West Virginia

The rugged Appalachian valleys of West Virginia were long used by the Shawnee, Cherokee, and Iroquois as hunting grounds and travel corridors, though few permanent villages remained by the time of European settlement. Its mountainous terrain and reliance on subsistence farming and small industry set it apart culturally from the plantation economy of eastern Virginia.

That divide became decisive during the Civil War: when Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, its western counties refused to follow and split off, and West Virginia was admitted as the 35th state in 1863, the only state formed by separating from a Confederate state. Coal quickly became its defining industry, fuelling brutal labour conflicts like the Battle of Blair Mountain and shaping generations of mining towns.

Today West Virginia balances a coal-and-chemical industrial legacy with a growing outdoor-recreation economy centred on the New River Gorge, designated the newest U.S. national park in 2020, along with whitewater rafting, rock climbing, and historic sites like Harpers Ferry, where John Brown's 1859 raid helped push the nation toward civil war.