Dan Schultz began working with the Traveling 219 Project as an AmeriCorps Vista in the fall of 2012. A newcomer to West Virginia, he has always been fascinated by the the mountains, having previously lived in the mountains of Arizona and Guatemala. Dan is from the route 219 state of Maryland, where he studied history at the University of Maryland and developed an interest in the history and the culture of the nearby Appalachian mountains. He also has experience working at and interning with the National Archives and the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.
1906 was a tough year for Charles Darwin Gillespie. Gillespie, an infamous saloon owner and liquor runner was being sued for $20,000, a fortune at the time. It was only ten years earlier that Charles Darwin Gillespie left Virginia in a pair of dusty boots, a derby hat, and his only black suit. He arrived […]
The Falls of Hills Creek, in Pocahontas County in March. [Click for bigger image] For more recent photos of the Falls of Hills Creek, check out our winter photo article. Click here for more from our 219 photographs series!
Eldridge McComb spent much of his life farming in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. The stories he told spanned generations, from memories of the 1930s to his thoughts on modern day agriculture. Eldridge passed away in 2007. In exploring this area’s farming history, Traveling 219 listened to these interviews, recorded in his later years, to look […]
[click to view larger image] For more on Renick from Traveling 219, click here to visit our Renick page and listen to the audio stories.
This past weekend the little town of Helvetia tried its best to frighten away Old Man Winter at its Fasnacht festival. Hundreds of people thronged the streets of the remote Swiss community, many of them squeezing into the community hall for the square dance. People this year had large, papier-mâché masks that resembled long nosed-monsters, […]
Joe Riley grew up in a farming family in Stomping Creek, West Virginia. After graduating from West Virginia University, Joe became an Agriculture teacher and taught for 17 years before becoming principal of Marlinton Middle School. Joe runs his family farm with his wife and children, working long hours before and after his school job. […]
The C.J. Richardson Hardware & Furniture store has been a staple of the town of Marlinton for over a hundred years. Around 1904, it moved from the west bank of the Greenbrier River to its current location in downtown Marlinton. Today C.J. Richardson’s is still considered a local treasure; walking through the door will make […]
Recently, we published a story about the Tygart Valley Homestead (you can see that here). Sonny Knaggs and Lana Butcher both grew up in Dailey, West Virginia. Dailey was originally built as one of three communities of the Tygart Valley Homestead, a Great Depression-era resettlement and relief project by the federal government. The Tygart Valley Homestead […]
The ghost town of old Watoga lies almost hidden, just feet from the Greenbrier River Trail about 2.5 miles north of Seebert. Watoga was originally a sawmill town of the Watoga Lumber Company during the logging boom in the area in the early 1900s. In the 1920s, an African-American organization from Mercer County, West Virginia banded […]
Click the map to download a high-resolution copy of the Traveling 219 map, or pick up a hard copy at one of many locations along U.S. Route 219. You may also view our interactive map of Traveling 219 stories [HERE].
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