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A Tourist Guide to Rhinebeck, New York

1. Introduction and History 

Located on the east side of the Hudson River in Dutchess County some 100 miles north of Manhattan, Rhinebeck, accessed by the Taconic State Parkway, Route 9, Route 9W, and the New York State Thruway, is both a picturesque and intensely historic village.  It itself is part of the Hudson River Valley National Historic Area which was established in 1996 by Congress to recognize, preserve, protect, and interpret the nationally significant history and resources of the valley for the benefit of the nation, and stretches from Yonkers to Albany.

Founded in 1686 when Dutchmen Gerrit Artsen, Arie Roosa, Jan Elting, and Henrick Kip exchanged 2,200 acres of local land with six Indians of the Esopus (Kingston) and Sopaseo (Rhinebeck) tribes, it was initially designated "Kipsbergen."  In 1713, Judge Henry Beekman referred to these land holdings as "Ryn Beck" for the first time.

One of the country's largest historic districts with 437 sites listed on the National Historic Register, the nucleic Village of Rhinebeck and the larger, surrounding Town of Rhinebeck, encompass half of the 16-mile stretch which includes the 30 contiguous riverfront estates associated with the landed aristocracy of the region during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.

Often dubbed a "picturesque village" and the "jewel of the Hudson," it offers many walking-proximity attractions, such as antique shops, art galleries, bed-and-breakfasts, inns, and restaurants, usually housed in historic buildings.         

Signature and stalwart of the village is the Beekman Arms, America's oldest, continuously operating inn listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  Tracing its origins to 1766 when Arent Traphagen relocated his father's successful Bogardos structure of stone and sturdy timber-- so constructed to protect it against Indian attacks--to the crossroads of the recently designated Ryn Beck village, it ultimately served as a Mecca of revolutionaries, often hosting the likes of George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Alexander Hamilton.  When the British burned then-state capital Kingston, located across the Hudson, the townspeople sought refuge here.

Purchased by Asa Potter in 1802, it subsequently served multiple roles, including town hall, theater, post office, and newspaper post.

Renovated, expanded, and renamed its current "Beekman Arms" moniker by secondary owner Tracy Durs, it served as inspiration for Thomas Wolfe's novel, Of Time and the River, after frequent visits here, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, hailing from nearby Hyde Park, initiated all four of his successful gubernatorial and presidential campaigns form its very front porch.

The significantly larger complex provides venues for sightseeing, dining, and accommodation, amidst a preserved, colonial atmosphere.

The Tavern at Beekman Arms, located on the ground floor, is decorated with dark wood trim, a huge brick fireplace, and wide plank floors, and is subdivided into the Colonial Tap Room, a garden greenhouse, and several separate dining areas.

The upper floors contain the original inn's meticulously restored and elegantly appointed 1766 rooms, although accommodation is available in numerous affiliated structures.  Amid exposed brick walls and high ceilings, for instance, guests can stay in the village's original firehouse, while the Townsend House, which opened in 2004, features the design and architecture influenced by Rhinebeck's other historical structures.  The Guest House, located behind the main inn, offers lower-cost, motel-style rooms.

The Delameter Inn, designed in 1844 by Alexander Jackson Davis and an example of American Carpenter Gothic architecture, is one block north of the Beekman Arms, and is part of a seven-guesthouse complex which surrounds a courtyard.  Many rooms feature fireplaces.

Rhinebeck itself offers many attractions.  The Dutchess County Fairgrounds, for instance, hosts events such as the Dutchess County Fair, the Rhinebeck Antiques Fair, the Crafts at Rhinebeck exhibition, and the Iroquos Festival, while the Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck offers live classical, drama, musical, and children's performances showcasing local theater companies, although talent has also included national and international names.  Resembling an oversized barn to complement the surrounding rural landscape and to pay tribute to the origins of summer stock, it replaced the temporary tent under which seasonal performances had been given between 1994 and 1997, opening in July of the following year and becoming a year-round venue in 1999.

Several early-aviation and architecturally historic sights surround the immediate town, most of which offer exquisite views of the Hudson River and the Catskill Mountains beyond it.

2. Museum of Rhinebeck History

Located 3.5 miles north of the Village of Rhinebeck on Route 9, the Museum of Rhinebeck History, housed in the historic Quitman House, was founded in 1992 "to encourage understanding and appreciation of Rhinebeck history through the collection, preservation, exhibition, and interpretation of materials significant to Rhinebeck" by means of letters, books, journals, clothing, furniture, photographs, postcards, and artifacts.  Open from mid-June to October 31, it features two annual exhibits, previous ones of which have been entitled "The First Century," "The Civil War," "The Guilded Age," "World War I," "The Roosevelt Years," "World War II," and "Early Rhinebeck Industries," among others.

The Quitman House, marking the area of the town's first settlement, had been built in 1798 as a parsonage by the parishioners of the nearby Old Stone Church for the Reverend Frederick H. Quitman, who had served the Lutheran congregation for more than three decades.

Henry Beekman, who had settled 35 Palatine German families in the area in the early-1700s, had been given most of the land by royal grant, and the nascent community developed round a single log church until the 19th century, at which time commerce had taken root three miles south in the village designated "The Flatts."

3. Wilderstein

Located two-and-a-half miles from the historic downtown district of Rhinebeck, Wilderstein, named after the petroglyph of a figure holding a peace pipe in his right hand and a tomahawk in his left in Suckley Cove, translates as "wild man's stone" from the German, and had been a restrained Italianast villa when it had been built in 1852.  Home to three generations of the Suckley family, it had been significantly enlarged in 1888 with two upper floors, a tower, and a veranda, rendering it the elaborate Queen Anne-style mansion overlooking the Hudson River it is today.

