Has anyone here been to West Virginia?

I've been there for work, and I've driven through it multiple times.

It doesn't come across as particularly southern to me. The people are working class and also a bit trashy, but it's more like Ohio or Michigan than the Carolinas or Georgia.

The state is beautiful, but it still has a depressing vibe. The people are okay...

As far as an airport goes, I think they have one or two, but I drove from DC.

West Virginia has an airport named after the great West Virginian Chuck Yeager. It’s small but fine.

The state motto “wild and wonderful” aptly describes the scenery. Driving through the state you go up and down small mountains filled with lush wilderness (especially beautiful in the fall), but broken up by small pockets of extreme poverty—falling down cabins and trailer homes surrounded by garbage and small towns filled with empty storefronts. Parts of your drive smell like cedar and woodsmoke and parts smell like burning tires. There are some artsier places that aren’t quite gentrifying, but slowly improving enough to cater to weekend visitors from DC. On the whole, though, you could drive the views forever but I’d feel very nervous if my car broke down, the type of person who would come along.

There are nice ski resorts that would be nothing special to people used to the West or even Vermont (let alone Canada) but are a lot of fun for those of us in nearby states. Wonderful fishing and lots of riverside cabins to rent for a peaceful and quiet vacation. I used to do this over New Years’ with family and we would snowshoe, hike, and camp out in front of the fireplace in flannel. The West Virginians I know all hunt, but that isn’t for me.

Charleston is the biggest city in the state but would be considered small in most other places—it’s like a more down at heel and smaller version of Pittsburgh. It feels like an insular place, they know what the rest of the country thinks of them. And the people in WV have been mistreated and exploited by their own state forever now, there’s no reason for them to trust anyone.

Another way to see some of the scenery is the Amtrak overnight route from DC to Chicago—that takes you through some really beautiful rural parts of MD/WV.

And no, it’s not Southern, it’s Appalachian, which is very much its own culture.

I live close to the VA/WV border, and you'd think it was the Berlin wall. Nobody ever talks about going up to WV (except for guys at work mentioning the strip clubs one time).

VA and WV have an acrimonious cultural relationship and kind of turn their backs on each other, while WV and MD are a lot closer even though you might not guess that from their politics. It’s kind of strange, actually, but it makes sense if you have experience with the three states.

I was born in West Virginia and lived there until I was three years old.

Because that’s how long it took me to crawl to the border.

It's a combo of Appalachian and Southern at least in its southern half. It is weird.

I've used to travel to Charleston, WV a lot for work back in the 80s. They have a scary airport. It's built on top of a mountain overlooking the river. They cut out a flat space in the mountains to build the airport and at the end of the runway is a cliff the drops off to the river several hundred feet below.

And the city of Charleston is quite lovely. It's certainly not some hick backwater. Jay Rockefeller was the Governor of WV from 1977 - 1985, and one of their Senators from 1985-2015.

Yes, and it's very depressing beneath a very thin veneer of attempted normality.

It seems like the people, institutions, and government go to great lengths to dispel for themselves how dreary the place is. It's like the people who try much too hard on social media to prove to everyone, including themselves, that their lives are just as good as everyone else's, but sadly cannot quite muster it.

What a gross and sad exaggeration.

I wouldn’t call Charleston a lovely place on a surface level (sorry, but the city itself is just not) but I don’t think West Virginians particularity care what the rest of the country or the world thinks of them. They don’t get their back up about the jokes people make about them or try to lead Instagram perfect lives. This is partly why they don’t jive with image-obsessed Virginia.

Almost heaven.

If your idea of heaven is extreme poverty, a degraded environment, terrible education, Krazy Kristian Kunts, guns, toothlessness, impotent rage and a few "leaders" and elected officials who parlay their positions for enormous personal gain.

If you want to see extreme poverty, just drive around a huge swath of Los Angeles any day of the week.

I used to travel to Parkersburg WV occasionally for work. Kind of depressing area with Government Agencies located and built there as a result of earmarks. The people were nice enough, but acted almost shy or embarrassed because they lived and worked there. Many had transferred from DC. The Blennerhassett Hotel and Restaurant in Parkersburg was wonderful, but this was 20 or so years ago.

We had friends that had a second house in Berkeley Springs, WV. Quaint enough with a main street vibe, and the Springs themselves were fabulous. A lot of DC/MD/VA residents with second homes there, so it was a bit more...civilized, maybe.

The redneck quotient was high if you're into that type of man. I never learned whether they were available for more than eye candy.

There are some truly gorgeous drives there. The geography is wonderful when you get out of the depressed towns and cities.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure any of the "nice" is worth living there.

It's very, very poor and underdeveloped overall. There's a reason Manchin behaves as he does in Congress. West Virginia is not exactly like a southern state—it's more politically agnostic—but there are so few economic opportunities and people are generally very poor, so they are freaked out about losing what they do have.

There's a lot of child neglect because of poverty, a lot of drug abuse and alcoholism because of poverty.

The license plates say "Wild, Wonderful West Virginia" and a lot of DC area people do go there for white water rafting and to stay in mountain cabins, but otherwise, there's not much there besides impoverished families and wilderness.

