If it's going on in the county, you'll find it here
AUGUST
AROUND THE COUNTY
Thursdays in August • Wake up and see stars! • National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank • 304-456-2150 • gb.nrao.edu. Gather at the planetarium balloon every Thursday for a unique look at the sky. There is a $3.00 charge per person and reservations are suggested. Program begins at 2 p.m.
Saturdays in August • Farmers Market, First Avenue, Marlinton, beside the mini-park • 8 a.m. - Noon. Vendors and products vary from week to week and season by season, but look for plants, produce, local crafts and baked goods.
Aug. 4 • Greenbrier River Challenge Biking Event • 304-254-9196. This 50-mile relay event will be held on the Greenbrier River Trail from Marlinton to Cass. The event will begin at 9am at Stillwell Park in Marlinton and conclude at 4pm with an awards presentation at Stillwell. Bluegrass entertainment and a picnic lunch will be provided. Proceeds of the event will benefit the Challenged Athletes of West Virginia’s adaptive ski program. Challenge your club, your business, your family or your organization to come and bike this event.
Aug. 4, 11, 18, 25 • Fiddles & Vittles Special Train • Cass Scenic Railroad State Park • 1-800-CALL WVA or 456-4300 • cass railroad.com. Back for another year---take a train ride to Whittaker Station and enjoy dinner and live bluegrass music along the way.
Aug. 8, 22 • High Tech Wednesday • NRAO, Green Bank • 304-456-2150 • gb.nrao.edu. Join us for a guided tour though parts of NRAO normally off limits to visitors, like lab areas where sensitive receivers are designed and built. Space limited to 15 per program; one hour and cost is $3.00
Aug. 11 • Zendik Musical Festival • Huntersville • 304-799-7281 • zendik.org. Come spend the day with good neighbors. See the beautiful flower and vegetable gardens and the farm while great bands play in the background. Bands include Noizbox, Business of Flie, Wicked Edgar, The Concept, The Half Bad Bluegrass Band, and more.
Aug. 11 • Star Party on the Patio • NRAO, Green Bank • 304-456-2150 • gb.nrao.edu. NRAO Staff will orient you to the star- filled sky and then view the night sky on the Star Party Patio. Bring optical telescopes and binoculars - you won’t believe the view! Program begins 30 minutes before dark.
Aug. 17 • Live Music Theater • Always… Patsy Cline • Pocahontas Opera House • Third Ave., Marlinton • 304-799-6645 • pocahontasoperahouse.org. Back by popular demand, Ted Swindley’s funny and heart-felt tribute to one of Country Music''s legends features makes an encore. With a cookin'' country band and more than 30 Patsy Cline songs. This production is based on a true story about Louise Seger, an avid fan who meets the star in a Houston Honky Tonk in 1961. Price is $7 at the door. Show starts at 7:30 p.m.
Aug. 17 • Dunmore Daze • Dunmore • 800-336-7009.. Three days of down-home country fun! Traditional events and lots of good food.
Aug. 25 • Live Music • Anna River Boys • Pocahontas Opera House • Third Ave., Marlinton • 304-799-6645 • pocahontasoperahouse.org. Down-home bluegrass returns with a group that first appeared at the Opera House in 2004. Playing both traditional and original music, they bring fun, upbeat music to their stage performances and CDs. Show begins at 7:30 p.m. with a $5 admission.
Aug. 31 - Murder Mystery Train• Cass Scenic Railroad State Park • 1-800-CALL-WVA or 456-4300 • cassrailroad.com. Come enjoy this 'who-done-it' trail ride to Whittaker Station. The trip includes dinner and murder mystery entertainment. Trip departs at 5 p.m. and advance reservations are required.
On The
Mountain
For more info about any events at Snowshoe, call 877-441-4FUN or visit
online at
www.snowshoemtn.com
Weekends in August • Village Movie Series • 877-441-4FUN • snowshoemtn.com. Join us under the stars in the Village at Snowshoe for our Village Movie Series. Grab a blanket, kick back in one of our Adirondack chairs and enjoy a great night of family fun. All movies start at 9 p.m. in the Village Plaza.. Movies are listed on page 7.