The interior retains all of its original wall carvings, furniture, artwork, book collections, and stained glass from its 1888 expansion, and the ground floor, designed by Joseph Burr Tifany, features a dark, heavily-paneled foyer, a fireplace, a library, a dining room, a kitchen, and two living rooms.

Calvert Vaux and his son, hired in 1890 to design the outdoor landscape in Romantic style, had already had a long list of similar accomplishments, among them other Hudson River estates and Prospect Park and Central Park in New York, and had ordered 1,091 shrubs and 41 trees from a local Rhinebeck nursery for the Wilderstein project.  The area, greatly reduced from its original size, currently encompasses 40 acres and three miles of trails.

Margaret (Daisy) Suckley, a close friend of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the last to survive, had ceded the mansion and its grounds to the Wilderstein Preservation in 1983, a not-for-profit educational institution.  Today, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

4. Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome

Located on tiny, easily-missed Norton Road on the east side of the Hudson River not far from the village of Rhinebeck itself, Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome offers a time portal to the grass fields and fabric-covered aircraft which represent the first "sprout" of aviation a century ago.

Its own seed had been planted when Cole Palen, having earned his airframe and powerplant license form the now defunct Roosevelt Aviation School on Long Island, purchased six airplanes offered for sale by its museum in order to vacate the area for the pending Roosevelt Field Shopping Mall.

After storage in an abandoned chicken coop on the Palen farm in Rhinebeck, the six aircraft, which encompassed a 1917 SPAD XII, a 1918 Standard J-1, a 1914 Avro 504K, a 1918 Curtiss Jenny, a 1918 Sopwith Snipe 7F1, and a 1918 Aeromarine 39B, had formed his initial fleet and the "aerodrome" had been a 1,000-foot-long, rocky, swamp-drained clearing called a "runway" and a single crude building serving as a "hangar" on a patch of farmland he had subsequently purchased.  Additional aircraft acquisitions—and parts of them—had expanded the mostly biplane lineup, after considerable restoration and reconstruction.

Three metal, quonset hut-like hangars, built between 1963 and 1964 and located at the top of a small hill above the main dirt-and-grass parking lot, house Pioneer, World War I, and Lindbergh era aircraft today, across from a new museum facility and a small gift shop.  But the aerodrome itself, on the other side of Norton Road, is accessed by a wooden covered bridge which serves more than just an entrance to the grass field, but as the time portal itself to the barnstorming era of aviation, an historical dimension somehow arrested and preserved in time beyond its boundaries.

The hangers, as if ignorant of the calendar, proudly brave the winds, bearing such names as Albatros Werke, Royal Aircraft Factory Farnborough, A.V. Roe and Company, Ltd., and Fokker.  But it is the multitude of mono-, bi-, and triplanes which most fiercely wrestles with one's present-time conception.

The current air show program, which runs from mid-June to mid-October, features the "History of Flight" show on Saturdays, with pioneer aircraft such as the Bleriot XI, the Curtiss D "Pusher," and the Hanriot, while the "World War I" show on Sundays includes designs such as the Albatros, the Avro 504K, the Caudron G.III, the Curtiss JN-4D Jenny, the Fokker D.VII, the Fokker Dr.I, the Nieuport II, the Sopwith Camel, the SPAD VII, the Davis D1W, the de Havviland Tiger Moth, and the Great Lakes 2T-1R.  Biplane rides in four-passenger New Standard D-25s are given before and after the shows, while viewers can admire the fleet either in hangars or on the grass aerodrome while having lunch on outdoor picnic tables at the Aerodrome Canteen.

Audience volunteers, sporting Victorian, Edwardian, and 1920s dress, provide fashion shows after changing in the aerodrome's single, track-mounted, red caboose, often transported past spectators in vintage vehicles such as a 1909 Renault, a 1916 Studebaker, and a 1914 Model T Speedster.  Period music completes the scene.

The air shows themselves, which feature only treetop-high sprints of the pioneer aircraft before immediate relandings on the grass, otherwise offer more dramatic maneuvers of the World War I and Lindbergh era designs, including aerobatics, dogfights, bomb raids, balloon bursts, parachutists, and "Delsey drives."

5. Montgomery Place

Designed by Alexander Jackson Davis and nestled on a landscape influenced by Andrew Jackson Downing, Montgomery Place, located off of Route 9G in Annandale-on-Hudson, is a richly-ornamented, classical revival, architectural landmark, reflecting both Hudson Valley estate life and almost 200 years of family ownership and imprint.

Tracing its origins to 1802 when 59-year-old Janet Livingston Montgomery had purchased a 242-acre area to establish a commercial farm and construct a house called the "Chateau de Montgomery" to honor her husband, General Richard Montgomery, it first served as a base in which to live and work.

Poised at the end of a half-mile long alley of deciduous trees, the federal style, stuccoed fieldstone house became the center of orchards, gardens, nurseries, and greenhouses, and flowers and trees had been sent to her from exotic areas of the world, including magnolia, yellow jasmine, orange, and mangos from England and Italy in Europe and Antigua in the Caribbean.  The prosperous enterprise supplied seeds and fruit trees to local farmers.

Although the estate had been intended for General Montgomery's heirs, their earlier deaths forced her to cede it to her youngest brother, Edward Livingston, whose public service career had encompassed positions as New York City Mayor, US Representative and Senator from Louisiana, Secretary of State, and Minister of Finance during the Andrew Jackson administration.

Louis Livingston, his widow, and Coralie Livingston Barton, his daughter, renamed the mansion "Montgomery Place," using it as a summer domicile and extensively modifying its architectural and landscape features during a 40-year period.  The farm and pastureland, particularly, sported formal flower gardens and an ornate conservatory, and the estate's aesthetics were enhanced with walking paths to the Saw Kill Stream, rustic benches, colorful fruit gardens, and an arboretum comprised of purple-leafed European beech, cucumber magnolia, red oak, sweetgum, Tuliptree, white oak, Sargent's weeping hemlock, flowering dogwood, Amur Corktree, black locust, and Sycamore trees.  These 150-year-od monoliths of nature can still be enjoyed today during the walk from the Visitor's Center and the actual mansion.