[quote] They have a scary airport. It's built on top of a mountain overlooking the river. They cut out a flat space in the mountains to build the airport and at the end of the runway is a cliff the drops off to the river several hundred feet below.

That's like that Lukla airport in Nepal, which is very similar.

Anthony Bourdain did a "Parts Unknown" on West Virginia, and it was fascinating.

I had no idea there was a significant AA population in that state, but I guess a number of black people went to work in the coal mines at some point.

He visited the town of Welch, WV which was this depressed and sad little town which used to actually be booming at one time.

It was strange yet interesting.

I had no idea that Steve Harvey (Family Feud) was from Welch, West Virginia.

It is not stereotypically "southern" but at its core it basically is. It is one of the most religious states, a large part of the religious community is unaffiliated and that percentage is underreported, many small churches that do not belong to national organizations. The state constitution was written in 1872 by a coterie of ex-Confederate soldiers and politicians. Much of the land was gobbled up in the late 19th century and are still held by out-of-state corporations so the wealth of the state is drained away. Its not as bad as it was but it still exists. The extractive interests were able to buy popliticans of every party no matter how the elections went.

Pearl Buck was from West Virginia.

Wow, R20.

West Virginia sounds like an abused child.

No wonder the people who live there are so messed up.

A lot of trailers, poverty and strip mining in West Virginia, when I have to drive though it I try not to stop.

R23 Yeah lots of poverty, abandoned cars sitting in front of beat-up trailers but some beautiful mountain scenery in the midst of all the human muck. It’s quite a juxtaposition.

Don't forget the Greenbriar where the Illuminati/Lizard people built a bunker to survive a nuclear attack.

If there's more people than teeth than you're in West By God Virginy.

Watch this IF you haven't seen it already. Engrossing. Utterly fascinating!

Hills Have Eyes was set in the Nevada desert and the locals weren't subjects of inbreeding.

They were radioactive mutants.

The states with the highest poverty - one blue state New Mexico. Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Kentucky, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The parts where the mountains haven’t been blown up, and the people aren’t, are nice.

Why haven't we gentrified West Virginia yet?

Let's kick out those hillbillies, and put some million dollar homes, condos, golf courses, and ski resorts where they OUGHT to be!

Gorgeous state !!!!!!!

Lots of beautiful lakes and rivers, the better to sail my beautiful yacht.

West Virginia is true American gothic. I am a native and still live there in the northern panhandle, which is Ohio Valley rust belt. There are some very interesting progressive, artistic, creative, educated people, and we surrounded by poverty and ignorance. It’s a fascinating place really, but I understand why most of the country would prefer to just drive on through. My town is full of hidden gems. In 15 minutes I can be at the Appalachian Hare Krishna shrine The Palace of Gold, bike along the Ohio river, shop and eat at restaurants that use locally grown food, go to a festival on the river front. It isn’t fancy or glamorous, but it is always interesting. I love living here.

People magazine fave Jennifer Garner is from West Virginia.

I used to have to go to West Virginia for work and these were always the most depressing trips of my life. Just a horrible state. It's as if the entire population knows they live in a hell hole and are either defensive about it, or aggressive about it. The people are under-educated, right-wing. bigoted, and basically represent what's worst about America.

Are there exceptions? Sure. There must be. I seldom if ever met anyone who I ever wanted to have any contact with once the jobs were over.

And as far as it's being beautiful, there are some nice areas but so much of it has been dug up because of coal you never know when you're going to see a lovely valley or a slag heap.

All in all, there really isn't a worse state n the country.

I will also add that not all WV Appalachian “folksy” people are MAGATs. Yes there is a loud majority, but the ones who are not are totally special and will always have my heart.

The location troll has just woken up from its food coma

What am I, chopped liver?

And don't forget about me!

R34, how's the cost of living?

We will make you squeal like a pig.

😵 The Hills Have Steep Curves.

R35 is a Wheeling and dealing West Virginian! 😉

Other famous natives: Joyce deWitt, Jon Corbett, and DL favorite Mrs Patsy Ramsey

I live in Mississippi and can only dream of coming from such a well-regarded state.

Where’s a comment from ‘our’ DL West Virginian? Perhaps he’s still sleep off Thanksgiving 🍗😜

I worked in the Children Hospital of Pittsburgh twenty years ago and we saw all the children from northern West Virginia who had Cystic Fibrosis because there were no hospitals there that could handle kids with that disease, that gave me pause. Because of inbreeding, where brothers and sister married brothers and sisters and it’s a genetic disease, there were whole extended families of cousins who had CF.

^sleeping.

🤔It's not one's fault where they were born.

What really matters is where you choose to end up.

Yes, what a great country. All you have to do is leave your home and everything you know. Preferably every 3-5 years.

[quote]It's not one's fault where they were born.

On Datalounge it is. Especially if you ask the New Yorker DLers.

Take me home, country road

Where the hell is the poster NativeWestVirginia?

“Sunshine on my nutsack makes me happy” John Denver

Woke white gay men here are desperate to paint it as a place worse then their beloved black community. But it’s just not true.

