Brooke County, West Virginia

This is my forty-first county, corresponding to our forty-first month in Morgantown. The weather was predicted to be unseasonably warm and sunny this week, and since it is already a new month, I thought to take advantage. My friend Dee, who will be my campaign treasurer, offered to go with me. She loves to be out in nature, I prefer being in cities. I like to have my picture taken; she wouldn't let me put her in a picture. She is tech-savvy, detail-oriented, smart-mouthed and funny. I love her. She is a good bit younger than I, but has, in addition to a husband, a grown-up daughter and two grandchildren.

Brooke County is in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, the part between the Ohio River and Pennsylvania, which was only in Virginia before the Civil War because of the way Mason and Dixon drew the borders. Brooke County occupies a ten mile stretch betwen Ohio and Pennsylvania. There are 24,000 or so people in the county; the population peaked in 1980, and like much of West Virginia, has declined over the last  thirty-five years. We saw wharves no longer in use, and vacant sites where there may have once been steel mills.

Follansbee, part of Weirton, and the county seat, Wellsburg, are along the Ohio River. Bethany, the home of Bethany College, is a few miles inland. We arrived there on back roads from I-79 and I-70 out of Washington, Pennsylvania, in the first county in Pennsylvania south of Pittsburgh.

Bethany College was founded in 1840 and chartered by the State of Virginia. What I know about it is that Alex, a former intern at the WVU-affiliated gym I used to go to, attended there as an undergraduate. He told me they were taught to respect all people, including gays and lesbians. I didn't expect that from a Christian-affiliated college. I first heard of Bethany when a cousin told me his daughter was attending a summer science camp there, and was it close to us? It's about seventy miles.

There is not much "town" in Bethany. The college, which has a beautiful campus, is most of what there is in town.

We looked around for an hour or so, then headed down the road to Wellsburg, on the Ohio River. We saw one smokestack in use, and as we approached town, we noticed a pervasive pungent odor. I attended a meeting in Morgantown about air pollution in West Virginia a few weeks ago, and learned that the Northern Panhandle is the worst place in the state for air quality.

We were ready for lunch, and Dee, who teaches tech at OLLI (where I teach rock and roll history) found us a restaurant on Yelp on her IPhone. We ate at The Crooked Dock, in an industrial area on the river. I had a grilled chicken sandwich (no cheese or mayo) with french fries for ten. I gave Dee half of my fries and still didn't finish them. Dee had a fried cod sandwich ("Fresh from the river," said the waitress, "just not this river") with cole slaw. It was good, if simple, and Dee joked with a table of older women (my age) who were out for lunch together.

There are twenty-three places on the National Register in Brooke County. Some are on the campus of Bethany College, some in town in Wellsburg where there is a street on the ridge above the river lined with the homes of the wealthy from the old days. Those homes looke well-maintained. Some of the more inland historic homes were abandoned, as was much of the town. We breezed through Follansbee, a working class suburb from the 1920s and 30s, more prosperous than Wellburg, full of pizza places and bars with Italian names, like many places around Pittsburgh. We didn't get to the part of Weirton in Brooke County. Most of that city is in the next county north.

Dee noticed details, like a 19th century door hinge, or a stone foundation that was black from the soot of the factories that belched smoke through most of the last century. I notice how a place or a neighborhood is part of a city's pattern.

I looked up the weather before we left. On average, Wellsburg is one degree cooler at night, and two degrees cooler midday than Morgantown at this time of year. Still, the leaves there seemed to be more green than those in Morgantown.  It was 74 in Wellsburg, warmer in Morgantown.

Alexander Campbell Mansion, Home of the Founder of Bethany College, just east of Bethany

Delta Tau Delta House, Bethany

Old Main, Bethany College, a National Historic Landmark

the cloister at Old Main, Bethany College

On Pendelton Street, Bethany

Main Street, Bethany

Nicholls House, just south of Wellsburg

Brooke County Courthouse, Wellsburg

Wellsburg Historic District

an overgrown, probably abandoned home, downtown Wellsburg

Mansion on Pleasant Avenue, Wellsburg

Mansion on Pleasant Avenue, Wellsburg

Kirker House, Grand Avenue, Wellsburg

Vancroft, near Wellsburg, not sure how this is used now.

Brooke Cemetery on Pleasant Avenue, looking across the Ohio River, Wellsburg

Reeves House, apparently abandoned, near Wellsburg

Inn at Fowlerstown, restored but not in use, Fowlerstown

Danforth House, probably abandoned, east of Wellsville

By 3 P.M., it was time to go back, We had seen most of the historic spots, even if I didn't get pictures of all of them. There is a major county park which I forgot about. We took a few minutes for ice cream and something to drink at Dairy Queen in Wellsburg, then headed back. It was 5:30 and just getting dark when I dropped Dee back at her car just off I-79 on the way back home.