Based upon the style of Alexander Jackson Davis, then the greatest American architect of the romantic movement, the house itself was redesigned with porches, wings, and balustrades during a dual-phase process which commenced in 1842 and later in 1860, rendering it the classical revival example it is today.

Andrew Jackson Downing, then foremost landscape writer and co-owner of a nursery in Newburgh, New York, provided input concerning gardens, statuary, walking paths, and water features.

After a post-Civil War decline, during which time the property had been occupied by relatives, General John Ross Delafield, a Livingston descendent and New York attorney, inherited it, and his wife, Violetta White Delafield, herself a botanist, resurrected the landscape by introducing garden rooms for roses, herbs, and perennials, a wild garden with an artificial stream, and a hedged ellipse with a pool for aquatic plants.

In 1986, Delafield descendants conveyed title to Montgomery Place, its 424 acres of land, and a portion of the hamlet of Annandale, to Sleepy Hollow Restorations (later renamed Historic Hudson Valley) in order to ensure its restoration and preservation.  Now a National Historic Landmark, it reopened to the public two years later.

6. Bard College

Only a short distance further north and immediately off of Route 9G in Annandale-on-Hudson is Bard College.  A fusion of two historic estates, the liberal arts, residential campus, situated on more than 500 acres of fields and forested land bordering the river, features a complex of trails and walking paths through wooded areas, along the Saw Kill Stream, and down to the Hudson River, where the rising Catskill Mountains are visible.

Founded in 1860 by John Bard in association with the New York City leadership of the Episcopal Church and initially named St. Stephens College, it used part of Bard's riverside estate, Annandale, and the Chapel of the Holy Innocents, both of which he donated, to teach a classic, preparatory curriculum for those intending to enter the seminary.

Transitioning to a broader, more secular institution in 1919, it incorporated both natural and social science courses in its curriculum for the first time, and a decade later served as an undergraduate school of Columbia University.  Increasingly focusing on liberal arts, it officially adopted the "Bard College" name in 1934 and ten years later became a coeducational institution, severing ties with Columbia.

By 1960, the very expanded curriculum included science, art, art history, sculpture, and anthropology, and attracted a significantly larger student and faculty base.  A film department was introduced.

Its first graduate program, the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, was established in 1981, and, by the summer of 1990, the Bard Music Festival, created to provide a deeper appreciation of the repertory of reknowned composers, was introduced, focusing on the work and era of a different artist and showcased in the modern, metal-roofed, Frank O. Gehry-designed Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts in 2003.  The architecturally bold, innovative structure, offering tours during the day and chamber, orchestral, jazz music, drama, musical, dance, and opera performances by American and international artists during the evening, is subdivided into three venues.  The Sosnoff Theater, with an orchestra, parterre, and two balcony sections, features seating for 900, while the teaching Theater Two sports adjustable, bleacher-type seats and a semi-fly tower with a catwalk.  The Felicitas S. Thorne Dance Studio serves as a classroom and rehearsal hall.

7. Clermont State Historic Site

The 500-acre Clermont State Historic Site, north of the town of Tivoli and off of Route 9G, was the seat of the politically and socially prominent Livingston family whose seven generations shaped both the house and its grounds over a 230-year period.

The estate harks to 1728 when Robert Livingston, Jr. acquired 13,000 acres of land along the Hudson River from his father, the First Lord of Livingston Manor, who had owned the second largest tract of private land in colonial New York, and built a brick, Georgian-style mansion between 1730 and 1750, christening it with the French name for "clear mountain," or "clermont," after the Catskill peaks visible across from it.

When his only son, Robert P. Livingston, subsequently married Margaret Beekman, who herself had been heir to immense expanses of land, he considerably expanded the property's boundaries.  Their own, and eldest, son, Robert. R. Livingston, Jr., was a prominent and highly influential figure who, as one of the Committee of Five, drafted the Declaration of Independence, served as the first US Minister of Foreign Affairs, specifically as Secretary of State, and Chancellor of New York, under whose title he gave oath of office to George Washington as the nation's first president.

Because of the Livingston family's involvement in fostering independence, British troops targeted and burned the mansion in the autumn of 1777, but Margaret Beekman Livingston, who had managed it, had it reconstructed during the three-year period between 1779 and 1782.

Developed for agricultural purposes, it was the site of experimental sheep breeding and yield-increasing crop methods, attracting national attention.

A more elaborate house, in an "H" configuration, had been constructed south of the original one in 1792, but was decimated by flames in 1909.

Serving as Thomas Jefferson's Minister to France from 1801 to 1804, Chancellor Livingston negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in Paris, and later jointly designed the world's first steamboat with Robert Fulton.  Making its inaugural voyage from New York to Albany in 1807, it reduced the journey by land to less than half the time and paved the way toward the Fulton Steamboat Company and the lucrative transport of passengers and cargo along the Hudson River.

After having been willed to the chancellor's oldest daughter, the estate received considerable addition and modification, and in the 1920s, John Henry Livingston and his wife, Alice Delafield Clarkson Livingston, remodeled it in the Colonial Revival style.

Dwelling there between her husband's death and the onslaught of the Second World War, she then moved to the gardener's cottage, unable to maintain its costly upkeep, although it was usually opened during holidays and special occasions.

Deeded to New York State in 1967, it was subsequently designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973, and today appears as it did in the early 20th-century when it had been occupied by Mr. And Mrs. John Henry Livingston and their daughters, Honoria and Janet, the last two generations to have lived there.

