Fairmont West Virginia [And other nearby destinations]

welcome back today we are continuing our journey through west virginia with a visit to fairmont and some of the surrounding cities as with most places in west virginia fairmont boasts some beautiful scenery and provides some great opportunities for anyone who enjoys photography the beautiful architecture stands witness to the former glory of this little appalachian town fairmont played an important part of west virginia history as a hometown of Francis Peirpont one of the founders of the state in its first governor just across the river we find the river from park a great place to enjoy out door activities as well as a great view of the city not far from the city in the town of philippi we find the philippi covered bridge despite being around 170 years old we're still able to drive across it the covered bridge almost became just a memory due to flooding in 1985 and a fire in 1989 fortunately this historical landmark remains for us to enjoy also by the bridge several memorials to the miners this state is well known for specifically those who lost their lives in the SAGO mine disaster where thirteen coal miners were trapped after an explosion with only one of them eventually surviving next door to the bridge and memorials is a small museum converted from an old rail depot it features some mummies and other artifacts from the area next we're on to the nearby city of Grafton Grafton is the birthplace of mother's day as a holiday be sure to stop at Andrew's methodist episcopal church to see the international mother's day shrine Grafton is a quiet place today but the old train station and Willard hotel stand as reminders of its once busy past a quick drive out of town brings us to the Anna Jarvis house Anna Jarvis is a recognized founder of mother's day our next stop is Grafton national cemetery which holds the remains of some of the first soldiers killed during the American civil war the very first union soldier killed by a confederate soldier in the world T Bbailly Brown is also buried here if you happen to be in Grafton around the Christmas holiday do not miss their beautiful Christmas light display let's have a look now we're back in fairmont for a visit to the marian county historical society museum let's go in and look at some of the artifacts and history they have on he is uh who we consider the uh the father of west virginia because he was involved in our statehood back in 1863 and so the story with this compass also was that it was also used by washington himself yeah the chandly compass so i told you about the jones and bowdoin raid during the civil war when they blew up our bridge they blew up our railroad bridge this table was it's been painted it was in the railroad depot upstairs you can see the old jail don't get too scared if some of the old inmates are still hanging around in ghost form now let's head back downstairs to ask some questions about the area um i know you mentioned you moved away from california when you were 12 right so um was west virginia your first stop where did you go after um california well i was 12 years old and i was a ward of the court of uh in california basically my sister and i were taken away and they found my father who we didn't really know but he was a sign painter and he was in new jersey atlantic city new jersey and so the state of california sent us to live with our father in uh pleasant pleasantville i think it was called new jersey which is near atlantic city and uh so uh after a few years uh in the 70s uh late 70s my dad had found a brochure about west virginia and uh he found some land for 500 an acre in 70s harrison county in a place called kincheloe which is a rural rural part of uh harrison county and so he bought it was like 13 acres in kincheloe and he built his own house there and he got it him and his uh his uh partner they weren't married but uh beverly uh they bought the the land for 500 an acre wow in quenchello so um you have been living in west virginia since um 1979 79 yes i was 19 years old so what was um west virginia like back then like when you came back from in 1979 clarksburg clarksburg was a a prosperous city clarksburg was a lot different than it is now and it was a banking center there was a lot of uh very prominent banks the empire national bank which is now i understand kind of closed i don't know if there's anything in the building or not but it was beautiful uh and i actually worked for uh mr hyland mr hyland was the president of the bank and he owned the newspaper in clarksburg and i uh eventually i got a job for that in 1986 i started working for the clarksburg newspaper as a reporter yeah nice i've had kind of a wild career yeah yeah i had work ethic though i i worked you know i did a lot of different things i worked for a regional jail i worked as a newspaper reporter i worked as a security guard i keep getting off the track so i worked there for 10 years uh but uh so what was clarksburg like uh clarksburg was a prosperous town uh before the mall was built before uh the meadowbrook mall was built in the late 70s early 80s the downtown in clarksburg had everything you could walk to just about anywhere you wanted to go your your kids schools were there uh the churches the stores it was like a mall downtown you had two stores you had restaurants lunch counters you had murphys and macquaries which were like a lunch counter department store you had uh stone and thomas uh there was a jc pennies everything was there and it was a prosperous town so everything was thriving at that time there were factories um anybody that wanted a job could find one usually within a day or two you could there was a lot of glass glass factories because west virginia has the sandstone and the limestone so uh the glass industry was thriving and really the whole state there's there was a lot of glass factories in west virginia and clarksburg there was a bunch there was the the acro agate marble and toy novelty company they made marbles and there was uh uh hazel atlas uh there was uh anchor hocking which you can still see the old building exactly now clarksburg's changed so much but it used to be it used to be a thriving little town rich rich town so what are the people like in this area um are they you know generally more friendly um oh absolutely yeah the uh the appalachian people in general are uh they're they're friendly people they are very accepting of others foreigners or just for other you know people from other places they're they're not judgmental people they're uh there's actually a whole thing that's been written about it's called appalachian values and uh there's like 10 and i'm trying to think of what they were because i learned them when i went to the college they're really they ring true i'm sure you can still look them up if you looked up at appalachian values yeah just uh how people are friendly and uh kind of humorous but it's kind of a dry humor we find humor in things just uh things that some people might not think are so funny uh uh we're resourceful we're very resourceful people a lot of people have gardens and hunt it actually used to be acceptable for a young boys to take their rifles with them to school because they would walk to school and on the way they might shoot a squirrel and mom would cook it for dinner so like um today like people are they different from you know how people were back then like and the difference uh-huh like the the culture or you know like the way people behave i think i think it's it it is i think young people i it's kind of sad i think that they're they're losing some of the traditions that we had and the ways of doing things they do things different and i guess it's just something that us older people need to accept i guess in a way but uh i'd like to see some of our traditions and things uh kind of continued i try to continue them with my own grandkids and my family this part of application has seen better days but still has a lot to offer visitors looking to do some exploring in the region if you enjoyed this video be sure to hit the like button and subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos see you next time