The Morgantowner: July 2015

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Botetourt County, Virginia

I drove through Botetourt County on US 220 last December on my way back from Bedford County. It seemed there wasn't much to it. I stopped for gas then at a convenience store, and the clerk, probably a tenth-generation Anglo-American, didn't seem to understand English. I was ambivalent about spending two days here.

I stopped at the library in Fincastle, the county seat, on the way in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the librarian what three things I should not miss in my full day in her county. She said "The best thing to happen here is that they opened a Dollar General store." I thought I was in trouble, but on further reflection, she suggested I go to the town of Buchanan and rent a kayak on the James River. That would have been a great idea for someone, not me. Joe and I rented a kayak at a gay hotel on a canal near Ft. Lauderdale in 2006. We were so inept that people on the shore yelled at us "You are doing it wrong!"

There are twenty-six listings on The National Register of Historic Places for Botetourt County. Four are archeological sites, and their locations are not available. Before I left, I listed the remaining sites from north to south, figuring I could hit all of them in a day. There are mountain ranges running north-south through the county, making it impossible to work that way.

Most of the county is rural, and a large chunk is in George Washington National Forest in the center of the Appalachian Mountains. The Blue Ridge is in the eastern part of the county. Interstate 81 is the main north-south route, paralleled by US 11. US 220 runs north and south as well. All of these roads converge in Roanoke, which is just south of Botetourt County. The southern part of the county has become part of suburban Roanoke, with chain grocery stores, and developments of modern faux colonial and Antebellum mansions. I stayed in a chain motel where US 220, US 11 and I-81 meet up.

The headwater of the James River, which flows to Richmond and empties into Chesapeake Bay, is at the northwest end of Botetourt County, near the peaks of the Appalachians. Fincastle is the county seat, and Buchanan is the more hipster historic town to the northeast along the James.

I made plans today (July 30) to spend the day looking for history. But I thought I might go into Roanoke to see a movie, Mr. Holmes, that was playing in the art house theater in downtown Roanoke. I thought I would get lunch at the mall on the way. The weather was supposed to be unbearably hot with thunder storms between 1 P.M. and 4.

What happened is that there was some on and off rain in the morning which kept the temperature down. The thunderstorms never materialized. I drove the bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway that's in the county after lunch, and hiked fifteen minutes each way on a piece of the Appalachian Trail near there. It was much cooler and less humid up in the mountains.

I saw a flyer for "Party In The Park" in Daleville Town Center tonight. Daleville is the new suburb of Roanoke. It boasts two chain grocery stores. The "Town Center" looks like an industrial warehouse district turned into loft-style apartments. Only all of it is new, and a little jarring in this otherwise low-density county. There is an open space with a stage in the development. They fence off the area on Thursday nights and charge $6 to get in. The entertainment was something called "The Motown Legacy Tour," four soul singers, with back-up musicians, playing old Motown songs, and a few new hits like Pharrell's "Happy." They were actually good, and people got up and danced. Beer and wine were for sale, and very limited food items. My horoscope yesterday said that I could be more transgressive, so I ate a hamburger, something I haven't done in years, and had a scoop of free ice cream from a local insurance group. It had cooled down to 85 by the time I left after eight.

I managed to find a few of the places from The National Register. Some were back in the woods and difficult to see from the road. The town of Fincastle is quite small, but is its own historic district.

I had fun here. The few people I spoke with went beyond polite to friendly. There are Confederate monuments at the county courthouse and in Buchanan, and I saw at least five houses flying Confederate flags. Lots of people had American flags out, possibly as an answer to the Confederates. And the Roanoke paper had a letter today quoting the Bible against same-gender marriage. Not much different from our own paper in Morgantown.

Here are the pics:

Fincastle United Methosist Church, 1840, and Godwin Cemetery

Breckenridge Mill, near Fincastle

House now used as an office in Fincastle

Home in Fincastle

Pedestrian Bridge over James River in Buchanan. Purgatory Mountain is in the background.

Buchanan Historic District

Wilson Warehouse, now a community center, on James River in Buchanan. A plaque describes Union soldiers looting the town in 1864.