If I had a day that I could give you

I'd give to you the day just like today

If I had a song that I could sing for you

I'd sing a song to make you feel this way

(Acoustic interlude)

Sunshine on my nutsack makes me happy

Sunshine in my nutsack can make me cry

Sunshine on my nutsack looks so lovely

Sunshine always makes nutsack high

We've heard enough about your beloved countryside and seen enough movie to know it's not a great family vacation resort.

R47 - Southern Indiana is like that, as well. As a matter of fact, an academic in my old department at Indiana University chose it as her first academic position because there was/is a substantial population of people with cystic fibrosis in the area and it was relatively easy to recruit subjects for studies. CF is a recessive gene disease, so historical inbreeding in isolated/small communities was not unusual. Not having just Appalachian types, but the Amish, as well.

[Quote]A lot of trailers, poverty and strip mining

Isn't it worse than strip mining? Entire tops of mountains are essentially removed.

I went to Morgantown for work a couple of times and while it's a beautiful area, I found driving a rental without a stick shift a bit daunting. (I was raised in and lived in flat areas) Our office parking lot behind the building was down the steepest grade I've ever driven. It almost felt like I was going to pitch off a cliff. I still have unpleasant dreams about it even though I only drove down it half a dozen times over 20 years ago.😯

R29 your data is partly bogus.

These are the 11 states with the highest poverty rates.

11 Texas 13.6%

10 South Carolina 13.8%

9 Tennessee 13.9%

8 Oklahoma 15.2%

7 Alabama 15.5%

6 West Virginia 16.0%

5 Arkansas 16.2%

4 Kentucky 16.3%

3 New Mexico 18.2%

2 Louisiana 19.0%

1 Mississippi 19.6%

The Glass Castle is a great book that West Virginia has a part in.

OP finally found a house he can afford, but it's in Marmet.

In one of Phillip Roth's novels, a male character asks a stranger native Wheeling, W Virginian model in Manhattan "Hey! Ya wanna go somewhere and fuck?" And away they go. Forgot the title.

Apparently WV has one of the lowest rates of cystic fibrosos in the US.

R15 And, I would much rather live in rural poverty than urban poverty.

There's a whole village of mixed-race people in Weat Virginia who settled there in the 1800s. It's a really interesting story.

West Virginia motto - we're still looking for coal.

The thing that confuses people about which region WV fits into is because the whole reason WV exists is because it was a largely anti-slavery and pro-Union area that refused to follow the rest of Virginia into the Confederacy. But, it is Southern. It is just that it is part of a sub-region of the South, the Appalachian South. A region that was not conducive to plantation farming. It was largely settled by poor whites who didn't own slaves and couldn't get any decent land in the Plantation South. They lived a pretty basic life and they blamed slavery for their poverty, but not the slaves. West Virginia was far enough North that it was easy to break them off, but it couldn't have happened in other states without making that war longer and more costly. As it was the Confederacy had to use precious resources to patrol the Appalachians. Because if they could East Tennessee would've broke off and stayed in the Union, as would have Western NC. Western NC even formed their own unionist military units. Many stops on the Underground Railroad in the South was in the mountains.

WV, and Kentucky for that matter, are Southern. Maryland used to be Southern but they left us, awhile back. It's not just about whether you joined the Confederacy, it's about how you talk, what you eat, the art that comes out of you, and the importance of religion.

[quote] it's about how you talk, what you eat,

They fry everything, even the fucking vegetables. If it ain’t fried it ain’t shit is an actual quote from a SW VA acquaintance I made after moving there. And they put gravy on everything. Oh and biscuits. They love them some biscuits.

Maryland is many states in one, ironically for how small it is. We are like tofu, taking on the flavor of the states that border us.

The Chestnut Ridge page is fascinating. There’s a similar but older group around VA/WV/NC known as the Melungeons, who came about from intermarriage between Native Americans, early Virginia settlers, and the first generations of enslaved Africans brought to Jamestown, back before the colonies banned interracial marriage, made slavery for life, and passed laws enslaving the children of enslaved people. The Melungeons are like “what could have been” if the settlers had chosen better than chattel slavery.

The crown jewel of West Virginia:

DL fave Antoni Porowski lived here in his youth:

Thanks, R64, R66, and R68!!

Fascinating stuff.

The posters who described it as "depressing" are correct.

My sister and BIL retired to the side of a mountain in WV in the 90s. They used to come back to NJ to see their doctors. Drove 5+ hours to see doctors.

They said their area had a lot of B&Bs and brought in a lot of rich gays from the DC area.

R15, the national shame of American poverty is not a competition, you stupid cunt.

R73 Surely they could have found good doctors closer than that.

I googled "Chestnut Ridge People" and found a cool photo.

I can see why white people in the late 1800's and early 1900's would have been confused by them.

I would think they're exotic looking, even by today's standards.

Check out this guy in the overalls.

Whoa!

West Virginia is breathtakingly beautiful.

I am in SW VA and bake a mean biscuit. R67 checks out.

Another cool old photo...

Neat ^.

Has anyone here been to Yonkers?

What was it like? Almost like it's not really part of America

What do the people actually do there?