A Visitor's Center, located a short walk from the actual mansion, features a museum with a model of the first steamboat, a gift shop and bookstore, and an introductory film.

8. Conclusion

A visit to the Village and Town of Rhinebeck, along with its many significant sights, is an immersion into the historic inns, bed-and-breakfasts, antiques and artwork, architecturally-bold and barn-like theaters, vintage aviation, and earlier-century aristocratic estate life of the region, all with the azure backdrop of the Hudson River and the green silhouettes of the Catskill Mountains rising beyond it. 

About the Author

Wood Caboose

A Tourist Guide to West Virginia

1. Introduction

West Virginia, endlessly covered with forests and known as the "Mountain State," offers breathtaking scenery, natural resource-related sights, and year-round, outdoor activities.

Once rich in coal and timber, it was shaped by the mines and logging railroads which extracted them, but when decades of removal began to deplete these commodities, their rolling, green-carpeted mountains yielded secondary byproducts—namely, hiking, biking, fishing, rafting, climbing, and hunting to tourists and sports enthusiasts alike.  Its New River Gorge, which offers many similar activities, is equally beautiful with its rugged banks and azure surfaces, while the principle city of Charleston, revitalized during the 1970s and 1980s, now features museums, art, shopping malls, restaurants, and world-class performance venues.

2. Charleston

Located on the Kanawha River, and sporting an easily negotiable street grid system, it is subdivided into the Capitol Complex and the downtown area with the East End Historic District linking the two.

From the former, which is the heart of state government, juts the ubiquitously visible, gold-domed Capitol Building itself.  Constructed of buff Indiana limestone and 4,640 tons of steel, which themselves required the temporary laying of a spur rail line to transport them, the building had been laid in three stages during an eight-year period: 1924 to 1925 for the west wing, 1926 to 1927 for the east wing, and 1930 to 1932 for the connecting rotunda.  It was officially dedicated by Governor William G. Conley on June 20, 1932, on the occasion of West Virginia's 69th birthday as a state.

Its gold dome, which extends five feet higher than that of the Capitol in Washington, is gilded in 23 ½-karat gold leaf, applied between 1988 and 1991 as tiny squares to cover the otherwise copper and lead surface.

Two-thirds of its interior, which encompasses 535,000 square feet subdivided into 333 rooms, is comprised of Italian travertine, imperial derby, and Tennessee marble, and the chandelier in the rotunda, its center piece, is made of 10,180 pieces of Czechoslovakian crystal illuminated by 96 light bulbs.  Weighing 4,000 pounds, it hangs from a 54-foot brass and bronze chain.

Across from the State Capitol, but still within the complex, is the West Virginia Cultural Center.  Opened in 1976 and operated by the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, it was created to showcase the state's artistic, cultural, and historical heritage, and houses the West Virginia State Museum, the archives and history library, a gift shop, and a venue for cultural events, performances, and related programs.

The former, a collection of items which represents the state's land, people, and culture, is subdivided into 24 significant scenes covering five periods: Prehistory (3 million years BC to 1650 AD), Frontier (1754-1860), the Civil War and the 35th State (1861 to 1899), Industrialization (1900 to 1945), and Change and Tradition (1954 to the 21st  century).  The 24 representations themselves trace the state's evolution and include such periods as "Coal Forest," "River Plains," "Wilderness," "The Fort," "Harper's Ferry," "Building the Rails," "Coal Mine," "Main Street, West Virginia," and "New River Gorge."

Thirteen monuments, memorials, and statues honoring West Virginians for their contributions to the state and the nation grace the Capitol Complex's landscaped grounds.

Culture can also be experienced at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences, a modern, 240,000-square-foot, three-level complex which opened on July 12, 2003 and represents one of the most ambitious economic, cultural, and educational projects in West Virginia's history.  Offering sciences, visual arts, and performing arts under a single roof, the center houses the dual-level Avampato Discovery Museum, an interactive, youth-oriented experience with sections such as Health Royale, KidSpace, Earth City, and Gizmo Factory.  A 9,000-square-foot Art Gallery, located on the second floor, features both temporary and permanent exhibits, the latter emphasizing 19th and 20th century art by names such as Andy Warhol, Stuart Davis, Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Vida Frey, and Albert Paley.  The ElectricSky Theater, a 61-foot domed planetarium, offers daily astronomy shows and wide screen presentations.  Live performances are staged in two locations: the 1,883-seat Maier Foundation Performance Hall, which is home to the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, but otherwise offers a variety of performance types, from comedy to popular singers, bands, repertory, and Broadway plays, and the 200-seat Walker Theater, which features plays and dances with cabaret-style seating for the Woody Hawley singer-songwriter program.  The Douglas V. Reynolds Intermezzo Café and three classrooms are located on the lower level.

Shopping can be done at two major venues.  The Charleston Town Center Mall, located adjacent to the Town Center Marriott and Embassy Suites Hotel, and near the Civic Center, is a one million square foot, tri-level complex with more than 130 stores, three anchor department stores, six full-service restaurants, and a food court with ten additional fast food venues, and is accessed through three convenient parking garages.  Sporting a three-story atrium and fountain, the upscale, Kanawha Valley complex was the largest urban shopping center east of the Mississippi River when it opened in 1983.

The Capitol Market, located on Capitol and Sixth Streets in the restored and converted, 1800s Kanawha and Michigan Railroad depot, is subdivided into both in- and outdoor markets, the latter of which can only be used by bonafide farmers and receives daily, fresh, seasonal deliveries, usually consisting of flowers, shrubs, and trees in the spring; fruits and vegetables in the summer; pumpkins, gourds, and cornstalks in the fall; and Christmas trees, wreaths, and garlands in the winter.  The indoor market sells seafood, cheeses, and wines, and offers several small food stands and a full-service Italian restaurant.

