Subject: communities
For Over 140 Years, The Monroe Watchman Continues to Tell Local Stories
By Gibbs Kinderman Local weekly papers are a continuing tradition in many small WV counties – almost 50 of them still survive in this era of mass media and on-line news. Monroe County is one of the most tradition-oriented in West Virginia, and its paper, the Monroe Watchman, has come out each week for over […]
Hillsboro
“A magnificent vista of wooded mountaintops, green cultivated valleys and distant blue ranges.” – 1941, the West Virginia Writers’ Project guide. Hillsboro is the home of these popular historic destinations: -Pearl S. Buck Birthplace and Museum (in Hillsboro) http://www.pearlsbuckbirthplace.com/ -Pretty Penny Café (in Hillsboro, located in an old general store) http://www.wvyourway.com/west_virginia/AdView.aspx?sid=4431 -5.2 m. Watoga State […]
The McNeel Mill of Mill Point
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 […]
Marlinton
(historical marker located on Route 219, 0.3 mi. south of the traffic light at the intersection with Route 39) The town of Marlinton sits along the Greenbrier River where it meets Knapps Creek, approximately 64 miles south of Elkins and 40 miles north of Lewisburg on US Route 219. The Seneca Trail, once known as […]
Edray
“Edray occupied the Site of Fort Drinnen, a small stockade named for Thomas Drinnen, who settled here in 1774. His cabin was attacked by Indians, his wife killed, and his little son taken captive. Drinnen joined General Lewis’s expedition against the Indians, fought in the Battle of Point Pleasant, and after the war wandered through the […]
Mill Point
Mill Point was “formerly called Cackleytown. The present name is derived from the fact that the place was a pioneer milling point with two flour mills located on Stamping Creek” . – the West Virginia Encyclopedia, written by Jim Comstock.
“The Old McNeel Mill (R), on the bank of Stamping Creek, was built by Isaac McNeel about 1868 and still operates, driven by an overshot wheel. Stephen Sewell, an early settler, camped near by in a cave in 1750 after his quarrel with Jacob Marlin.” – 1941, the West Virginia Writers’ Project.
Second Creek
“This is our Bloody Butcher Corn, it’s all different colors, see? It’s red, yellow and purple.”
Reed’s Mill has been grinding an heirloom variety of corn called Bloody Butcher, grown locally and from the same seeds that have been ground at the mill for generations. Possibly, all the way back to when the mill first opened around 1791.
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Renick
Renick was settled by William Renick and Captain Robert McClanahan in 1769. When the train still ran, it was a major agricultural trading center. In the early 1900s Renick was home to one of the first creameries in the area. Here they processed milk for the local farms even in the hardest of times, when there was no bridge and they had to ferry the milk across the Greenbrier River on a boat.
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Valley Head
Most families in the town of Valley Head were rooted to the timber. Logs fell during the day and the town really came to life at night. George Swecker, whose childhood home doubled as the town doctor’s office years ago, recalls men coming in with “their entrails in their hands,” wounded from a rough night out in town. As he puts it, “it was just like the wild west”.
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