Aug. 4 - 5 • Snowshoe Mountain Bike Race Series, RACE II, fueled by Full Throttle - . The region's best mountain bikers head to Snowshoe for the 2nd race of this three-race series presented by Full Throttle Energy Drink. More than $25,000 in cash and prizes will be awarded throughout the series. A great spectator event, too!
Aug. 11 - 12 • Homeowners Weekend. Homeowners, this is your weekend to head to the mountain! Find out the latest and greatest about Snowshoe Mountain and meet with your HOA peers to discuss details for the upcoming season!
Aug. 18 • Blues, Brews & BBQ's • Snowshoe Mountain is hosting a fiery weekend of sauce and smoke during the Annual Blues, Brews & Barbeques Event. Guests will groove to music while enjoying a bottomless mug of beer from regional microbreweries. Attendees will have their choice of blazin' barbeque dishes prepared by master chefs of flame and sizzle. Best of all, you'll end the night with a Blues concert infused with a regal musical pedigree.
Aug. 19 • Third Annual Cheat Mountain Challenge/Snowshoe Century Ride. Back again...and this year a month earlier. This event has received high acclaim and great reviews across the nation...so come and experience a road course that will challenge you physically and psychologically. This is no doubt one of the toughest rides in the nation with more than 11,000 ft. of climbing. A fully supported tour with rest stops every 15 miles. For more Information, check it out at www.wvcf.org.
Aug. 24 - 26 • 17th Annual Snowshoe Symphony Festival. The mountain comes alive with the beautiful orchestrated sounds of the WV Symphony Orchestra. Gourmet foods, arts and crafts and incredible entertainment will tantalize every sense. Come and be a part of the euphonious magic in the pristine Allegheny Mountains.
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Miss America 1987, Kellye Cash (niece of Johnny Cash)
Photos courtesy of Kellye Cash
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Opera House brings back favorites this month
Barbara Elliott
Contributing Writer
The Pocahontas County Opera House in Marlinton welcomes back two popular shows from seasons past this month.
Always… Patsy Cline - August 17
Four years ago, Greenbrier Valley Theatre wowed a capacity Opera House audience with its production of Always. . . . Patsy Cline, Ted Swindley’s funny and heart-felt tribute to one of country music's legends.
GVT is reviving the production this year with Miss America 1987, Kellye Cash (niece of Johnny), as Patsy. The Opera House is thrilled to present their production on Friday, August 17, at 7:30 p.m. This is a date change from the season preview in last month’s Mountain Times. Tickets for this special production will be $7, and seating will be first come, first served—so come early!
Based on a true story, the musical tells the story of Louise Seger, an avid fan, who meets the star in a Houston honky tonk in 1961. They strike up an immediate friendship that continued through their letters back and forth until Cline's tragic death. GVT Artistic Director Cathey Sawyer is back as Louise, and the show also features a cookin' country band and more than 30 Patsy Cline songs.
Based in Lewisburg, Greenbrier Valley Theatre, is West Virginia’s official year-round professional theater. You can learn more about them at gvtheatre.org.
Birth of America is the subject of free lecture at Opera House August 23.
(see next article)
Pocahontas County native Bill Hefner, along with Rick Burford, Jim Martin and Henry Clawson
Photos courtesy of Anna River Boys
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Anna River Boys - Saturday, August 25
The fun-loving regional bluegrass band, The Anna River Boys, will return on Saturday, August 25, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5 and will be available only at the door. Children 12 and under are admitted free.
This quartet of West Virginia and Virginia boys work at the North Anna Power Station based in Louisa, Virginia. It was there that they discovered they had a common passion for bluegrass music, and thus was born a band that plays both traditional and original tunes. They bring lively, upbeat music to the stage and their CDs. Members include Pocahontas County native Bill Hefner, along with Rick Burford, Jim Martin and Henry Clawson
The Pocahontas County Opera House is located at 818 Third Avenue in Marlinton. For further information, call (304) 799-6645. Performances at the Opera House are family friendly and open to all.
