58 Fun Facts About West Virginia

West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20 of which year?

West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20, 1863, carved from Confederate Virginia; the Willey Amendment made gradual emancipation a condition of admission.

Along with West Virginia, which other state was admitted to the Union during the Civil War?

Nevada was admitted on October 31, 1864, hurried in before Lincoln's re-election; Kansas had joined in January 1861, months before the war began.

What is West Virginia's state motto in English?

'Mountaineers are always free' renders the Latin Montani Semper Liberi, adopted with the state seal in September 1863 to mark the mountain counties' break from Confederate Virginia.

What is West Virginia's capital and most populous city?

Charleston, at the meeting of the Elk and Kanawha rivers, counted about 48,900 residents in the 2020 census, narrowly ahead of Huntington.

West Virginia is the only state that lies entirely within the area served by which body?

The Appalachian Regional Commission's statutory region covers every West Virginia county, the only state wholly inside it; the state's mean elevation of about 1,500 feet is the highest east of the Mississippi.

How many panhandles does West Virginia have?

The northern one reaches up between Ohio and Pennsylvania toward Pittsburgh; the eastern one includes Harpers Ferry near Washington.

What is the highest point in West Virginia, at 4,863 feet?

Spruce Knob, at 4,863 feet, crowns Spruce Mountain and is the highest peak in the Allegheny Mountains, inside the Monongahela National Forest.

Which town is West Virginia's easternmost and its lowest point above sea level?

Harpers Ferry sits at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac where West Virginia meets Maryland and Virginia; the Potomac there, about 240 feet, is the state's low point.

Which abolitionist raided the federal armory in the state's eastern panhandle in October 1859?

John Brown seized the Harpers Ferry armory on October 16, 1859, hoping to arm a slave revolt; Marines led by Robert E. Lee retook it two days later, and Brown was hanged that December.

How high above the New River is the roadway of the New River Gorge Bridge?

The deck is 876 feet above the New River; when it opened in October 1977 it was the world's highest bridge carrying ordinary road traffic, and it appears on the 2005 West Virginia state quarter.

For how many years was the New River Gorge Bridge the world's longest single-span arch bridge?

26 years: from its opening in 1977 until Shanghai's Lupu Bridge surpassed it in 2003, its 1,700-foot steel arch was the longest single span of its kind in the world.

In what year was New River Gorge redesignated a national park and preserve?

The redesignation came on December 27, 2020, in the year-end spending bill; Jimmy Carter had created New River Gorge National River in 1978, protecting 53 miles of gorge.

The New River, despite its name, actually rises in which state before flowing into West Virginia?

The New rises in the Blue Ridge near Blowing Rock, North Carolina, flows north through Virginia and enters West Virginia near Glen Lyn before carving the New River Gorge.

Which two rivers meet in Fayette County to form the Kanawha, West Virginia's largest inland waterway?

The New and the Gauley join at Gauley Bridge in Fayette County; from there the Kanawha runs 97 miles past Charleston to the Ohio at Point Pleasant.

Which state borders West Virginia to the northwest, across a major river?

The Ohio River marks that border; it runs 981 miles from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois.

What is West Virginia's official state rock?

Bituminous coal was named the official state rock in 2009; the state gem is the Mississippian-age fossil coral Lithostrotionella, found in the state's limestone.

The 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest US armed uprising since the Civil War, pitted coal miners against whom?

Lawmen and strikebreakers backed by mine owners, Sheriff Don Chafin's roughly 3,000 'Logan Defenders', held the ridge against some 10,000 miners until federal troops arrived in early September 1921.

Which Cork-born labour organiser was called 'the most dangerous woman in America' for rallying West Virginia's miners?

Mother Jones, born Mary Harris in Cork around 1837, got the label in 1902 when West Virginia prosecutor Reese Blizzard used it at her trial for defying a strike injunction.

The Hatfield-McCoy feud played out along which river on the West Virginia-Kentucky line?

The Tug Fork of the Big Sandy divides southern West Virginia from Pike County, Kentucky; 'Devil Anse' Hatfield's clan lived on the West Virginia bank and Randolph McCoy's on the Kentucky side.

Which winged, red-eyed creature was reportedly seen around Point Pleasant in 1966–67?

Mothman sightings began on November 15, 1966; John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies tied them to the Silver Bridge collapse of December 1967, and Point Pleasant started a Mothman Festival in 2002.

Where did the first witnesses of the Point Pleasant creature say they saw it, in November 1966?