An evening can be spent at the TriState Racetrack and Gaming Center.  Located a 15-minute drive from Charleston in Cross Lanes, the venue offers 90,000 square feet of gaming entertainment, inclusive of more than 1,300 slot machines, live racing, a poker room, blackjack, roulette, and craps, and four restaurants: the French Quarter Restaurant and Bar, the First Turn Restaurant, the Café Orleans, and Crescent City.  The adjacent, Mardi Gras-style hotel was completed in 2010.

3. Potomac Highlands       

The Potomac Highlands, located in the eastern portion of the state on the Allegheny Plateau, is a tapestry of diverse geographic regions and covers eight counties.  Alternatively designated "Mountain Highlands," it had been formed some 250 million years ago when the North American and African continental collision had produced a single, uplifted mass.  Subjected to millennia of wind- and water-caused erosion, it resulted in successive valleys and parallel ridges, and today the area encompasses two national forests: Canaan Valley, the highest east of the Mississippi River, and Spruce Knob, at 4,861 feet, West Virginia's highest point.  Its green-covered mountains yielded abundant timber, the logging railroads necessary to harness it, two premier ski resorts, and a myriad of outdoor sports and activities.

The Potomac Highlands can be subdivided into the Tygart Valley, Seneca Rocks, Canaan Valley, and Big Mountain Country.

A. Tygart Valley

The town of Elkins, located in the Tygart Valley, is the transportation, shopping, and social center of the east central Appalachian Mountains and serves as a base for Potomac Highland excursions.

Established in 1890 by Senators Henry Gassaway Davis and Stephen. B. Elkins, his son-in-law and business partner, it originated as a shipping hub for their coal, timber, and railroad empire, the latter the result of their self-financed construction of the West Virginia Central Railroad, whose track stretched between Cumberland, Maryland, and Elkins, and served as the threshold to some of the world's richest timber and mineral resources.

The town, serving the needs of the coal miners, loggers, and railroad workers, sprouted central maintenance shops and steadily expanded, peaking in 1920, before commencing a resource depletion-caused decline, until the last train, carrying coal and timber products to the rest of the country, departed the depot in 1959.

The tracks lay barren and unused for almost half a century until 2007, when the newly-established Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad again resurrected them—and the town—transporting the first tourists for scenic-ride purposes and resparking a slow growth cycle with a subsequently built restaurant and live theater in its historic Elkins Railyard and additional hotels nearby.  Consistently ranked as one of the country's best small art towns, it is once again the service hub of the Mountain Highlands, reverting to its original purpose of providing hotel, restaurant, shop, and entertainment services, but now to a new group—tourists.

The railroad remains its focus.  The Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad offers three departures from the Elkins depot.  The first of these, the "New Tygart Flyer," is a four-hour, 46-mile round-trip run which plunges through the Cheat Mountain Tunnel, passes the towns of Bowdon and Bemis, parallels the Shavers Fork of the Cheat River, and stops at the horseshoe-shaped High Falls of Cheat, during which time it serves an enroute, buffet luncheon.  Upgraded table service is available in 1922-ear deluxe Pullman Palace cars for a slightly higher price.

The "Cheat Mountain Salamander" is a nine-hour, 128-mile round-trip to Spruce, and includes a buffet lunch and dinner, while the "Mountain Express Dinner Train" mimics the New Tygart Flyer's route, but features a four-course meal in a formally set dining car.

The Railyard Restaurant, sandwiched between the Elkins depot and the American Mountain Theater, provides all on board meals.  Emulating the depot itself with its exterior brick construction, the $2.5 million, 220-seat restaurant, leased to the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad, serves family-style cuisine on its main level and upscale dinners in its second-floor Vista Dome Dining Room, its menus inspired by railroad car fare from the 1920s to the 1940s.  It toted the opening slogan of, "Take the track to the place with exceptional taste."

The Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad's Rails and Trails Gift Shop is located on its main level.

Continuing the historic, red brick exterior, the adjacent American Mountain Theater, founded in 2003 by Elkins native and RCA recording artist, Susie Heckel, traces its origins to a variety show performed for tourists at a different location.  But increasing demand merited the November, 2006, ground-braking for a $1.7 million, 12,784-square-foot, 525-seat structure with aid from her sister, Beverly Sexton, and her husband, Kenny, who owned the Ozark Mountain Hoe-Down Theater in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Opening the following July, the theater offered family-oriented, Branson-style entertainment performed by a nine-member cast, with Kenny Sexton serving as its president and producer and Beverly writing the score.  Two-hour evening shows include comedy, impressions, and country, gospel, bluegrass, and pop music.

Davis and Elkins College, located only a few blocks from the Historic Railyard, shares the same founders as the town of Elkins itself—namely, Senators Henry Gassaway Davis and Stephen B. Elkins.  Established in 1901 when they donated land and funding to create a college associated with the Presbyterian Church, it was originally located south of town.  Its Board of Trustees first met the following year and classes were first held on September 21, 1904.

Today, the coeducational, liberal arts college, located on a 170-acre hilled, wooded campus with views of the Appalachian Mountains, is comprised of 22 new and historic buildings in two sections—the north, which stretches to the athletic fields and the front campus, which is located on a ridge overlooking Elkins.  Thirty associate and baccalaureate arts, sciences, pre-professional, and professional degree programs are offered to a 700-student base.

One of its historic buildings is Graceland Inn.  Designed by the Baltimore architectural firm of Baldwin and Pennington, the castle-like, Queen Anne-style mansion, originally located on a 360-acre farm, was completed in 1893.  Initially called "Mingo Moor," and intermittently "Mingo Hall" after the area south of Elkins, the estate served as the summer residence of Senator Davis, who regularly transported a train of invited friends and associates during July and August so that they could escape the Washington heat and enjoy Elkins' higher-elevation, cooler temperatures.

