Roxy Todd has been working with the 219 Project since October, 2011, when she began working as a VISTA volunteer. Prior to this project, Roxy has worked as a teacher, a massage therapist, and a farm worker. She graduated from Warren Wilson College in 2005. In 2006 she wrote and directed a rock opera with Patrick Seick called "Osama Baby", and she has just finished writing her first novel, "The Girl in the Glass".
Common chicory (Cichorium intybus) adorns the graveled roadsides from July to November. Its spreading, azure blue ray flower heads, profusely scattered along its stems, affirm its Mediterranean ancestry, as does the flower’s siesta-like closing in the afternoons. Similar to its cousin endive (Cichorium endivia), chicory’s slightly bitter lance-shaped to oblong toothed leaves are used fresh […]
The project “Traveling 219: a Trip Through History on the Seneca Trail” has for the past two and a half years worked to tell the stories of the people and places along US 219 in West Virginia. We have written newspaper articles, produced audio stories for WV Public Radio, and developed this website. All along, […]
Today, the National Radio Observatory in Green Bank, WV stands a great chance of being shut down. Many local residents and visitors to the area are contemplating the possible effects that this change would have for Pocahontas County. Much of the reason that the radio observatory at Green Bank exists in rural West Virginia is […]
Soda pop, postcards and historic photographs—just the things the roadside wanderer might seek—for sale at Sharp’s Country Store in Slatyfork. The store first opened in 1884 and has been run by the Sharp family for generations. Sharp’s also carries homespun wool blankets by JoAnn Gardner, whose great grandmother used to deliver her wool products to […]
Just outside of Elkins, along the Laurel Mountain Ridge, the first snowfall covered the trees, and ice coated the historic, and lovely mountain. The landscape of Laurel Mountain was changed this winter as four new windmills were installed just before one of the first snows. Americorps volunteer and photographer, Terry Hackney, visited the AES windmill […]
The McNeel Mill at Mill Point, which is being restored today by local resident Matt Tate, 150 years after it was first constructed in this once bustling little West Virginia mountain town. If you’ve driven U.S. Route 219 through Mill Point,you’ve probably seen the old McNeel Mill, which has stood down on Stamping Creek since […]
In 2012, the Traveling 219 Project featured a story about beloved Hillsboro resident, Norma Mikesell, and the inspiration she gave to those around her. In January, 2013, Norma Mikesell passed away at the age of 92. To honor Norma, who meant so much to so many, here is Emma’s story about Norma, as well as […]
Dr. Jerry Bruce Thomas, author of An Appalachian New Deal, was interviewed by Jessie Wright Mendoza, who produced this audio piece “An Almost Perfect State.” To read the WV Guide online, click here. Or to jump right to Tour 8, which follows the same path as the Traveling 219 Project along US 219, click here. The Federal Writers’ Project in […]
He would write on a green Oliver typewriter, seated on a child-sized armchair with rollers at the bottom. Each day he would write, hour after hour, facing the trains that rushed past him on their way to the Blackwater Canyon. He’d write a poem and if he didn’t like it he would crumple it up, start over again. Day after day. Often, he would drink. It didn’t take but a few beers to drown him because Karl Dewey Myers never weighed more than 60 pounds.
photo of Jesse Holesapple by Burke Shires. Early in the 1900s, if you were to find yourself walking into the old Second Creek store in Monroe County, you might see a flash of green ruffled feathers as a parrot takes off above your head, over the barrels of rice and beans and out through the […]
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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