Are they nice?

Does it even have an airport?

R79 I’ll never forget it. The hospital cafeteria, first day at my new job and I was horrified. Fried everything and gravy everywhere. And everyone was smoking, and this was in the 1990s, not 1950. Cigarette smoke everywhere, in a HOSPITAL cafeteria!

Here's an old post from a BMW website with a lot of pictures of WV and stories, for those who haven't been there.

Some gays live down there, I wouldn't. No way.

R82 Yonkers, NY?

R86, pay no attention to 82.

That was an extremely lame attempt at humor/sarcasm, making fun of the op's post.

And it was a massive fail.

Upon Robert Byrd's death then Governor Manchin appointed his young chief counsel to the US Senate for the remaining five months of the term. The young man gives Beto a run for his money in the BDF department.

West Virginia town is smallest in the nation to ban LGBT discrimination.

(Population is five apparently related individuals.)

It has nice scenery. I can think of less fortunate states in that regard.

You should watch the Hulu series "Dopesick"

WV could be renamed "Dopesick" land

WV, Ohio, PA and MD are all kind of multiple states within one (as others have said).

The eastern/southern part of MD is more aligned with Philadelphia/DC/the coast. The eastern part, as someone said upthread, has more in common with parts of WV.

The eastern and northeastern/central parts of WV have more in common with the post-industrial parts of Ohio - Steubenville and Wheeling are hard to tell apart. Some towns in southwestern PA are very similar to that area, too.

People always assume PA is the same everywhere but Philly is really a suburb of NYC and a sort of cultural "cousin" to NJ in many ways. Pittsburgh and Cleveland, despite their dumb sports rivalry, are very similar. A lot of the middle of PA could be in WV.

WV has some natural beauty, but I find a sameness there that is not in OH and PA, and after you've seen a few mountain ridges lined with trees you've seen them all.

Hoping to see this at some point, may be on PBS near you.

I've been to West Virginia, but I've never been to me.

Never been there but I do know the FBI has it's Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) in Clarksrburg if I'm not mistaken.

R34 tell us more please.

What’s the gay population like there? What towns in WV would you recommend visiting for a weekend? Are there a lot of class divides among the artsy intellectual types and the (for lack of a better word) rednecks? How does that play out?

The Minerds of Philippi, West Virginia.

That's not true at all R92. History, religion, & social conventions still break along the Ohio River and the old Mason-Dixon line.

A true American shithole. The only people who live in WV are people who are too stupid to move elsewhere. There's little industry, coal mining is dying (or already dead), most folks have opioid problems, and it's depressing as can be to be there. I live in Ohio and visit a friend who lives in Beckley. It's just a horrible, horrible place.

Lots of uncut cocks, if you like that sort of thing.

It’s as far away from Yonkers as a girl can get!

R99 According to this, West Virginia has the highest circumcision rate in the United States

The dumber they are the more mutilated they are.

You couldn’t pay me to go there.

I saw my first and only Super Walmart there. As overwhelming as the grand Canyon but not in a good way.

It's a flaming shit hole!

Well you can't just drop a bomb and then run away, R105.

Explain.

This thread can't be serious, right? Elitism stinking this place up as always. No shit, if you leave the most populated/ wealthy areas -- anywhere in the US -- there's rampant poverty. Does this really need to be said? The entire state of NY looks no different when you leave the few cities.

The US didn't become a good example of the growing wealth gap out of nowhere. 75% of households make under 100k, which isn't shit now a days.

[quote] And, I would much rather live in rural poverty than urban poverty.

You got that right!

[quote] Surely they could have found good doctors closer than that.

Of course they could. There are plenty of good doctors and specialists in West Virginia.

I find it kind of interesting that there are a lot of South Asian Indian doctors all throughout Appalachia.

It's really kind of bizarre that they've chosen to practice in the "middle of nowhere," and they probably stand out like a sore thumb.

Yet, there they are. Pretty much the only doctors willing to practice in the region.

What a strange contrast it is.

[quote] the national shame of American poverty is not a competition, you stupid cunt.

Who said it was you silly bitch. Next time don't try to make it look like nowhere else is as bad as the place you're blathering about.

There are antivaxxers ruining their lives over those shots. I've been tracing a former supervisor online (pro-Trump, gun collecting homophobe). He doesn't work there anymore. Apparently he and his wife (a beautician) filed for bankruptcy in June. And they no longer own their house as of Nov. 8th.

A check of his daughter's Facebook (she's 28 and still lives with them) and she changed her location to a tiny town 50 mi. north of here.

R112 Same in Inland Empire/Palm Springs. Not much happening here other than resorts and the like, and there's a serious shortage of doctors. 98 percent of them are Asian/Indian.

The influx of Indian/Asian doctors is not an isolated issue in certain areas. Just about any hospital you go into anywhere in the country is chock-a-block with them.. This has been going on for decades. i remember one of my father's heart surgeons back in the early 90s was Dr. Abdullah M. Abdullah.

West Virginia is the only place where I’ve seen the klan burning a cross. It was in the Southern part, near Lewisburg. Other than that, it is a beautiful state.