The 2007-08 Performance Series is sponsored by the Pocahontas County Opera House Foundation. Financial support is provided through a grant from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts. Additional support is provided by Pocahontas County Drama, Fairs and Festivals. To learn about future performances, visit pocahontasoperahouse.org.
Dr. James Horn provides insight into the Birth of America
Photo courtesy Dr. James Horn
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Birth of America
is the subject of free lecture
at Opera House August 23
This year marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. Americans have observed Jamestown anniversaries every 50 years since 1807.
This commemoration, known as America’s 400th Anniversary, includes programs and events presented on multiple continents over an 18-month period. Queen Elizabeth II visited Jamestown in April in honor of the occasion.
The West Virginia Humanities Council has invited Dr. Horn to Pocahontas County to speak on this subject as part of the state’s observance of the Jamestown anniversary. He will give a lecture at the Pocahontas County Opera House, 818 Third Avenue in Marlinton, on Thursday, Aug. 23, at 7 p.m. The program is open to the public free of charge.
After 400 years, does the legacy of the Jamestown settlement still have relevance for Americans? According to one of America’s leading colonial scholars, the answer is a resounding "yes."
Horn contends that if the Jamestown colony had failed, colonization in North America might have faltered and English settlements migrated south to the Caribbean. Furthermore, significant contributions to American culture, tradition and values—both good and bad—had their origins in the Jamestown experience.
"Jamestown matters because it is about coming to terms with our shared past; a past painful and conflicted but which ultimately laid the foundations of modern America. From English traditions of the rule of law, political ideas, religious beliefs, and commercial ethos there would emerge a new democratic philosophy that would eventually bring together the different peoples of America as one nation," Dr. Horn has said. "It is therefore fitting that commemorative events should highlight not just the Virginia colony’s early years but also celebrate the unique contributions of the three peoples—Indian, European, and African—who first encountered each other at Jamestown and who began the long process by which together they shaped a new world and forged a new people."
The title of his talk is the same as his most recent book, A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America (2005). "The story of Jamestown is not just Virginia history, it is American history," said Humanities Council Program Officer Mark Payne. "We are excited to bring one of the country’s most respected scholars of that period to the county named for a major figure in the Jamestown saga and hope to attract a regional audience to the Opera House to hear this speaker."
Dr. James Horn is the Abby and George O’Neill Director of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and lecturer at the College of William & Mary. He is also editor of the new book, Capt. John Smith: Writings, with Other Narratives of Roanoke, Jamestown, and the First English Settlement of America, published by the Library of America.
Call the Humanities Council at 304-346-8500 for additional information.
Crazy-looking-mushroom
Photo courtesy David Holtzman
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Trail of the Month:
Laurel Creek Trail
David Holtzman
Contributing Writer
The eastern portion of Pocahontas County lies within what geologists call the Valley and Ridge Province. The label refers to a pattern of alternating valleys and ridges that stretch in a southwest to northeast direction, easily seen by looking at a map or from an airplane. It occurs along the Appalachian Mountains from Alabama to Maine.
Just west of the Valley and Ridge lies the Allegheny Front, which divides the Valley Ridge Province from the Appalachian Plateau that covers much of the rest of West Virginia. Its eastern end hovers over the Greenbrier River. The high mountains that line the Front capture much of the rainfall brought by storms from the southwest and west. By the time the storms climb to the top of the mountains, they have dropped most of their moisture.
Comfy Bench
Photo courtesy David Holtzman
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As a result, the Valley and Ridge Province tends to be drier, and it looks it. Instead of a wet, mixed hardwoods forest of a wide variety of trees, this part of the county is dominated by a few tree types that do well in a drier environment. These include oaks, hickories and, on the lower ridges, pines. In fact, foresters refer to this area as an oak-pine or oak-hickory-pine forest. Other trees also grow in these woods; hemlocks are commonly found near streams, for example. But there is no mistaking which trees are in command.
