Portal:West Virginia

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The West Virginia Portal

Panorama northwest, northeast and east from a ridge along West Virginia Route 42 between Elk Garden and Sulphur City in Mineral County, West Virginia (2016)

West Virginia is a landlocked state in the Southern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. It is bordered by Pennsylvania and Maryland to the northeast, Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, and Ohio to the northwest. West Virginia is the 10th-smallest state by area and ranks as the 12th-least populous state, with a population of 1,793,716 residents. The capital and most populous city is Charleston with a population of 49,055.

West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, and was a key border state during the American Civil War. It was the only state to form by separating from a Confederate state, one of two states (along with Nevada) admitted to the Union during the Civil War, and the third state to separate from another state, after Kentucky and Maine separated from Virginia and Massachusetts in 1792 and 1820, respectively. Some of its residents held slaves, but most were yeoman farmers, and the delegates provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in the new state constitution. The state legislature abolished slavery in the state, and at the same time ratified the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery nationally on February 3, 1865.

West Virginia's northern panhandle extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio to form a tristate area, with Wheeling, Weirton, and Morgantown just across the border from the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Huntington in the southwest is close to Ohio and Kentucky, while Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry in the eastern panhandle region are considered part of the Washington metropolitan area, between Maryland and Virginia. West Virginia is often included in several U.S. geographical regions, including the Mid-Atlantic, the Upland South, and the Southeastern United States. It is the only state entirely within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission; the area is commonly defined as "Appalachia". (Full article...)

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The Confederate Memorial in 2010

The Confederate Memorial (also referred to as the First Confederate Memorial) at Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, West Virginia, commemorates residents of Hampshire County who died during the American Civil War while fighting for the Confederate States of America. It was sponsored by the Confederate Memorial Association, which formally dedicated the monument on September 26, 1867. The town of Romney has claimed that this is the first memorial structure erected to memorialize the Confederate dead in the United States and that the town performed the nation's first public decoration of Confederate graves on June 1, 1866.

The idea to memorialize the Confederate war dead of Hampshire County was first discussed in the spring of 1866. Following the decoration of the graves that summer, the Confederate Memorial Association engaged in fundraising for construction of the memorial, and by 1867 the necessary funds were raised. The inscription The Daughters of Old Hampshire Erect This Tribute of Affection to Her Heroic Sons Who Fell in Defence of Southern Rights was selected, and the contract for the memorial's construction was awarded to the Gaddes Brothers firm of Baltimore. The memorial's components were delivered to Indian Mound Cemetery on September 14, 1867, and the memorial was dedicated on September 26 of that year. The construction of the Confederate Memorial marked the beginning of an era of post-war revitalization for Hampshire County following the American Civil War. (Full article...)

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Aerial view of Harpers Ferry from Maryland Heights at the confluence of the Shenandoah (left) and Potomac rivers

Harpers Ferry is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, in the lower Shenandoah Valley. The town's population was 269 at the 2020 United States census. Situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet, it is the easternmost town in West Virginia as well as its lowest point above sea level.