The estate was ultimately renamed "Graceland" after Davis' youngest daughter, Grace.  Following his wife's death in 1902, he continued to conduct business from offices inside it, while Grace herself resided there during the summer months with her family.

The estate was finally ceded to her own children, Ellen Bruce Lee and John A. Kennedy, its last two owners.

Acquired by the West Virginia Presbyterian Education Fund in 1941, it was used as a male residence hall by the college until 1970, whereafter it was closed.  Restored during the mid-1990s, it subsequently reopened as an historic country inn and as a dynamic learning lab for hospitality students.

Overlooking the town of Elkins, on the Davis and Elkins College campus, Graceland Inn, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, features a two-story great hall richly decorated with hardwoods, such as quartered oak, bird's eye maple, cherry, and walnut, a grand staircase, a parlor, a library, and its original stained glass windows.  The Mingo Room Restaurant, reflecting the mansion's initial designation and open to the public, is subdivided into four small rooms lined with red oak and fireplaces and an outdoor verandah, and eleven guest rooms, located on the second and third floors and named after prominent family members, contain antiques, Victorian reproductions, turrets, canopy beds, sleigh beds, armoires, marble bathrooms, and claw foot tubs.

Graceland Inn, the David and Elkins College, the town of Elkins itself, the historic depot and railyard, their tracks, and the Appalachian Mountain's coal and timber resources are all inextricably tied to the town's past--and its future.

B. Seneca Rocks

"Seneca Rocks" designates both a region of the Potomac Highlands and the outcroppings after which that region is named.

Resembling a razor back, or shark's fin, and located at the confluence of the Seneca Creek and the North Fork South Branch Potomac River, the 250-foot-thick, 900-foot-high Seneca Rocks, accessible by West Virginia Route 28, were formed 400 million years ago during the Silurian Period in an extensive sand shoal at the edge of the ancient Iapetus Ocean.  As the seas decreased in size, the rock uplifted and folded, erosion ultimately wearing away its upper surface and leaving the arching folds and craggy profile they exhibit today.

Made of white and gray tuscarora quartzite, the formation features both a north and south peak, with a notch separating the two.

The current Seneca Rocks Discovery Center, which replaced the original visitor's center, features relief models of the area, films, interpretive programs, and a bookshop.

A path leads to the Sites Homestead, part of the center.  Constructed in 1839 by William Sites as a single-room log cabin below Seneca Rocks Ridge, it is typical of then-current Appalachian homes whose German Blockbau-style featured square logs and v-notched corner joints spread apart by stone and clay chinks.  Its small casement windows were equally of German origin, while its "hall and parlor" floor plan reflected English style.  Chimney location indicated house location: northern-style dwellings incorporated internal ones and southern style homes sported external ones.

In the late-1860s, one of Sites' sons expanded the homestead, adding a second floor, and, after use as a hay barn, the Forest Service purchased it in 1969, restoring it during the 1980s.  In 1993, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The greater Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area, offering significant outdoor sports opportunities, contains a key portion of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, whose mountains and forests collect water which then flows into the Potomac River and the bay itself.  Acting as a cleansing and filtering mechanism, its headwater forests purify the water before it reaches the streams.  Spruce Knob is both the highest point in the Chesapeake Watershed and the entire state of West Virginia.

Aside from facilitating water, the area has provided sustenance to humans, who first lived in Native American villages within its mountains, and then created farming settlements and logging camps, extracting its resources and supporting life for some 13,000 years.  Today, it is home to 15 million people.

The Spruce Knob-Seneca Rocks National Recreation Area itself is part of the much larger Monongahela National Forest.  Established in 1920 with an initial 7,200 acres, the present 910,155-acre forest contains the headwaters of the Monongahela, Potomac, Greenbrier, Elk, Tygart, and Gauley Rivers; five federally-designated "wildernesses"—Dolly Sods, Outer Creek, Laurel Fork North, Laurel Fork South, and Cranberry—whose very remote and primitive areas only offer lower-standard trail markings; and four lakes.

A Mecca for outdoor sports enthusiasts, the national forest features 169 hiking, biking, and horseback riding trails which cover more than 800 miles, 576 miles of trout streams, 129 miles of warm-water fishing, 23 campgrounds, 17 picnic areas, and wildlife viewing of black bear, wild turkey, white-tailed deer, gray fox, rabbits, snowshoe hare, grouse, and woodcock.

C. Canaan Valley

Blanketed with bigtooth aspen, balsam fir, and spruce, Canaan Valley, stretching 14 miles, is the highest such valley east of the Mississippi River, its namesake mountain separating it from the Blackwater River and creating a deep, narrow canyon in the Allegheny Plateau.

The pristinely beautiful area encompasses two state parks—Canaan Valley Resort and Black Water Falls State Parks; two ski areas—again Canaan Valley Resort and Timberline Four Seasons Resort; and the nation's 500th wildlife refuge.

Natural sports abound: hiking, horseback riding, fishing, golfing, swimming, rafting, and interpretive nature walking during the summer, and skiing, snowboarding, and tubing during the winter.

Nucleus of most of this is 6,000-acre Canaan Valley Resort State Park, which encompasses 18 miles of trails, wetlands, open meadows, northern hardwood forests, wildlife, 200 species of birds, and 600 types of wildflowers.

Canaan Valley Resort, located within the park, offers 250 modern guest rooms, 23 two-, three-, and four-bedroom mountain cabins with fireplaces and full kitchens, 34 paved, wooded campsites with full hook-ups, and six lounges and restaurants, including the Hickory Dining Room in the main lodge.