Looking west from Blue Ridge Parkway

Along the Appalachian Trail

Annandale, built 1835, with later additions. Near Gilmore Mills

People out dancing at Daleville Town Center's "Party In The Park" 8 P.M.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Welcome to The Morgantowner - Boone County, West Virginia

I'm starting a new blog today, and calling it "The Morgantowner," since I'm now co-owner of a home in Morgantown with my spouse, Rabbi Joe Hample. Owning a home means we plan to stay here for the forseeable future. I expect to continue to write about my travels, about politics nationally and in West Virginia, and about my personal journey. My previous blogs, "Barry's Excellent Adventure," about our life from January 2010 to July 2012 in Crescent City, California, and "Year Three Morgantown" about our third year in town are both available online at http://www.barrywendell.blogspot.com and www.yearthreemorgantown.blogspot.com respectively. The Crescent City blog is available as a book titled Barry's Crescent City Blog. I have a few copies left. Send $20 to P.O. Box 831, Morgantown, WV 26507 and I'll mail back a copy. I'm on Facebook as "Barry Wendell," although there are others with that name there. On Twitter, I'm "Barry Lee Wendell." One could e-mail me at rebnermwv@gmail.com. Welcome to "The Morgantowner."

I've been visiting one county monthly since we moved to Morgantown in July 2012. All the counties should be within three hundred miles (500 kilometers) of Morgantown, regardless of what state they are in. I'm going in alphabetical order, more or less. I'm behind by two months because I was ill in January and the weather was so bad I couldn't get out in February. I understand what the word "compulsive" means.

I'm just back from May's county, Boone, West Virginia. It's 187 miles from Monongalia County's courthouse in Morgantown to Boone County's in Madison. I stayed at The Oak Tree Inn, part of a chain I had not heard of before. There didn't seem to be any place to stay in Madison or Danville, the two biggest towns in the county.

I started in Whitesville. From Charleston, it's about forty miles south to Whitesville, a coal mining town far down State Road 3, a two-lane highway that runs through Boone County.

Whitesville has a real downtown. Most of the storefronts are vacant, many with yellow signs in the windows that say "2015. Let's turn this town around." I stopped for gas at the one station. They had a convenience store and a lunch counter in the back of the station. The local elementary school is on The National Register of Historic Places. There is also an imposing monument to the twenty-nine coal miners killed in an explosion at The Upper Big Branch Mine in 2010.

Comfort, where the motel is located, is midway, about twenty miles each way, between Whitesville and Madison, the county seat. In addition to the motel, there are two gas stations, a convenience store with a chain sub shop and a pizza place. I saw a sign-in sheet at the motel for railroad employees.

Madison has a beautiful courthouse and a Main St. containing mostly social service agencies. The big old bank building is now the public library. There are two chain grocery stores between Danville and Madison and many fast-food restaurants. There is a small strip mall. I found a family-run Chinese restaurant for dinner. The waitress spoke fine English, but she wrote my order on her ticket in Chinese characters. I wanted to ask how her family came to live there, where there isn't any kind of minority community.

Boone County is more than 98% white, according to the 2010 census. There are lots of churches. Coal is king. In fact, a historic marker on Route 3 notes the location of the first coal mine in West Virginia. I saw the rail cars loaded with coal, passed several mines along the road. I visited Nellis, a small town on the National Register, an early coal company town. I didn't go south of Madison, but I could see that there were lots of small towns on the map down Route 85.

Boone County is beautiful, set in the mountains along Big and Little Coal River, not far from flood stage in this rainy summer. I could see why someone from there would want to stay, and I understand the antipathy to environmental regulations that would negatively impact the coal industry. Still, most of Boone County looked impoverished, particularly Whitesville. The highway through there was crowded with big trucks bringing coal to market. Someone is making money there. It just doesn't seem to be the residents.

I was worried about how I would be treated. There are reports that "outsiders" have been threatened in some of the coal counties of Southern West Virginia just for taking pictures. In Boone County, everyone I spoke to was friendly, upbeat and helpful.

I left the morning after I arrived. I had stopped at McDonald's for an iced tea on the way out of town. The car I parked next to had two bumper stickers. One was from the United Mine Workers. The other said "Don't blame me. I voted for the old white guy." I thought to myself that Romney (the old white guy) would have done everything he could to destroy the miners' union. A few homes had Confederate flags on their porches, the residents being obviously unclear about why West Virginia exists. There were also "Don't Tread On Me" Tea Party flags around. My impression is that most of the people in Boone County aren't that political, but just working hard to maintain their life.

Here are the pics: