West Virginia, the only landlocked South Atlantic state, is bordered by Pennsylvania on the north, Maryland and Virginia on the east, and Kentucky and Ohio on the west. Very irregular in shape, with two panhandles--a northern one jutting up between Pennsylvania and Ohio and an eastern one squeezed by Maryland and Virginia--West Virginia has about five-sixths of its 1,880-km (1,170-mi) border marked by rivers or mountain ridges. Lying wholly within the \TAppalachian Mountains\t, and thus well deserving of its nickname, the "Mountain State," West Virginia claims the highest mean elevation (approximately 457 m/1,500 ft) of any state east of the Mississippi and the most rugged terrain. The state's population in 1970 (1,744,237) equaled that of 40 years earlier. During the 1970s, however, revived interest in the state's primary resource, coal, drew many new residents to the state (205,407 between 1970 and 1980) and increased the population by 11.8%. By 1990, however, the population had declined sharply to 1,793,477. LAND AND RESOURCES West Virginia lies within three physiographic provinces. At Harpers Ferry a scenic and strategic pass of the Potomac provides a gateway through the \TBlue Ridge Mountains\t. To the west the Ridge and Valley region occupies most of the eastern panhandle. A prominent east-facing escarpment, the Allegheny Front of the \TAllegheny Mountains\t, marks the beginning of the Appalachian Plateau, which covers three-fifths of the state. The highest elevations in West Virginia--Spruce Knob (1,482 m/4,862 ft), Bald Knob (1,476 m/4,842 ft), and Big Spruce Knob (1,418 m/4,652 ft)--are found along the eastern edge of the plateau. Soils West Virginia's steep slopes generally offer shallow, clay, acidic soils, favoring the growth of forests. Occasional river floodplains provide blacker, more fertile soils, and limestone bedrock helps neutralize acidity. Rivers and Lakes The state's northwestern boundary follows the right bank of the \TOhio River\t for 412 km (256 mi), and the \TPotomac\t marks West Virginia's northern border with Maryland. Fish and Middle Island creeks and the Little Kanawha, Kanawha, and Guyandotte rivers flow across the Appalachian Plateau northwestward into the Ohio. The north-running West Fork and Tygart rivers join in Marion County to form the \TMonongahela\t, which flows north into Pennsylvania. West Virginia has about 70 smaller public fishing lakes and ponds but no large natural body of water. Artificial reservoirs on the New, Gauley, and Tygart rivers afford flood protection, low-flow augmentation, and recreation. Climate With a mid-latitude continental climate, featuring cyclonic storms in winter and thunderstorms in summer, West Virginia receives about 100 mm (4 in) of rain each month. Greater amounts occur at higher elevations, but downwind or eastward of mountains precipitation drops to as low as 810 mm (32 in) a year in parts of Pendleton County. Temperatures range from January's average of 1 deg C (34 deg F) to July's 22 deg C (72 deg F). The many steep, narrow valleys make flash flooding West Virginia's most feared weather-related phenomenon. In 1972 the Buffalo Creek Flood killed 125 people after a mine refuse pile collapsed, blocking normal drainage. Vegetation and Animal Life Deciduous hardwoods of valleys, notably cherry and Appalachian oak, give way at higher elevations, where temperatures are lower and soils thinner, to scattered patches of conifers. The southern limit of Canadian vegetation runs through the state. Wildlife includes deer, bears, squirrels, rabbits, foxes, skunks, opossums, and raccoons. Mountain streams teem with trout, carp, and perch, and such fish are beginning to return to rivers in the valleys. Resources Commercial timberland covers about 80% of West Virginia's land area. During the 19th century the forests supplied charcoal-fired iron furnaces; during the early 20th century they provided the lumber to build cities and towns throughout the eastern United States. Overrapid exploitation could not continue, however, and the 1920s and '30s saw forest fires and severe erosion. After the establishment of national and state forests, large tracts that were once farmed have now reverted to tree cover. The salt brines of the Kanawha River valley, long taken advantage of by the Indians (the Indian word kanawha is believed to mean "place of the white rock"), provided the initial incentive to bore holes into the earth to remove valuable resources. The technology developed for salt mining was utilized in drilling the world's first petroleum well at Titusville, Pa., in 1859. A year later a successful well at Burning Springs in Wirt County began West Virginia's petroleum boom. Since the 1890s, however, coal--bituminous in the north, semianthracite