Its 4,280-foot mountain, whose longest run is 1.25 miles and whose vertical drop is 850 feet, features one quad and two triple lifts, and 11 trails for night skiing.  Its winter activities, like those of the extended Canaan Valley, include skiing, snowboarding, airboarding, tubing, snowshoeing, and ice skating, while summer programs include scenic chairlift rides, guided walks, golf, tennis, and hiking.

D. Big Mountain Country

Big Mountain County, location of West Virginia's second-highest peak, serves as the birthplace of eight rivers—the Greenbier, Gauley, Cheat, Cherry, Elk, Williams, Cranberry, and Tygart—while its Seneca State Forest, which borders the former in Pocahontas County, is the state's oldest.  An interesting array of sights include steam-powered logging railroads, astronomical observatories, preserved towns, a premier ski resort, and their associated assortment of outdoor sports and activities.

The Durbin and Greenbier Valley Railroad's fourth excursion train, the "Durbin Rocket," departs from the town of Durbin itself, located some 40 miles from Elkins.

Powered by a 55-ton Steam Engine built for the Moore-Keppel Lumber Company in nearby Randolph County, and one of only three remaining geared Climax logging locomotives, the train makes a two-hour, 11-mile round-trip run along the Greenbier River and through the Monongahela National Forest as far as Piney Island, where the rental "castaway caboose" is disconnected and pushed onto a very short spur track for a one or more night stay.

The ultra-modern, high-tech National Radio Astronomy Observatory, located a short distance away in Green Bank, offers an opportunity to learn about radio wave astronomy.

Designing, building, and operating the world's most advanced and sophisticated radio telescopes, the observatory produces images of celestial bodies, such as planets, stars, and galaxies, millions of light-years away by recording their radio omission quantities.

The Green Bank Science Center, nucleus of this experience, features a museum which introduces the science of radio astronomy, radio waves, telescope operation, and what is being learned through them about the universe; the Galaxy Gift Shop; the Starlight Café; and the departure point for the escorted bus tour of the facility, prior to which an introductory film and lecture are presented in the theater.

The tour's highlight is the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT), designed when the previous 300-foot device collapsed in 1988 and Congress was forced to appropriate emergency funds to design it.

Dedicated on August 25, 2000, after a nine-year development period, it is 485 feet tall, is comprised of 2,004 panels, has a 100-by-110 meter diameter, a 2.3 acre surface area, and weighs 17 million pounds.  The world's largest, fully maneuverable telescope with a computer-controlled reflecting surface, it is functionally independent of the sun, permitting 24-hour-per-day operation, and receives wavelengths which vary between 1/8th of an inch to nine feet.

Initially employed in conjunction with the Arecibo Observatory to produce images of Venus, it later detected three new pulsars (spinning neutron stars) in the Messier 62 region.

A 15-minute drive from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory is another significant sight, Cass Scenic Railroad State Park.

Tracing its origins to 1899 when John G. Luke acquired more than 67,000 acres of red spruce in an area which ultimately developed into the town of Cass, it became the headquarters of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company.  The town, supporting the workforce needed to convert the raw resources into finished products, sprouted shops, services, houses, a sawmill, tracks, and a railroad to haul the timber.

Instrumental to the operation had been the Shay, or similarly-designed Climax and Heisler steam locomotives, whose direct gearing delivered positive control and more even power, allowing them to ply often temporarily-laid tracks, steep grades, and hairpin turns, all the while pulling heavy, freshly-felled timber loads.  The Western Maryland #6, at 162 tons, was the last, and heaviest, Shay locomotive ever built.  The railroad inaugurated its first service in 1901.

During two 11-hour, six-day-per-week shifts, the town's mill was able to cut more than 125,000 board feet of lumber per shift and dry 360,000 per run with its 11 miles of steam pipes, adding up to 1.5 million board feet cut per week and 35 million per year.  After 40 years of milling at Cass and Spruce, more than two billion board feet of lumber and paper had been produced.

Operating until 1943, the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company sold the enterprise to the Mower Lumber Company, which maintained it for another 17 years, at which time it was closed and purchased by the state of West Virginia, in 1961.

The railroad and the town of Cass, which remain virtually unchanged, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Aside from the historic buildings, there are several other attractions.  Connected to the large Cass Company Store is the railroad-themed Last Run Restaurant.  Turn-of-the-century logging can be gleaned at the Cass Historical Museum.  The Shay Railroad Shop, having once housed coal bins, offers additional books and crafts for sale.  The metal, Cass Showcase building above it, having stored hay to feed horse teams, features an introductory film and an HO-Scale Train and town layout reflecting their 1930s appearance.

Escorted walking tours of Cass, usually conducted in the afternoon after the trains have returned from their daily excursions, offer insight into what it had been like to live and work in a turn-of-the-century company town, while the Locomotive Repair Shop tour includes visits to the Mountain State Railroad and Logging Historical Association's shop, the sawmill area, and a look at Shay and Climax locomotive maintenance and repair.

An excursion on the Cass Scenic Railroad itself, which commenced tourist rides in 1963 and is therefore the longest-running scenic rail journey in the country, is a living history experience.  Pulled by one of the original Shay or Climax steam locomotives, the train accommodates passengers in equally authentic logging cars which have been converted to coaches with wooden, bench-like seats and roofs, while a single enclosed car, offering reserved seating, sports booth-like accommodation and is designated "Leatherbark Creek."

All trains depart from Cass's reconstructed depot, at a 2,456-foot elevation, climbing Leatherneck Run, negotiating 11-percent grades, maneuvering and reversing through a lower and upper switchback, and arriving at Whittaker Station, which features a snack stand, views of the eastern West Virginia mountains, and a reconstructed, 1946 logging camp.  The eight-mile round-trip back to Cass requires two hours. 