I grew up in SW PA and can tell you the whole inbred thing really isn't a joke. And it's not limited to WV, parts of OH and PA have it too.

It may not be as literal as brother and sister fucking (though that may happen in some areas) but when you live in a town where no one new has moved into town in 100+ years, you are eventually fucking/marrying/breeding with your own cousins. And then again, and again.

[quote] It's really kind of bizarre that they've chosen to practice in the "middle of nowhere," and they probably stand out like a sore thumb.

The way insurance has transformed medicine over the last few decades has made a position as a general internist a lot less lucrative and more paperwork-intensive than speciality positions employed by a large practice or hospital chain in which your hours can be set (e.g. anesthesiologist), and internists have never had the prestige of other specialties like surgery. That’s left huge parts of the country desperate for general practice doctors. A lot of the doctors who come here from India or other countries generally are busting their asses to excel and make a great life here (like most immigrants) and so are willing to take these jobs that less hustling med students might sneer at.

Mexican and Central American immigrants are moving in too. Richmond VA (granted not WV) has a sizable population. I think they ultimately get along well enough with everyone.

I spent my last two years in high school in WV when my dad got transferred there. Even back in the 80s the town’s doctor was from the Philippines. I went to college out of state and never returned to WV after my parents left in the 90s. Our town was pretty affluent by WV standards, and it seems like the majority of my classmates stayed and went into the family businesses their parents and grandparents had owned (funeral homes, car dealerships etc.) or got a law degree from WVU or became a doctor and returned there to practice. Several ended up in NC, which is a destination for WV people looking for a nearby state with a growing economy to move to. I think the Morgantown area and eastern panhandle are the only parts of the state that are growing. The former because of the university and the latter because of its proximity to metro DC.

I saw a lot of Filipinos there. They could've been Chinese.

R62. That chart you pulled is not the rates of CF by state, it's the distribution of cases. If you notice, the most populous states have the most cases. It does not tell you which state has the highest rate of CF.

I'm not saying WV has the highest rate, just that this chart won't tell you who does.

WVU in Morgantown has a medical school and decent sized medical center. Pittsburgh and DC are also not that far to travel if advanced specialty care is needed.

Speaking of WVU, in the 1980’s it was one of the schools known for the most intense partying. It also supposed had a well known “Hanging Tree” on campus where Black people had been lynched as recently as the mid 20th Century.

I don't believe cousins breeding (even 1st cousins) produce inbred children, at least generally. Otherwise it would be illegal everywhere. Currently only 24 states prohibit 1st cousin marriage. It's even legal in California and New York.

R123 West Virginia, between 1882-1962 had 48 lynchings. Which is fewer than Montana, Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska to point out a few. The main difference is that those states mainly lynched white people. WVA was actually one of the most racially balanced states when it came to lynching, 20 whites and 28 blacks.

R125 Thanks, I’m very interested in where you got your information from? The other day the question came to me, were Gay people lynched, either because they were caught en flagrant or suspected of being Gay? I didn’t find any readily available information. If you have substantial information about it to share, a thread would be interesting as it’s not part of Gay history we know anything about.

I wonder if this was the tree?

Acid water.

R126 I used this site. Tuskegee also has a very good database. I haven't seen anything about gay lynchings but I'm sure some of the people killed were gay, just because of statistics. White people, especially outside of the South, were usually lynched because they were accused of a crime. When you watch a western and the posse hangs a cattle rustler or bank robber, that is a lynching. In the South, many, if not most, of the white victims of lynching, especially early on, were because they were Republicans.

Number 6 is gruesome and recent. You can take tours of the prison in Moundsville, it’s an interesting companion to touring the Eastern Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

It definitely has very beautiful areas. I've driven through it a couple times - briefly - on the way to Pittsburgh. And I've been to Morgantown where the main university is. It's like combo Midwest and South, plus it's own distinct "Mideast" thing along with parts of PA and Ohio.

R130 It was disturbing, but sadly it is something I could see happening anywhere.

I thought most whites who were lynched were Jews, or does that one really famous one just taint expectations?

A lot of the doctors who come here from India or other countries generally are busting their asses to excel and make a great life here (like most immigrants) and so are willing to take these jobs that less hustling med students might sneer at.

A lot of the doctors who come here from India or other countries generally are busting their asses to excel and make a great life here (like most immigrants) and so are willing to take these jobs that less hustling med students might sneer at.

[quote] A lot of the doctors who come here from India or other countries generally are busting their asses to excel and make a great life here (like most immigrants) and so are willing to take these jobs that less hustling med students might sneer at.

That's interesting.

I visit Southeastern Kentucky quite a bit, which is very similar to West Virginia.

Almost all the doctors in the local hospitals are Indian.

I guess the people who worked in the coal mines have a lot of health issues, and so doctors are in big demand in that area. And the only ones who answer the call to live there (because the area is so isolated), are Indian doctors.

But when you think about it, even Applachia is a hell of a lot nicer place to live than India.

The scenery is beautiful. It's small town life. Real estate is relatively cheap. Cost of living is low.

The only drawback is that they probably have to deal with a lot of Deplorables, Covid deniers, anti-vaxxers, etc.