Two young couples told police about a large black figure with glowing red eyes on November 15, 1966.

Which two songwriters wrote 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' with John Denver?

Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert, later of Starland Vocal Band, began the song while driving Clopper Road in Maryland; recorded with Denver, it peaked at number two on the Hot 100 in 1971.

In what year did 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' become one of West Virginia's official state songs?

The Legislature adopted it on March 8, 2014, making it the fourth official state song beside 'The West Virginia Hills', 'This Is My West Virginia' and 'West Virginia, My Home Sweet Home'.

Green Bank, West Virginia hosts a 100-metre, fully steerable what?

Radio telescope: the Green Bank Telescope's 100-by-110-metre dish went into service in 2000 inside the National Radio Quiet Zone, where wireless signals are restricted to protect faint emissions from space.

The Greenbrier resort hid a Cold War bunker built for whom?

The US Congress: the bunker, code-named Project Greek Island, was built in 1958-61 beneath the resort's West Virginia Wing and decommissioned in 1995, three years after the Washington Post exposed it.

Before 1913, West Virginia's Greenbrier resort went by what name?

White Sulphur Springs: guests had 'taken the waters' there since 1778, and the resort carried the springs' name until the C&O Railway opened its new Greenbrier hotel in 1913.

The pepperoni roll, West Virginia's unofficial state food, was first sold in 1927 in which town?

Giuseppe Argiro, an Italian immigrant and former miner, sold the first pepperoni rolls at his Country Club Bakery in Fairmont in 1927 as a lunch coal miners could carry underground.

West Virginia's official state fruit is which apple variety, first found in Clay County?

Golden Delicious was found on Anderson Mullins's farm in Clay County; he sold the tree to Stark Brothers for $5,000 in 1914, and it became the state fruit in 1995.

West Virginia University's main campus is in which city?

Morgantown, on the Monongahela River in the state's north, has hosted WVU since it opened in 1867 as the Agricultural College of West Virginia under the Morrill land-grant act.

WVU's Mountaineer mascot carries what alongside a buckskin suit and coonskin cap?

The Mountaineer's kit is a period rifle and powder horn; the musket is fired after every score, and a new student Mountaineer is chosen each spring with a scholarship attached.

Which conference did the WVU Mountaineers join in 2012?

WVU joined the Big 12 on July 1, 2012, leaving the Big East after 21 years; its school colours, old gold and blue, were chosen from the state seal in 1890.

Marshall University is named after which number chief justice of the United States?

John Marshall was the fourth chief justice, after Jay, Rutledge and Ellsworth, serving from 1801 until his death in 1835; his friend John Laidley founded Marshall Academy in 1837.

How many people died in the 1970 crash of Southern Airways Flight 932, carrying Huntington's football team?

All 75 aboard died when the chartered DC-9 hit a hillside short of Tri-State Airport on November 14, 1970, returning from a 17-14 loss at East Carolina; the 2006 film We Are Marshall premiered in Huntington.

What is West Virginia's official state animal?

The black bear was named West Virginia's state animal in 1973; the species ranges across the Allegheny highlands and is hunted in a regulated autumn season.

Which architect designed the West Virginia State Capitol, dedicated in 1932?

Cass Gilbert, architect of the US Supreme Court building, designed the buff limestone capitol; its gilded dome rises 292 feet, about five feet higher than the US Capitol's, and the complex cost just under $10 million.

Blackwater Falls, one of the most photographed spots in the state, gets its dark colour from what?

Tannins from hemlock and red spruce needles stain the Blackwater River amber-brown; the roughly 60-foot falls drop where the river leaves Canaan Valley into Blackwater Canyon.

Cass Scenic Railroad State Park runs what kind of historic engines up Back Allegheny Mountain?

Geared Shay logging locomotives, built to haul timber up steep, twisting grades, have climbed from Cass since 1901, when the town was built for spruce and hemlock loggers; the state park opened in 1963.

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, one of America's largest hand-cut stone buildings, is in which town?

Weston, in Lewis County, is home to the asylum, which admitted patients from 1864 to 1994 and was laid out on the Kirkbride Plan with long staggered wings.

The Gothic-style West Virginia Penitentiary, open from 1866 to 1995, stands in which town?

Moundsville, beside the Grave Creek Mound on the Ohio, got the prison in 1866; its Gothic turrets and battlements copy the Joliet, Illinois state prison at roughly half size.

The 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant pitted Virginia militia against which Shawnee chief?

