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West Virginia Historic Sites

By Emily Anne Croom Premium

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• Arthurdale Heritage New Deal Museum
Route 92 south of Route 7
Arthurdale, WV 26520
(304) 864-3959
<www.arthurdaleheritage.org>

Established in 1934 to aid displaced coal miners and their families, this rural community has homes, shops, a forge and a vintage service station. Museum exhibits show local life, work and products of the 1930s.
 
• Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine & Youth Museum of Southern West Virginia

513 Ewart Ave.
Beckley, WV 25801
(304) 256-1747
<www.beckleymine.com

Behind the popular Youth Museum is a model frontier settlement where interpreters depict life in early West Virginia. Nearby, tour an early 20th-century coal camp and venture underground to the mine.
 

• Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
US Highway 340
Harpers Ferry, WV 25425
(304) 535-6029
<nps.gov/hafe>  

This riverside town is the site of John Brown’s 1859 armory raid and the 1862 Battle of Harpers Ferry. The park encompasses the town and includes museums in restored 19th-century buildings, battlefields and a research library (open by appointment).
 
• Heritage Farm Museum and Village
3300 Harvey Road

Huntington, WV 27504
(304) 522-1244
<www.heritagefarmmuseum.com>
Preserving the heritage and history of Appalachian mountain residents is the focus of this park, where you can see cabins, shops, a country store, a log church and a one-room school. The Progress Museum features the dramatic changes inside the American home from 1850 to 1925.

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• North House Museum

301 N. Washington St.
Lewisburg, WV 24901
(304) 645-3398
<www.greenbrierhistorical.org/NH-aboutus.htm>
At this 1820 home and its grounds, see period furnishings, decorative arts, a Conestoga wagon and artifacts from the Revolutionary and Civil wars. The on-site Greenbrier Historical Society library contains photographs and documents from Lewisburg’s past.

 
• Prickett’s Fort State Park

Route 3
Fairmont, WV 26554
(304) 363-3030
<www.prickettsfortstatepark.com>   

Prickett’s Fort was one of the many log stockades early settlers built for refuge from Indian attacks. Now a living history site, the park features a reconstructed fort and blockhouses where interpreters demonstrate 18th-century crafts and trades.
 

West Virginia State Farm Museum
off SR 62, north of Point Pleasant
(304) 675-5737
<www.wvfarmmuseum.org>
The Mountain State’s rural heritage is preserved here, where you’ll find an early farmhouse, barns, gardens, log cabins, a working blacksmith shop and more displays that relate life in earlier days. Check the online schedule for special events, including festivals and living history days.

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• George Washington Heritage Trail

West Virginia routes 9, 51 and others
(304) 558-3165
<www.washingtonheritagetrail.org>

A young George Washington was so taken with the scenery while surveying the future West Virginia’s eastern panhandle that he later bought land there. Drive a 112-mile loop linking five 18th-century towns and sites such as Throgmorton’s Inn, where the president-to-be stayed in 1784, and Prospect Peak, offering his favorite vista of the Potomac River.
 
Visitor Information for West Virginia
• Division of Tourism
90 MacCorkle Ave. SW, South Charleston, WV 25303, (800) 225-5982, <www.wvtourism.com>

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