I was there on a cloudy, dreary winter day. The whole place looked like Sanford and Son.

R133 It does. I don't believe Jews were anymore in danger of lynching than other whites. The Leo Frank lynching was not usual. Not because he was Jewish, but because he was fairly wealthy or middle class. It is also, interesting, because he was largely convicted through the testimony of a black man. A man, many looking into the case, suspect was the actual murderer. So in this one case, they lynched a white Jewish man for the crime of a black janitor. Which is unusual.

There were Jews all across the South, many of which were very visible as they owned local retail establishments named after themselves. From Rich's in Atlanta to small department stores in every small town. There is a story that one of the largest ones in my home town, refused to stock white sheets after KKK activity was detected in the area.

The one thing that struck me when in WV is how isolated and just "out there" it seems. But, it's not even that far from Pittsburgh, DC, even Philly and New York (well depending on where in WV). For example, Morgantown to NYC is six hours, or the capital - Charleston - to DC is 5.5 hours. Yet it all seems worlds away.

The KKK used to target Jews and Catholics as sort of a side business to their racial bigotry, so if there were religious-based lynchings, that was likely why.

When you look at the lynchings of Afr.-Americans in relation to their average population rather than raw numbers the results are quite different. Arkansas was the worst, followed by Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Kentucky, Georgia, West Virginia, Tennessee and Texas.

The Wales of Murica.

It's true of rural/isolated communities everywhere. (There was even a TV show about it , Northern Exposure)

Getting MDs may be hard enough, but keeping them, well... About 20 years ago, I read about a a case in Mississippi where a country doctor -- the only one in the county -- was sued by a patient. I can't remember the nature of the problem at hand, but the article clearly pointed out that while the patient had a case, there hadn't been any adverse health reactions or pain and suffering. The patient and spouse clearly admitted it was a money making opportunity which did work out for them, but not the county. The physician's malpractice skyrocketed, so he left. He wasn't making much money there anyway and the malpractice fees ate away at his income...

R140 I remember the story an old timer told me about how stupid the KKK was. There was a chapter forming when he was a kid. They came to recruit his father. The recruiter told him they were an organization to uphold white Christianity just like the Confederate heroes. The recruiter then rambled off a few names of people that were big in the Confederacy from South Carolina, where they lived. One name was Judah P. Benjamin, a Jew. The guy's father knew Benjamin was Jewish and so he told the guy he knew he was a piece of shit grifter and told him not to come back on his land or he would shoot him for trespassing.

R124 you may be technically correct.

But as people in....was it Finland? found out....if you keep marrying and having children with each other over centuries, you eventually have a family tree that looks more like a pretzel.

I think there's the extremes of sibling incest or very closed communities, which has happened in WV, in KY with the blue skinned people, etc.

But Johnstown, PA, for example? Probably at least 50 percent of the people that still live there come from a handful of families that settled the town circa 1800-1850. They have a high rate of blood disorders, hereditary diseases, etc. because of that.

My mom’s side are all native West Virginians, from the southern panhandle. We shuttled back and forth there from eastern Ohio during my childhood. They were generations of farmers, having settled in Marshall County in the late 1780’s from PA and Maryland.

They were not wealthy, but nor were they poor. They grew and raised their food, and sold the surplus in town. Sure, they had outhouses, but they also had indoor bathrooms. Their water supply was a spring, which was piped into their homes by gravity. You did not waste water, ever.

There were relatives galore in surrounding towns and on area farms. The massive family reunion, held every five years, attracted hundreds of cousins. Even today, the “old cemetery” is maintained by my distant cousins. My great grandfather was financially savvy. He set up an irrevocable trust for oil and mineral rights on the homestead, which has been subdivided and sold countless times since 1922 when he set it up. My mom, the last living member of her generation, now gets 100% of the royalties until she dies, then they will be split among my generation of cousins. It’s not insignificant either. It generates a few hundred thousand dollars per year.

But like others have mentioned, none of us lives in WV now, so all that income is funneled out of state.

I ALWAYS learn something on DL. What R124 said got me googling. The problem with first cousin marriages is slight at the beginning but increases if their offspring also marry a relative. What I discovered is that although it may be legal in some states for first cousins to marry each other, the states that require genetic counseling are wise:

It’s estimated that 4 to 7 percent of children born from first-cousin marriages have birth defects, compared to 3 to 4 percent for children born from distantly related marriages.

That’s not nothing, but it’s also not the end of the world—or the family tree. The real issue would arise if the next generation of kids also married their first cousins. Their offspring will have even more DNA in common—and an even greater chance for birth defects.

There are plenty of historical examples of this. Charles II, the last Hapsburg king, had so many intermarried ancestors that his genes seemed more like the product of a union between siblings than the reality of uncle marrying niece. But it’s a contemporary problem, too. In nations with small populations like Iceland, which has just 330,000 people concentrated mostly in the capital city of Reykjavík, many people worry they’ll accidentally marry a close relative. Instead of more traditional dating apps like Tinder, which matches potential partners based on physical attraction, locals use Íslendinga-App, which stops matches between people who have too much genetic material in common.

