Celebrate Halloween by traveling to one of the state’s spookiest spots—the abandoned Lake Shawnee Amusement Park outside Princeton. In photos from the 1950s you can see the charm of the place. Suntanned teenagers in bathing suits float in a pool, sun reflecting off a water slide in the distance. A smattering of heavy, handsome cars are parked in a gravel…
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In its more than 125 years, the outdoorsmen retreating to the Cheat Mountain Club have changed, but it has stayed the same. The Cheat Mountain is especially long and high, even compared to the rest of West Virginia’s rough terrain. The ridge is some 70 miles long—it stretches from Snowshoe in the southwest all the way past Elkins in the northeast—and includes 9 of…
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In Morgantown, Bryn Perrott has stumbled onto an artistic career with a life of its own. Bryn Perrott has that kind of effortless cool everyone else—or at least those of us who preoccupy ourselves with such vain concerns—can only aspire to. It doesn’t work for us because we’re trying too hard, we’re self-conscious, we make it look like work. Bryn doesn’t…
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West Virginia Women Work has given thousands of low-income women the skills and confidence to make a living in a nontraditional field. Now, it might have to close its doors. Let’s try a thought experiment. Imagine a job field where the demand for workers is high, the barrier for entry is low, and the pay is good. The jobs are upwardly…
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How Charleston became a one-paper town. Around 3 p.m. on Sunday, July 19, the newsroom staffs of the Charleston Daily Mail and Charleston Gazette were called to the front lobby of their shared headquarters at 1001 Virginia Street East in downtown Charleston. Employees immediately knew something strange was happening. Although situated on opposite sides of the same hallway, the newsrooms…
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