Published November 1965 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
From the Office of United States Senator Robert C. Byrd Room 342, Old Senate Office Building, Washington. D. C. Volume V -- Number 46 November 12, 1965 Byrd‘s Eye View A Public Service Column by Senator Robert C. Byrd HISTORICAL PROJECTS AS TOURIST ATTRACTIONS A recently issued study by Wheeling College, undertaken under a Federal grant, provides analysis of tourist and recreational possibilities of certain archeological and historic sites within West Virginia. Eleven sites have been proposed for development, following review of their historical backgrounds to determine merits for preservation as antiquities. These are located within approximately 15 to 50 miles of major tourist attractions or facilities--located or under development--at Hawk's Nest, Canaan Valley, Bluestone, Grandview, Cacapon, and Twin Falls State Parks. Among these projects are: a museum and summer stock theater at Cass--the old lumbering village in Pocahontas County; a chemical museum at Malden--to depict Kanawha Valley's chemical industry; development of Camp Allegheny as a Civil War battleground attraction--on the Parkersburg-Stanton turnpike; preservation of facilities at Berkeley Springs--the first mineral resort in America; and establishment of a museum to complement the exhibition coal mine in Beckley and improvement of the museum and coal mine tour area around Stotesbury--Making the project an historical attraction of national importance. Others are also recommended. Sagacious and effective development of the proposed Beckley-Stotesbury complex, to illustrate the history of coal mining in West Virginia from the time Indians wore coal lumps as jewelry through the evolution of coal mining commercially, with the accompanying rise of unionism, would serve to provide a unique project in the United States similar in concept to that recently announced for the Rhondda Valley of Wales, the famous coal mining area in the British Isles. The now bleak Rhondda Valley, denuded of trees, with slag heaps defacing the hillsides, the river running black with coal dust, and with abandoned coal colliery workings everywhere predominating, was the background for author Richard Llewellyn's book '”How Green Was My Valley", and later served as the scene of the world famous movie of the same title, which directed international attention to the stark tragedy of industrial depression in coal mining areas. The Rhondda Borough Council, local authority for the region, plans to make Rhondda a new tourist spot, with picnic and camping sites among thousands of trees soon to be planted for restoration of mountain forests, and trout and salmon running heavily in the unpolluted river. The present long rows of bleak, terraced miners' dwellings are to be torn down and replaced with modern units, and a new center with modern buildings is being devised for location at Porth. Just as far-sighted civic planners in England are taking action to capitalize on the fascinating history of coalmining, as a magnet for tourists, so should our State act to reap economic and historical dividends by combining its assets--its own dynamic history of coal mining, its established rank among coal producing regions of the world, and its great natural scenic attractions--to create a unique historical complex in the Beckley- Stotesbury area. - 30 -