Cornstalk led the Shawnee and Mingo against Andrew Lewis's Virginians on October 10, 1774, the decisive clash of Lord Dunmore's War; he was murdered by militiamen at Fort Randolph in 1777.

Which West Virginia town claims the first Mother's Day service, held by Anna Jarvis in 1908?

Grafton's Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church held the service on May 10, 1908, three years after Jarvis's mother died; the building was designated the International Mother's Day Shrine in 1962.

Which West Virginia native was the first pilot to break the sound barrier, in October 1947?

Chuck Yeager, raised in Hamlin, Lincoln County, flew the Bell X-1 'Glamorous Glennis' past Mach 1 on October 14, 1947 over California's Mojave Desert.

Which Chelyan-born Lakers star's silhouette became the NBA logo?

Jerry West, 'Zeke from Cabin Creek' after the creek near his birthplace, led WVU to the 1959 NCAA final; designer Alan Siegel traced the 1969 NBA logo from a photo of his dribble.

Which West Virginia-born actor won five Emmys playing Deputy Barney Fife?

Don Knotts, born in Morgantown in 1924, won five Emmys for supporting actor in a comedy as Barney Fife on The Andy Griffith Show, which ran from 1960 to 1968.

Which West Virginia-born gymnast was the first American woman to win Olympic all-around gold, in 1984?

Mary Lou Retton, born in Fairmont, took the 1984 all-around in Los Angeles with a perfect 10 on vault, adding two silvers and two bronzes; Sports Illustrated named her Sportswoman of the Year.

Which West Virginia-born author was the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature?

Pearl S. Buck, born in Hillsboro in 1892 and raised in China by missionary parents, won the 1932 Pulitzer for The Good Earth and the 1938 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Which West Virginia mathematician calculated trajectories for Shepard's and Glenn's spaceflights?

Katherine Johnson, a Greenbrier County native, computed Alan Shepard's 1961 trajectory and verified the orbit for John Glenn's 1962 flight; her 33-year NASA career was dramatised in Hidden Figures.

Which country star, born in Glen Dale, West Virginia, is the son of a state DOT worker?

Brad Paisley grew up an only child in Glen Dale; his father Doug worked for the state Department of Transportation and his mother Sandy taught school.

Which West Virginia ski resort's Cupp Run and Shay's Revenge have the biggest vertical drop in the Southeast?

Snowshoe Mountain's Western Territory runs, Cupp Run and Shay's Revenge, drop 1,500 vertical feet; the resort sits on Cheat Mountain, whose summit Thorny Flat reaches 4,848 feet.

What did COG stand for in West Virginia's old nickname 'The Cog State'?

Coal, Oil, and Gas, the three fuels beneath the state's hills, gave the old 'Cog State' tag its letters; 'The Mountain State' has long since displaced it.

How many counties does West Virginia have?

West Virginia has 55 counties, from Kanawha, the most populous, to Wirt, the least; the sheriff of each county collects its property taxes.

West Virginia's center of population lies in which small Braxton County town?

Gassaway, on the Elk River in Braxton County, is the point where the state's 2020 population of 1,793,716 would balance; that count was 3.2% below 2010.

Which state led US coal production in 2023, with West Virginia in second place?

Wyoming's Powder River Basin surface mines produced about 40% of US coal in 2023, roughly three times West Virginia's output; coal generated about nine-tenths of West Virginia's electricity that year.

The Trans-Allegheny asylum claims its hand-cut stone building is second worldwide only to what?

The Kremlin: the asylum bills its sandstone main building, begun in 1858 with stone cut by hand, as the largest such structure in North America and second in the world only to Moscow's Kremlin.

What is West Virginia's official state tree?

The sugar maple became West Virginia's state tree by a 1949 legislative resolution; its autumn foliage colours the Allegheny highlands each October.

In 2010-2013, West Virginia was the only US state where what demographic pattern held?

Deaths exceed births: West Virginia logged about 21,000 births a year in 2010-2013 but roughly 3,000 more deaths than births across the three years, the first state to record sustained natural decrease.

After the 2020 census, how many seats did West Virginia hold in the US House of Representatives?

It lost one of its three seats, and its population is expected to decline by more than 19,000 residents by 2030.

Which state contest for 8th graders is named for Governor Spotswood's 1716 expedition?

The Golden Horseshoe, begun in 1931, tests eighth graders on state history and dubs winners 'knights'; it recalls Spotswood's 1716 Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, once said to have reached Pendleton County.