Much of the Laurel Creek Trail, which covers 8.8 miles in a loop in the Rimel Wildlife Management Area, presents an excellent picture of what this kind of forest looks like. The woods appear more open, since the undergrowth beneath the tall trees is thinner than it would be farther west. Some may find that the greenery of the forest seems a lighter shade than elsewhere.
Though it is drier, the forest on this trail abounds with wildlife. On a recent foray, I stood at the base of a dead pine, craning my neck to watch a red-shouldered hawk at the pine?s very top. The hawk scanned the immediate vicinity and hollered its trademark , keer, keer, keer!, before launching into a circular flight pattern. Later in the day, I engaged in a staring contest with a raccoon that had paused a short way up a tree before scampering to safety. Nearby, a black bear made its way out of my path, and several deer did the same.
Flowers are not especially abundant in mid-summer, but some bellflower and pokeweed provide color a short distance from the trailhead. The floor of the forest is covered in a wide variety of leafy shrubs and plants, including berries that will be fit to eat by late summer. Maidenhair, perhaps the most beautiful of all ferns, grows in abundance.
Orange mushrooms on log
Photo courtesy David Holtzman
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The United States Forest Service, which owns the land that includes the Laurel Creek Trail, has been conducting an interesting experiment in the oak-pine forests. It has thinned the trees in various areas to create what it calls savannahs, which provide habitat for a range of wildlife that might not do as well in denser woods. Ruffed grouse is an example of a species that benefits, as it prefers the type of habitat available in immature forests. In the late 1990s and the first part of this decade, the Forest Service developed 29 acres of savannahs on Lockridge Mountain, along which the Laurel Creek Trail passes. The hiker will notice when he passes one of these savannahs, because the number of songbirds will suddenly increase. Birds, as well as some mammals, like the space for dens and nests provided by standing snags of cut trees; rodents and snakes like the woodpiles. For me, an additional treat was the aroma of freshly cut pine, stacked at the edge of the trail.
Rhododendron and stream scene
Photo courtesy David Holtzman
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Not all of the Laurel Creek Trail is along ridges. The path stays tight along the creek itself for a long section before it turns west to ascend Lockridge Mountain. A careful observer will notice not only small fish, but also salamanders in these waters.
The trail's uphills and downhills are modest compared to some hikes in the county; the major challenge is the climb up the mountain. Fortunately the Forest Service and the state Division of Natural Resources were kind enough to build a shelter just off the trail, as well as a couple of benches at spots where hikers are likely to be out of breath.
The trailhead is by the parking area for Rimel Wildlife Management Area, just west of the intersection of state routes 39 and 92 by the Virginia state line.
The mill before the large water wheel was installed. A smaller, wooden turbine was used to power the mill
Photo courtesy Larry Taylor
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Down by the Old Mill Stream
Drew Tanner
Staff Writer
People at this summer's Little Levels Heritage Festival got a rare treat if they stopped by Mill Point on Saturday morning.
A historic icon of Pocahontas County, the McNeel Mill, was open to curious visitors who wanted to see inside the building and view the mill stones and antique machinery
The mill's tour guide and hopeful miller, Matthew Tate, has been working with the mill's owner, Lanty McNeel, and the Pocahontas County Historical Society to keep the mill standing and eventually set the mill's wheel and machinery back in motion after some 60 years of standing idle.
The man who built the mill: Isaac McNeel. The mill's shadow can be seen on the ground.
Photo courtesy Lanty McNeel
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McNeel's great grandfather, Isaac McNeel, bought the land at Mill Point in the 1850s. He began construction of the present day mill just before the Civil War, but construction was halted until hostilities between North and South ceased. The mill was completed in 1868 and remained in service until the 1940s.
Over those eight decades, the mill and Mill Point saw a variety of changes.
Around the turn of the last century and into the early 1900s, Mill Point was a bustling area, with multiple mills, a doctor's office, a blacksmith, a store and a post office. A railroad ran past th mill, connecting the Warn Lumber Company, downstream of Mill Point, with the virgin timber that was being logged from Cranberry Mountain.