in the south--has constituted the state's most valuable mineral resource. It has been estimated that nearly 40% of West Virginia is underlaid with minable coal and that tonnage thus far mined is only a small percentage of the recoverable reserves remaining. PEOPLE Most West Virginians live along the Kanawha, Ohio, and Monongahela rivers. During the 19th century, other manufacturing and mining towns sprang up at key sites along the railroads. West Virginia's population density, however, is the lowest of any South Atlantic state and has decline even further with the recent drop in the state population. \TCharleston\t (the capital), Huntington, Wheeling, Morgantown, Parkersburg, Fairmont, and Weirton are the only cities with more than 20,000 inhabitants. About one out of ten residents lives in the state's most populous county, Kanawha, centered at Charleston, but West Virginia's population is still predominantly rural, with nearly two-thirds of the population living outside metropolitan areas. West Virginia's population is mostly white. Blacks make up about 3% of the population, and the Hispanic and Asian populations each constitute less than 1%. Major European ethnic groups include the English, most of whom migrated from Virginia, and Scots-Irish and German, who arrived by way of Pennsylvania. Those of English descent generally tend to belong to Baptist and Episcopalian congregations. Scots-Irish are usually Presbyterian, and the Germans of the eastern panhandle belong to Amish, Mennonite, or Church of the Brethren congregations. Later Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland and eastern and southern Europe concentrated in the state's industrial centers and in the coalfield areas. Education West Virginia's institutions of higher learning include 10 state-supported institutions as well as private institutions--such as Alderson-Broaddus, Bethany, Davis and Elkins, Salem Teikyo, and West Virginia Wesleyan, all founded by 1904, and Wheeling Jesuit College, established in 1954. In West Virginia schools at the elementary and secondary school level, attendance is compulsory between the ages of 7 and 16. Culture In 1976, Charleston opened a new center for both performing arts and display of arts and crafts. Huntington and Parkersburg also have art galleries, and throughout the state a variety of fairs exhibit handicrafts and sponsor country music revivals. A few cities have symphony orchestras. Historical Sites \THarpers Ferry\t was the scene of John \TBrown\t's famous raid (1859) that foreshadowed the violence of the Civil War. Near Harpers Ferry, across the Potomac River in Maryland, is a national historical monument, the \TChesapeake and Ohio canal\t. At the other end of the state, downstream from Parkersburg, Harman BLENNERHASSET built a mansion (c.1800) on an island in the Ohio that still retains his name. There, Aaron Burr, with Blennerhasset's unwitting assistance, set about to establish an empire in the southwest. Communications West Virginia has 9 commercial television stations and numerous commercial radio stations (both AM and FM). The state's 25 daily newspapers include the Charleston Gazette and Daily Mail, the Huntington Herald-Dispatch, the Parkersburg News, and the Wheeling Intelligencer (founded in 1852) and News-Register. ECONOMIC ACTIVITY West Virginia's economy is dominated by coal mining, concentrated in the Monongahela valley and south of the Kanawha valley, and by a chemicals industry located along the Kanawha and Ohio rivers and based on the state's natural resources of salt, coal, petroleum and natural gas. Agriculture In 1983, West Virginia had 21,000 farms (compared to 35,000 in 1964). The average size of these farms was 82 ha (203) acres). Since World War II, production has shifted from dairying and general farming to livestock breeding, taking advantage of local hay production. The eastern panhandle specializes in apples and peaches, and Hardy County along the Virginia border raises about 10 million chickens annually. Forestry and Fishing West Virginia has more hardwood sawtimber than any other state in the union. Approximately three-quarters of the state's area is woodland. Peak harvesting of West Virginia's forests came in 1909, when 1.5 billion board feet of wood were cut. Hunting and fishing are major recreation industries. Squirrels, rabbits, deer, grouse, and wild turkeys constitute the most popular game. Mining In 1982 the value of mineral production in West Virginia totaled $5,490,000,000--coal, natural gas, and petroleum accounting for virtually the entire amount, with coal by far the most important. The state's coal production peaked in 1918 and again in 1947; in 1971, Kentucky surpassed West Virginia to become the country's leading producer. Coal