R145 Sorry, this was for you ^

Interesting. Thanks.

I’d love to see it. The land itself looks breathtaking and there are some fascinating parts of Appalachian culture. My sister loves the folk music from that region and although I’m not a fan it’s unique. Even with people like the White family you have to admire their wild spirit.

That's too bad about the high circumcision rated as I love uncut dick and I'd love me some hillbilly dick. I'd have thought the most backward rural areas would have the lowest. But I can see why it's the opposite. Also never have I seen so many huge hospitals. It's a big business down there. With the absence of other industries they really stick out.

If you want to know why the rural poor and working class vote against their own interests, go to WV.

Current rising WV star.

Isn’t Instahoe Logan Mandeville from WV, a surprisingly elegant name for someone from such a backward state.

I have some ancestors from north Georgia and they were all scared of the KKK, this was back in the early twentieth century. They didn’t have regular law enforcement in the remote area they lived, so the KKK was like a hillbilly mafia. They would burn crosses in your yard if you were beating your wife or drinking up the family income. They didn’t have anyone but white people up in those hills, so the KKK served as more of a morality police for other whites.

Lovely! And so we'll PROTECTED!;!

Wow, Logan at R153 is gorgeous.

Anyone had hillbilly meat?

I had a boyfriend from Wheeling. He was from the hillbilliest family I've ever met.

He was a short guy, but had a deep voice and one of the biggest cocks I've ever seen on anyone of any height/size.

Speaking of "meat."

Apparently, bear meat is a regular menu item in West Virginia.

In the Anthony Bourdain special, he went to work with some of the miners on the job site, and one of them had "bear and chicken" in his lunch box.

It was shredded, and looked like pulled pork. YUCK!

R159 Did he say what it tasted like? I suspect bear meat might actually be good.

I wonder what bear meat tastes like.

Chicken.

I wouldn't expect that. I figured bear would be like a pork/beef mixture.

[quote] In general, bear meat has a similar gamey taste that you would find in venison, though it is often a little sweeter tasting. It has a dark red color, like beef, but a little darker. In terms of texture, it would be close to pork, though it has a slightly coarser grain to the meat since it is a wild game.

We all know what bear meat tastes like.

Well, some more than others.

It has great state parks, like PIpestem Resort and Canaan Valley and Seneca Rocks. It also has the USA's premier upscale resort, the Greenbrier. And Harper's Ferry, where the US industrial revolution really began. It also has the smallest US city with a subway, Morgantown. But while Wheeling is not southern, most of W VA is VERY southern. During the Civil War most of the state of annexed by force.

It’s Mothman country.

Yes, R167. even Wheeling sent a large company of men to the Stonewall Brigade called the Shriver Grays.

Omg R167 the Morgantown Train Cars are so cute!

But is it really a "subway?"

It looks like it's all above ground.

The Morgantown "PRT" must move really slow.

But the views look gorgeous.

I am fascinated by Morgantown's PRT.

Why don't more cities utilize this technology?

[quote] Morgantown is a small city with about 30,000 permanent residents, with close to 140,000 in the metropolitan area. WVU adds 28,000 seasonal residents from August through May.  As WVU expanded in the 1960s, geographic constraints – the city is situated in a mountain valley along the Monongahela River – forced WVU to build a second campus 2 mi (3.2 km) away in Evansdale. Free busing was offered to move students between the campuses, but all the roads led through the city center, creating gridlock more typical of a megacity.

[quote] In the late 1960s, Samy Elias, who led WVU's industrial engineering department, learned of experiments with PRT in the U.S. after the HUD reports were published. A minor PRT craze was being set off by a combination of federal funding and estimates that showed a PRT system would be far less expensive to build and install than any other form of mass transit. Elias felt a PRT would be a perfect solution to the traffic problems in the city.

[quote] Gathering support from WVU, the City of Morgantown, and West Virginia's congressional delegation, Elias arranged a $50,000 development grant from the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) for a comparative study of three PRT systems: the Monocab, Dashaveyor, and the Alden staRRcar. The Alden staRRcar was found to be the most suitable system for Morgantown.

[quote] Political pressure by Senator Robert Byrd led Secretary John Volpe of the then-new United States Department of Transportation to propose that Morgantown be used as an experimental site for PRT development. President Richard Nixon had expressed strong support of the PRT concept, and Volpe was trying to arrange to have an experimental system well underway before the next presidential election, in November 1972.

[quote] Examining the proposals, the UMTA decided that Alden was far too small to be able to handle the job, and arranged for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to take over as systems management role, signing a contract with them in December 1970. Boeing Vertol was selected to build the vehicles, Bendix Corporation supplied the control systems, and F.R. Harris Engineering would design and build the guideway, stations, and other facilities.

I could spend hours watching videos of cars losing control on the I-64 bridge over the Kanawha River in Charleston. (It’s an engineering failure.)

R27, All of the Whites get SSI, starting when they're young. In any other state very few of them would truly qualify. Most make money selling drugs which isn't allowed either.

Solution would be to require weekly drug testing and disqualify anyone using anything other than a little weed.

Also the kids drink a lot of soda. NV restricts those receiving State Aid from buying anything unhealthy.