The original overshot water wheel was installed in 1921. This replaced it in the 1980s.
Photo by Drew Tanner
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What is now U.S. Route 219 was a very different looking road in those days. Known as the Lewisburg/Marlin's Bottom Pike, it was a dirt wagon road that dropped straight and steep toward Stamping Creek. Today, the road has been raised and curved toward the mill to take out some of the steepness, but when the mill was originally constructed, the ground in front of it was level, and a wagon could be backed up to the front door for unloading grain and loading flour and meal.
The mill itself has also undergone some changes over time. The large, steel water wheel that one sees today was added late in the mill's life, in 1921. Before that, the mill was powered by a much smaller, wooden turbine. Various old photographs also show an engine house adjacent to the mill. McNeel said that a steam engine was used at times of low water during the summer to power the mill, and his collection of photos reveals an evolution of gearing and belt-driven pulleys that were used to transfer power from the engine house to the mill.
Those photos show changes to the mill itself and the delivery of water to the wheel. Split wooden shingles gave way to metal roofing, while the flume saw a similar change in materials, from a wooden trough structure to a large-diameter steel pipe.
Various pieces of wooden machinery can be found throughout the mill, some shelled corn, others sifted grain or flour.
Photo courtesy Lanty McNeel
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Inside the mill, McNeel noted that, like any industrial facility, machinery was updated as technology changed. Wooden plugs in the planks of the floor are telltale signs of where belts once ran from one floor to another to power machinery and were later moved and rerouted.
Various pieces of wooden machinery can be found throughout the mill, some shelled corn, others sifted grain or flour.
Photo courtesy Lanty McNeel
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The 'newer' machines in the mill - steel roller mills and a water-powered generator for lights - stand out from their mostly wooden counterparts in the grading and sifting departments. While such upgrades were made to the equipment, many of the decades-old machines that worked and did their job well were kept in service.
Over time, the many grist mills that were once in Pocahontas County fell out of use and were recycled into other structures or claimed by time and the elements, the McNeel mill has remained standing. The structure even managed to weather a flash flood in 1935 that led to the collapse of the lower mill.
McNeel said he is excited that someone has taken an interest in bringing the mill back to life. As he sifts through his collection of aged documents and faded photographs, he speaks of the mill as though it were a treasured elder of the family, and indeed, the mill has exerted a presence on his family's history, as well as the character of the county.
Grain and flower were transported from bins on the first floor to machinery on the second floor by use of belts fitted with little metal cups
Photo courtesy Lanty McNeel
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For those who don't hold such a direct tie to the mill, McNeel still understands that it still casts a spell on those who see it, and especially those who get to step inside.
McNeel attributes the mystique and charm to the importance of milled grain and the ingenuity required to turn flowing water into useful energy.
"It goes back to people today hearing their grandparents talk about the horse-and-buggy days," McNeel said. "Bread was a staple of life back then. It was a lot more important than it is today."
"It is a common-sense use of water and water power that intrigues people," he added.
Tate was one of those who was taken in by the spell of the mill.
He first saw the mill around 1995, as he drove back to college after working at a summer camp in Bartow.
"I craned my head around just to see as much as I could, because it was amazing," Tate said.
Instead of taking Interstate 81 to get to North Carolina, Tate and a friend were driving down the back roads.
"That was one of the treasures of driving the backroads, to see that. This was rural life. This was what made it so beautiful and special," he said.
It would be another 10 years before Tate got his first good look at the mill, in August 2005. He and his girlfriend visited McNeel and got a personal tour of the building, as well as a lesson in the mill's history.
Grain and flower bins on the first floor.
Photo courtesy Lanty McNeel
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"We spent probably three or four hours looking through this huge suitcase of his photos and documents about the mill," Tate said. "He told us about the history and he had all these terrific old photographs of it."
The next day, McNeel gave him a thorough tour of the mill, as well as the nearby 18th century barn and the Isaac McNeel house that sit above the mill.
It would be almost another year before Tate caught up with McNeel again to approach him about working on the mill.