nonetheless continues to be an economic mainstay; when the industry slumps, as it did seriously in the mid-1980s, the entire state suffers. In 1984, reflecting the beleaguered bituminous coal industry, West Virginia had the nation's highest unemployment rate (16%). James \TWilson\t discovered the nation's first natural-gas well in 1815 at Charleston, while digging for water. The state also produces significant amounts of petroleum, as well as limestone, clay, gravel, sand, and salt. Manufacturing West Virginia in 1980 shipped finished goods with a value-added-by-manufacture total of $3,660,000,000. Leading industries produce primary and fabricated metals, glass, chemicals, wood products, textiles and apparel, and machinery. Tourism West Virginia's 35 state parks receive more than 6.5 million visitors a year. The Monongahela and other national forests encompass approximately 7,500 sq km (2,900 sq mi). In Wheeling the municipal Olgebay Park draws guests from Ohio and Pennsylvania as well as from West Virginia. Transportation Three interstate highways meet at Charleston: I-64, I-77, and I-79. West Virginia also has 53,000 km (33,000 mi) of state and about 6,000 km (3,700 mi) of municipal roads. The Ohio, Monongahela, and part of the Kanawha have 3-m (9-ft) navigation channels. Every year millions of tons of coal are barged on the rivers of West Virginia. Additional millions of tons (but generally a smaller percentage) are trucked, and the remaining tonnage--usually the biggest share--is carried by railroads. A network of pipelines transports petroleum and gas. Of 55 airports licensed in the state, Charleston's has the most traffic. Energy West Virginia is an energy-exporting state, sending out electricity, as well as coal, gas, and petroleum. Electric power production totaled 72.5 billion kW h in 1983. The state's generating plants, capable of 15.1 million kW, include two major hydroelectric installations on the Cheat and Gauley rivers. GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS West Virginia's present constitution, adopted in 1872, calls for a governor, who may serve any number of 4-year terms but no more than 2 in succession, and for a bicameral legislature comprising a senate, whose 34 members are elected to 4-year terms, and a house of delegates, whose 100 members serve 2-year terms. A business and occupation tax provides 40% of state revenue, a personal income tax 23%, and a consumer sales tax 18%. Major expenditures of state funds go to education (36%), highways (21%), and health and welfare (16%). West Virginia's secession from Virginia in 1863 ended much of the east/west sectionalism of the mother commonwealth, but in both states north/south political divisions continued unabated. The Civil War saw lower- and upper-class West Virginians of southern heritage fighting for the Confederacy; the middle classes of cities and towns and the Scots-Irish farmers tended to side with the North. The Union sympathizers, under the auspices of the Republican party, pushed for statehood and chose as capital the northern-panhandle city of Wheeling. When, following the war, the southern adherents regained political control, they made Charleston the capital (1870). Wheeling was the capital again from 1875 to 1885, at the end of which time Charleston recovered the honor. Even though Republicans returned to power during the 1890s with a program of industrial growth, Charleston remained the capital. The Depression of the 1930s gave back to the Democrats an ascendency that, with a few exceptions, they have maintained ever since. HISTORY The earliest inhabitants of what is now West Virginia used campsites subsequently buried in the alluvial deposits of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers. They left behind small piles of shells near their villages. The \TMound Builders\t of the Adena culture, who occupied the region 2,000-3,000 years ago, fashioned hundreds of burial mounds, one of the largest of which, Grave Creek Mound, is at Moundsville, in the northern panhandle. Inside the mounds copper bracelets from the Great Lakes, volcanic glass beads from the Rocky Mountains, and shells from the Gulf of Mexico attest to prehistoric trading across the entire expanse of North America. European Settlement By 1669, when the German-born explorer John Lederer crested the Blue Ridge, the Mound Builders had long since disappeared and the \TCherokee\t, \TDelaware\t, \TShawnee\t, and \TSusquehanna\t roamed the area looking for game. West Virginia remained unsettled until the power of the Indians was broken about 1726, when Morgan Morgan, a Welsh immigrant journeyed south through the Ridge and Valley region from Pennsylvania and erected a cabin at Bunker Hill, south of Martinsburg. Soon (c.1727), a