A four-and-a-half hour, 22-mile round-trip continues up Back Allegheny Mountain, passing Old Spruce and the Oats Creek Water Tank, and plying track laid by the Mower Lumber company, before reaching 4,842-foot Bald Knob, West Virginia's third-highest peak.

Limited runs are also offered to Spruce, an abandoned logging town on the Shavers Fork of the Cheat River.  This train also transits Whittaker Station.

Although not affiliated with the Cass Scenic Railroad, the Boyer Station Restaurant, located six miles from Green Bank on Route 28, offers inexpensive, home-cooked, country-style meals amidst railroad décor with wooden, rail depot-reminiscent tables and benches, train and logging memorabilia, and large-scale, track-mounted model railroads.  It is part of a 20-room motel and campground complex.

Winter sports account for a significant portion of the Big Mountain Country's offerings.  Ten miles from Cass Scenic Railroad State Park is Snowshoe Mountain.

Located in the bowl-shaped convergence of Cheat and Back Allegheny Mountain at the head of the Shavers Fork of the Cheat River, the area, striped of trees by logging between 1905 and 1960, had been discovered by Thomas Brigham, a North Carolina dentist, who had previously opened the Beech Mountain and Sugar Mountain Ski Resorts.

Reflecting European style, Snowshoe Village is located on the mountain's summit and offers 1,400 hotel and condominium rooms, restaurants, shops, services, and entertainment.  The 244-acre resort, which combines the Snowshoe and Silver Creek areas, has a 3,348-foot base; a 4,848-foot summit, making it the highest such ski resort in the mid-Atlantic and southeast; 14 chairlifts; 60 runs, of which the longest is 1.5 miles; and 1,500-foot vertical drops at Cupp Run and Shay's Revenge.  Average snowfall is 180 inches.  Spring, summer, and fall activities include golf, boating, bicycling, climbing, hiking, horseback riding, canoeing, kayaking, skating, and swimming.

The extended area's Seneca State Forest, named after the Native Americans who had once roamed the land, borders the Greenbier River in Pocahontas County and contains 23 miles of forest, 11,684 acres of woodlands, a four-acre lake for boating and trout, largemouth bass, and bluegill fishing, hiking tails, pioneer cabins, and rustic campsites.

4. New River-Greenbrier Valley

The New River-Greenbrier Valley region of West Virginia is topographically diverse and ruggedly beautiful.

Split by the Gauley River, its northern section is comprised of a rugged plateau in which is nestled the calm, azure Summersville Lake, while mountainous ridgelines, affording extensive interior coal mining, are characteristic of its central region.  Horse and cattle grazing is prevalent on the flat farm expanses which intersperse the eastern edge's lush, green mountain plateau, divided by the Greenbrier River, the largest, untamed water channel in the eastern United States, which flows through it.  Its southern region is a jigsaw puzzle of omni-directional ridgelines and very narrow valleys.

New and Bluestone River-formed gorges provide a wealth of rock climbing, canoeing, kayaking, and white water rafting opportunities in this region of the state.

The area's most prominent, and beautiful, topographical feature is the New River Gorge National River.  Flowing from below Bluestone Dam, near Hinton, to the north of the US Highway 19 bridge near Fayetteville, it dissects all the physiographic provinces of the Appalachian Mountains.  A rugged, white water river, and among the oldest in North America, it flows northward through steep canyons and geological formations.  Approximately 1,000 feet separate its bottom from its adjacent plateau.  On July 30, 1998, it was named an American Heritage River, one of 14 waterways so designated.

Its related park encompasses 70,000 acres.

Signature of the New River Gorge National Park is its New River Gorge Bridge.  Completed on October 22, 1977 at a $37 million cost, the dual-hinged, steel arch bridge is 3,030 feet long, 69.3 feet wide, and has an 876-foot clearance.  Carrying the four lanes of US Route 19, it was then the world's longest, and is currently the highest vehicular bridge in the Americas and the second highest in the world after the Millau Viaduct in France.  Its longest single span, between arches, is 1,700 feet.

There are three related visitor centers and vantagepoints.  The Canyon Rim Visitor Center, located two miles north of Fayetteville on Route 19, offers exhibits, films, interpretive programs, trails, and a scenic overlook, while the Grandview Center is located in Thurmond off of Interstate 64 on Route 25.  The park's headquarters are in Glen Jean.  

Fayetteville is the hub for New River Gorge kayaking and white water rafting.

Coal, as synonymous with West Virginia as logging, is an industry the tourist should experience sometime during his visit.  The Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine, located in the city of the same name, offers just such an opportunity.

A 1,400-square-foot Company Store, coal museum, fudgery, and gift shop serves as a visitor's center and threshold to the sight's two major components.  A coal camp, the first of these, depicts 20th-century life in a typical coal town, represented by several relocated and restored buildings.

Plying 1,500 feet of underground passages in the 36-inch, Phillips-Sprague Seam Mine, which had been active between 1883 and 1953, track-guided "man-cars" driven by authentic miners, encompass the complex's second component and make periodic stops in the cold, damp, and dark passage to discuss and illustrate the advancement of mining techniques.  The rock duster, for example, ensured that coal dust would not explode deep in the mine.  Strategically positioned roof bolts avoided cave-ins.  Pumps extracted water.  Dangerously low oxygen levels dictated immediate evacuation.

Coal had fueled the world's steam engines for industrial plants and rail and sea transportation.

The Phillips-Sprague Mine is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

5. Conclusion

West Virginia's three principle regions of Charleston, the Potomac Highlands, and the New River-Greenbier Valley offer immersive experiences into the past which shaped the present by means of its pristinely beautiful and resource-rich mines and mountains that yielded coal, timber, logging railroads, and an abundance of outdoor sports.

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