People of West Virginia have always been looked at as backwoods hillbillies. But people who describe us in that manner do not know the "real" West Virginia. We are hard-working people that have a strong history. The state has a rich cultural heritage that began with the early Native Americans who called this land their home. Immagrants helped make West Virginia what it is today. West Virginians are mountain people who call our state "almost heaven."


 

1.West Virginia is considered the southern most northern state and the northern most southern state.

2. On January 26, 1960 Danny Heater, a student from Burnsville , scored 135 points in a high school basketball game earning him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

3. Chester Merriman of Romney was the youngest soldier of World War I, he enlisted at the age of 14. 

4. The first brick street in the world was laid in Charleston, West Virginia, on October 23, 1870, on Summers Street.

5. The New River Gorge Bridge near Fayetteville is the second highest steel arch bridge in the United States. The bridge is also the longest steel arch bridge (1,700 feet) in the world. Every October on Bridge Day, the road is closed and people parachute and bungee cord jump 876 feet off the bridge. Its West Virginia's largest single day event and attracts about 100,000 people each year.

 6. The first major land battle fought between Union and Confederate soldiers in the Civil War was the Battle of Philippi on June 3, 1861.


 

7. One of the nation's oldest and largest Indian burial grounds is located in Moundsville. Its 69 feet high, 900 feet in circumference, and 50 feet high.

8. Almost 75% of West Virginia is covered by forests.

9. West Virginia covers about 24,000 square miles and has a population of about 1.8 million.

10. One of the first suspension bridges in the world was completed in Wheeling in November 1849.

11.The world's largest sycamore tree is located on the Back Fork of the Elk River in Webster Springs.


 

12.Stone that was quarried near Hinton was contributed by West Virginia for the Washington Monument and made it to Washington in February 1885.

13.The first glass plant in West Virginia was at Wellsburg in 1815. The first pottery plant was in Morgantown in 1785.

14.Organ Cave is the third largest cave in the United States and the largest in the state.

15.The first federal prison for women in the United States was opened in 1926 in West Virginia.