band of German pioneers established New Mecklenburg (now Shepherdstown) on the right bank of the Potomac, south of Hagerstown, Md. More pioneers--Scottish, Irish, and German--arrived from Pennsylvania, settling first in the eastern panhandle, in the Greenbrier valley, and then along the Ohio at such sites as Wheeling (1769), Point Pleasant (1774), and Parkersburg (1785). Charleston, upstream on the Kanawha River, was founded in 1788. The American Revolution The wave of new settlers arriving on the Appalachian Plateau felt threatened by the French, lodged at \TFort Duquesne\t (site of present-day Pittsburgh, Pa.). But after the British had won the last of the \TFrench and Indian Wars\t in 1763, King George III, fearing further trouble from the Indians, forbade any settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains. Ignoring the king's proclamation, no fewer then 30,000 pioneers occupied the land between the Alleghenies and the Ohio by 1775. Indian power was ended by the retreat of the Shawnee from Point Pleasant in 1774. In 1782, the year after the British surrender at Yorktown supposedly ended the Revolution, British troops and Indians raided Fort Henry at Wheeling. The Civil War and Separation As early as 1776, the settlers of western Virginia had petitioned the second Continental Congress in Philadelphia for a separate government. It became increasingly clear during the early 1800s that, whereas eastern Virginia shared the social and economic interests of the South, the western part of the state--because of both geography and ethnic heritage--had more in common with the North (especially western Pennsylvania) and the West. On Apr. 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter; 5 days later, at a state convention in Richmond, Virginians had to decide whether to join the \TCivil War\t on the side of the Confederacy or the Union. A majority voted for an ordinance of secession, but delegates from the northwestern part of the state returned home and set up their own convention at Wheeling on June 11. Declaring the government at Richmond void, the Wheeling convention established a "restored" government of Virginia and appointed Francis H. \TPierpont\t governor. In a public referendum on Oct. 24, 1861, voters overwhelmingly supported creation of a new state, Kanawha. The next month a second convention met at Wheeling, changed the name of the state to West Virginia, and began to draft a constitution. Voters approved the new constitution in April 1862, and a year later President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed West Virginia a state, to be admitted to the Union 60 days later, on June 20, 1863. Industrialization and Labor Strife John Peter Salley had discovered coal near Racine as early as 1742, and in 1794 at King's Creek in the northern panhandle Peter Tarr constructed the first iron furnace west of the Alleghenies. Industrialization on a large scale, however, did not begin until after the Civil War, when outside capital opened up coal mines, drilled petroleum and gas wells, and built railroads and factories. Organizers from the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) came to West Virginia in 1890. On Dec. 6, 1907, the worst mining disaster in U.S. history left 361 dead at Monongah. Frequent strikes and lockouts, particularly in 1912-13 and 1920-21, led to violent battles between miners on the one hand and company guards, local police, state militia, and federal troops on the other. Turmoil continued into the 1940s, when the UMW took the miners out on strike at the height of World War II. During the 1970s, wildcat strikes plagued the coalfields as union men defied their leadership. Recently, renewed interest in coal for electric power generation, and for coal gasification has aroused national attention, and West Virginia's economic future again appears promising if labor-management cooperation can be realized. Richard S. Little Bibliography: Adkins, Howard G., et al., West Virginia and Appalachia: Selected Readings (1977); Ambler, Charles H., and Summers, Festus P., West Virginia: The Mountain State, 2d ed. (1958); Cometti, Elizabeth, and Summers, Festus P., eds., The Thirty-Fifth State: A Documentary History of West Virginia (1966); Federal Writers' Project, West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State (1941; repr. 1972); Janssen, Raymond E., Earth Science: A Handbook on the Geology of West Virginia (1964); Lambert, Oscar D., West Virginia and Its Government (1951; repr. 1972); Rice, Otis K., The Allegheny Frontier: West Virginia Beginnings, 1730-1830 (1970) and West Virginia: The State and Its People (1972); Williams, John A., West Virginia: A Bicentennial History (1976) and West Virginia and the Captains of Industry (1976).