"I got in touch with him in the spring, and it just happened to coincide with a big effort that the Historical Society was putting together to stir up interest in the mill again," Tate recalled.
In the late 1980s, the mill underwent extensive preservation work with the help of the Historical Society and the state's Division of Culture and History.
While much of that work was simply to keep the mill and its wheel standing, Tate said he wants to see the mill at work once again.
The idea of water power is something that has intrigued Tate since he was a child.
"At my home in Massachusetts, we had a stream next to my house," he said. "The stream was just four or five feet across, but as a little kid, I was always playing with it."
After a lesson in third grade about hydroelectricity, and harnessing water power, Tate had new respect for the little stream next to his house.
"I remember coming home and just staring at my stream and imagining that water could do work," he said. "It was fascinating."
At the McNeel Mill, that fascination has turned into excitement about the mill's real potential.
Since there are no schools for millers or classes on how to restore a mill, Tate has been reading up on mills, tracking down 19th-century texts on mill operation and construction, and visiting as many mills as he can.
His self-education has taken him to mills at Winchester, Virginia, Babcock State Park and Second Creek, to name a few.
"Everybody I met who was working at a mill was more than happy to talk about it and show me how it worked," said Tate.
"To see a mill working and see the water turning the wheel is very inspiring to me," he said. "I think to myself, 'This could be the McNeel Mill someday.' Whenever I go to visit a mill, I come home and I feel inspired to work on it some more."
Touring the mill.
Photo courtesy Lanty McNeel
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Through part of college, Tate studied mechanical engineering, and said he finds himself drawing on that knowledge as he sets to work on the McNeel mill.
While some mills in the region have been converted to restaurants or gift shops, Tate said he wants to see the mill doing what it was made for: grinding grain.
"The mill is a very rustic building," Tate said. "It has only plank walls. It doesn't have any insulation or anything like that, not even battens between the planks. I think it should always have that rustic feel. My intention is to grind there, and if you're grinding grain, you're making a lot of dust and you're moving big, heavy things around."
Tate acknowledges, however, that keeping the mill standing will be the easy part. Getting it running again may be a much more challenging task, both physically and bureaucratically.
The mill's National Historic Register boundaries were drawn right around the mill for the purpose of preserving the building. The quarter-mile earth-and-stone race or the dam that supplies the race are not included in the listing.
"It's not a small task to change the National Register of Historic Place listing," said. Tate, "but I would like to include those things, so they would be eligible for State Historic Preservation Office grant funds, but also because they're part of the mill. You can't have a mill without a dam and without a way to get water to it."
Because a dam is involved, Tate said he also has to work with the Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies.
The heart of any gristmill is the stones. The stones were imported from France and weigh 1,000 to 1,500 pounds. The stones turned at the rate of one revolution every minute and a half. If they rotated any faster, they scorched the meal. The metal apparatus, to the left, is used to lift the stones apart for maintenance.
Photo by Drew Tanner
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Physically, the dam is in disrepair, and the creek has undercut the mouth of the raceway. The raceway itself has washed out in some areas, which will require excavation and shoring up some of the existing wall, said Tate.
The most visible part that needs to be not just repaired, but rebuilt from scratch, is the flume that carries water from the race to the top of the wheel.
For now, the mill needs some basic repairs. With some recent help from the State Historic Preservation Office and the Snowshoe Foundation, Tate and the Historical Society are working on putting a new roof on the building.
McNeel said he appreciated the work and interest that Tate is bringing to the mill.
"As an old farmer, it's hard for me to see the worth in putting work into old things when there are so many new things that need work, but if he can grind some grain in there, well then, I can see the value in that."
While it may require an incredible amount of work, Tate is eager to revive the mill, providing visitors with a gateway to a different era.
"This mill has so much character to it," Tate said. "There is nothing from present day inside. Everything is made of wood, pegs, square nails and iron. There are only two colors in that mill: wood and iron. It's just so removed from our present day. You know that you're stepping into something unique, a different time."
shgiven@pocahontastimes.com