West Virginia Trivia & Tidbits - Page 2

Looking for West Virginia trivia? Try our list West Virginia little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—The Kanawha River, which forms at Gauley Bridge (pop. 738) with the confluence of the New and Gauley rivers, flows about 97 miles before joining the Ohio River and is the largest inland waterway in the state.

first appeared: 1/11/2009

—After being on the brink of extinction, the West Virginia northern flying squirrel glided off the federal endangered species list in August. The squirrels inhabit the Allegheny Highlands forests in West Virginia and Virginia.

first appeared: 12/29/2008

—The official state flower is the rhododendron maximum, or “great laurel,” selected in 1903 after a vote by public school pupils.

first appeared: 11/30/2008

—Guitars designed by Leo Burrell of Huntington (pop. 51,475) are player-friendly with twisted necks and contoured bodies to conform to the guitarist for easier strumming.

first appeared: 11/16/2008

—The 4,009-foot-long Blennerhassett Island Bridge, which crosses the Ohio River and Blennerhassett Island near Parkersburg (pop. 33,099), is a network tied-arch steel structure and one of the longest of its type in the world. The $136 million bridge opened in June.

first appeared: 11/2/2008

—The first American POW to be successfully rescued from behind enemy lines since World War II is Army Pvt. Jessica Lynch of Palestine, who was rescued by U.S. troops in 2003 from an Iraqi hospital.

first appeared: 10/19/2008

—The theme song of West Virginia University in Morgantown (pop. 26,809) is the late John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which has been performed during every home football pregame show since 1972. Denver performed for the dedication of Mountaineer Field in 1980.

first appeared: 10/5/2008

—The first European credited with seeing the state is explorer John Lederer, who visited the region in 1669.

first appeared: 9/21/2008

—Unwanted, abused and neglected tigers and other “big cats” find a safe home at Tiger Mountain Refuge, with facilities in Greenbrier County (pop. 34,453) and Nicholas County (pop. 26,562).

first appeared: 9/7/2008

—More than 6,000 volunteers last year helped maintain and protect the 2,175-mile Appalachian National Scenic Trail from Georgia to Maine, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, headquartered in Harpers Ferry (pop. 307).

first appeared: 8/24/2008

—Opened in 2007, the Womble Clay Shooting Range at Cacapon Resort State Park near Berkeley Springs (pop. 663) is the state’s first trap range to be built at a state park.

first appeared: 8/10/2008

—The state is the only one that lies entirely in Appalachia, a region that includes parts of 12 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

first appeared: 7/27/2008

—The state’s first woman elected to the U.S. Congress was Elizabeth Kee of Bluefield (pop. 11,451). She ran for election in 1951 upon the death of her husband Rep. John Kee, was re-elected six times and retired in 1964.

first appeared: 6/29/2008

—The official state reptile is the timber rattler, adopted in March. Fifth-grade pupils at Romney Elementary School in Romney (pop. 1,940) recommended that the rattlesnake be recognized as a state symbol.

first appeared: 6/15/2008

—The state’s oldest theater is the Old Opera House Theatre, built in 1910 in Charles Town (pop. 2,907).

first appeared: 6/1/2008

—Anne Royall, who has been called America’s first professional female journalist, was born in 1769 in Maryland, but moved to Monroe County (pop. 14,583) where she married William Royall. Her newspapers were Paul Pry and The Huntress.

first appeared: 5/18/2008

—The Monongah Heroine Statue, dedicated last year, honors the 250 widows left after an underground explosion in a Monongah (pop. 939) coal mine killed about 360 men and boys in 1907. Many of the coal miners were Italian immigrants.

first appeared: 5/4/2008

—The Monongahela National Forest, headquartered in Elkins (pop. 7,032), covers more than 919,000 acres in 10 counties in the state.

first appeared: 3/9/2008

—The state’s first female prison warden is Evelyn Seifert, appointed in 1998 as chief administrator of the Northern Regional Jail and Correctional Facility in Moundsville (pop. 9,998).

first appeared: 2/24/2008

—Mullens (pop. 1,769) is named after Andrew Jackson Mullins, who owned the land where the town was built. When incorporated in 1912, the i was accidentally changed to e, and townsfolk retained the misspelled name.

first appeared: 2/10/2008

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