I'd advocate offering all members of the White and similar families a small amount of money to be sterilized. Since all use drugs, are very heavy drinkers, and have a lousy diet it's inevitable that newborns would be taking up a lot of expensive medical care. Note that in this video the baby was temporarily taken away and the mother forced to go back to rehab.

It seems like an interesting place to go

It’s a great place to go visit and see the area. But a lot of my childhood memories of driving there are of feeling queasy in the backseat going up and down the mountain roads.

I didn't think about that, R176.

Winding mountain roads are a total no-go for me.

I get majorly car sick.

R176 As someone who spent their youth riding with a drunk father down a mountain in PA while snow/ice was on the road, I know the feeling.

I am pretty sure there is inbreeding in a few other areas in the U.S. besides Appalachia and the Amish communities. When I lived in Oregon you could drive 25 or 30 miles east of Portland and see towns where people had similar features.

R179 Many of the white settlers in rural Oregon and Washington originally came from Appalachia and other such areas. But, inbreeding occurs everywhere depending on the people. It is common in ultra-orthodox Jewish and immigrant communities, for instance

Scariest place I ever drove through.

When I was a student at Ohio State, on the Friday of Spring Break, we would dutifully go to our Friday classes then hit the road for sunny beaches in Florida. Every year our first stop was somewhere along I-77 in southern West Virginia. I preferred getting gas at truck stops, since they are busy with people and you know there are restrooms. But I always volunteered to drive the second leg and sleep during the first. So my friends always seemed to find the jankiest gas station in the middle of the night. One year, it was a scene straight out of a horror movie. The restroom was "out back" and the light was low wattage and flickering. I kid you not. There was only cold water and no soap. We were all guys, so at least nobody had to sit on the toilet. That time, it was just four of us and the gas station attendant, but it felt like the woods surrounding the gas station were staring at us.

Another year we stopped at a mini mart/gas station place. It was well lit with indoor restrooms, but it was around 2AM and there were tons of people getting gas and buying stuff inside. While I waited in line to pay, a Florence Jean Castlebury knock-off was leaning against the counter, smacking her gum, and regaling the clerk with tales of her night of dancing and flirting at a barn dance. In an unmistakable West Virginian twang. Then I realized that so many people were there because the bars had just closed – great! Drunk drivers.

Alas, fond memories now, but terrifying in the moment. Maybe we would have encountered the same shiftiness in Virginia or North Carolina, but we always stopped there during the daytime.

Fun fact in case you're interested: most Midwestern universities had spring breaks at the same time, so there were, literally, convoys of cars filled with college students from Ohio and western PA snaking their way down I-77 in the middle of the night. Over the years, we made lots of spring break road friends, and when we found out all of us were going to the same beach, we hung out once we got there. We stopped at the same fast food places for food and at the Florida welcome center on I-75 for free, fresh orange juice.

[quote] Alas, fond memories now, but terrifying in the moment. Maybe we would have encountered the same shiftiness in Virginia or North Carolina, but we always stopped there during the daytime.

Yes, in NC. Especially if they have a topless cafe on the same exit.

Wow that sounds like a really fun time, R182!

R182, tell us about the same-sex shenanigans - whether among out gays, gays who weren't very out but not in denial to themselves, and/or "straight" guys who would never identify as gay.

Have you seen the movie Silent Hill? That town is what West Virginia is like.

Get real, people.

Yes

Kentucky, Mizzou and e. Tennessee had strong union majorities during the Civil War but have become Dixified. Maryland and Delaware have become Yankeefied. WVA is a special case. Its panhandles were union, its body confederate, and they have remained the same until marijuana of all things, has been pushing them a little north

Some of my ancestors on my father's side came from an area near where Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia meet. I can vouch for the fact that there were a number of generations where the family tree did not branch. My great-great grandmother was widowed young - she had married a first cousin from one side and he was shot. So after a short period of mourning, she married a first cousin from the OTHER side. I drove through the area one time. The "hollers" are narrow little valleys between VERY steep hills. Not high mountains, but discouragingly steep. I realized immediately that people married their cousins because transportation was extremely difficult due to the terrain. The terrain is what has prevented economic improvement to the area. There are not really any kinds of businesses or industries that can earn money and employ people there, because getting raw products in and finished products out would be too difficult and expensive. So people either work in the coal mines or lead subsistent lives - a little farming, a little forestry, a little hauling, that sort of thing. It is beautiful to drive through. Really, the whole place should be turned into a national park, and the local people bought out. They don't leave, because their property is practically worthless but it's all they own of any value at all. My brother's DNA showed that we were related to several families we didn't know about and their family names show up over and over again (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th cousins). I'm grateful that my father's family moved to Montana at the turn of the last century and started to marry people who weren't related. Those marital decisions went a long way toward cleaning up the bloodline!!

I've been to West Vagina.

YM, Wet Vagina?

Been to WV many time. It very beautiful. Definitely NOT Southern.

This thread is an unexpected delight, I’ve learnt so much from it. Thank you to those of you who have contributed…

Bump

Just came across this really interesting (and frustrating) article