unload them. The Fordson Coal Company, who leased the Nuttallburg Mine in the 1920's, built this tipple in 1923-24. This is the 3rd tipple on the site. Here in New River Gorge the mining process was complicated by the fact that the coal seam was half-way up the gorge slope. Mining here meant moving coal from the headhouse at the mine entrance down the conveyor to the tipple at the gorge bottom. The tipple was the operation's centerpiece." "large structure that climbs the slope in front of you was a conveyor that carried coal from the mine entrance high up the gorge wall to the tipple behind you. It was an innovation and expensive device for moving coal downhill. 1,385 feet long, it was one of the longest such conveyors ever built. Completed in 1926 during the period when Henry Ford upgr

July 20 24 views

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  Falling Springs Falls, Covington, VA on a sign at this location (just park your vehicle and walk a wee bit to enjoy this view, we were right around sunset and that would have been so gorgeous, you can not get any closer to the falls, but this is a gorgeous sight to see!!!) is this information and due to it's amazing history ... I love history. I really love Virginia history, so for that reason I am sharing it with you. Please enjoy...   "Welcome to Falling Spring Falls in the Heart of Alleghany Highlands  According to the book, "Historical Sketches of the Allegany Highlands" by Gay Arritt, 82 acres of land including the Falling Spring Falls was granted by King George III of Great Britain to Gabriel Jones in August 1771. In 1780, Thomas Jefferson, Governor of Virginia, granted the property to Major Thomas Massie. Jefferson visited the site once to survey the falls which he mentions in his manuscripts "Notes on the State of Virginia" written in 1781. "