Originally named Harper's Ferry after an 18th-century ferry owner, the town lost its apostrophe in 1891 in an update by the United States Board on Geographic Names. It gained fame in 1859 when abolitionist John Brown led a raid on the Harpers Ferry Armory in a doomed effort to start a slave rebellion in Virginia and across the South. During the American Civil War, the town became the northernmost point of Confederate-controlled territory, and changed hands several times due to its strategic importance. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various West Virginia-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The Veterans Memorial Bridge carries US 22 from Weirton WV into Ohio. (from West Virginia)
Image 2From left, Senator Joe Manchin, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, and Representative David McKinley (2017) (from West Virginia)
Image 3Spruce Knob is the highest point in West Virginia and the Allegheny Mountains. (from West Virginia)
Image 4State of Westylvania proposed to the U.S. Congress (from West Virginia)
Image 5Votes by county in the October 1861 statehood vote (from West Virginia)
Image 6The Linsly Institute building in Wheeling, West Virginia, which served as the state's first capitol building from statehood in 1863 until March 28, 1870, when the capitol was transferred to Charleston, West Virginia (from History of West Virginia)
Image 7Thomas Lee, the first manager of the Ohio Company of Virginia (from West Virginia)
Image 8Thomas Lee, the first manager of the Ohio Company of Virginia (from History of West Virginia)
Image 9Harpers Ferry alternated between Confederate and Union rule eight times during the American Civil War, and was finally annexed by West Virginia. (from West Virginia)
Image 10Bluefield, a major center for coal mining, in 2014 (from West Virginia)
Image 11West Virginia is situated in the Appalachian Mountains, bounded by Allegheny Mountains, Ohio and Big Sandy rivers, and the Cumberland Mountains. (from West Virginia)
Image 12A slave woman tending to a white baby in West Virginia, 1865 (from West Virginia)
Image 13West Virginia Independence Hall, site of the Wheeling Convention (from History of West Virginia)
Image 14Francis H. Pierpont, a leader during the Second Wheeling Convention (from West Virginia)
Image 15A view of the New River in West Virginia, the world's third-oldest river geologically (from History of West Virginia)
Image 16Seneca Rocks, Pendleton County (from West Virginia)
Image 17The West Virginia State Capitol in Charleston is home to the West Virginia Legislature. (from West Virginia)
Image 18Saturday afternoon street scene, Welch, McDowell County, 1946 (from West Virginia)
Image 19Bituminous coal seam in southwestern West Virginia (from West Virginia)
Image 20Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight, a statue on the grounds of the West Virginia State Capitol (from West Virginia)
Image 21Map of Virginia dated June 13, 1861, featuring the percentage of slave population within each county at the 1860 census and the proposed state of Kanawha (from West Virginia)
Image 22Packed circles diagram showing estimates of the ethnic origins of people in West Virginia in 2021. (from West Virginia)
Image 23Child labor in the coal mines of West Virginia, 1908 (from West Virginia)
Image 24A toll plaza on the West Virginia Turnpike (from West Virginia)
Image 251715 Nicolas de Fer map showing the Native American areas known as Tionontatacaga and Calicuas (from History of West Virginia)
Image 26Shaded relief map of the Cumberland Plateau and Ridge-and-valley Appalachians (from West Virginia)
Image 27John S. Carlile, a leader during the First Wheeling Convention (from History of West Virginia)
Image 28Escaped slave broadside, Hampshire County, West Virginia, 1845 (from West Virginia)
Image 29The iconic New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville (from West Virginia)
Image 30Historical coat of arms of West Virginia (illustrated, 1876) (from West Virginia)
Image 31Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, changed hands a dozen times during the American Civil War. (from History of West Virginia)

Racial plurality in West Virginia by county, per the 2020 U.S. census

Legend

Non-Hispanic White

70–80%

80–90%

90%+

(from West Virginia)

Image 33West Virginia population density map (from West Virginia)
Image 34Turnout by county in the October 24, 1861, West Virginia statehood vote (from History of West Virginia)
Image 35Köppen climate types of West Virginia, using 1991-2020 climate normals (from West Virginia)
Image 361751 Fry-Jefferson map showing early ferries and established colonial borders before the French And Indian War (from History of West Virginia)
Image 37Counties (in blue) approving Virginia's secession from the U.S. (from History of West Virginia)

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... that Babydog is "a fixture in West Virginia politics"?
... that James Dillon Armstrong was a Virginia state senator, a delegate to West Virginia's constitutional convention, and a circuit court judge while serving for more than 43 years as a Presbyterian church elder?
... that after Lew Dickey Sr. broke into the radio business by buying a station in West Virginia, his son would go on to own Cumulus Media?
... that William H. Davis was the first teacher of Booker T. Washington and the first African American to be nominated as a candidate for West Virginia governor in 1888?
... that part of West Virginia's Princeton–Deepwater District railway was so steep that only shortened coal trains could ascend it?
... that the general manager of a West Virginia TV station called changing its network affiliation "the hardest decision I've ever had to make"?

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