Growing up in Fayette County, I had the honor of knowing and being raised by members of our nation’s “greatest generation”. My great-grandma Dorothy and other older family members who lived through the Great Depression and World War II, always told me stories of their childhoods here in Fayette County. I grew up hearing stories of infamous hunting and camping trips on Beury Mountain, miner’s strikes in the Minden Coal Camp, wild-west style tales of turn of the century Thurmond, back in its hey-day. I even shifted my first “stick shift” gears on my dad’s old hard-body Nissan pick-up truck right there on Beury Mountain Road sitting on my dad’s lap as a child. I can trace my family roots in Fayette County as far back as the early 1800s—before King Coal even hit the scene in a big way. My family was always there as far back as collective family memory can recall.
Hearing these stories of Fayette County captivated me as a child, and I know they instilled within me the love for our local history that I have today. I would spend hours and hours as a child leafing through my grandma’s copy of “The History of Fayette County”, imagining myself there among those people—many of them my own family members. Every year, my grandma Janet and great-grandma Dorothy would allow me to tag along with them to the annual Minden reunion. I even have memories of walking from Minden to Thurmond along the train tracks with the other participants, as this was the big event of the reunion every year.
Most of those people are gone now; all that remain of them are some things they left behind and the stories we were privileged enough to be told. All we have left are those cherished family stories and some physical remains of a time that is now gone. Our collective history is falling down all around us as the forest takes back buildings from historic coal camps, or arson and fire claim what is left. And now, our very own National Park Service seeks to expedite this process in the Thurmond area by demolishing over thirty structures—some of them even on the National Historic Register!
As someone who is a proud West Virginia History teacher to a great group of 8th grade students right here in Fayette County and as the Delegate in the West Virginia Legislature who represents a third of Fayette County and the Thurmond area itself, I am incredibly alarmed and saddened to see the news that the National Park Service plans on demolishing historic structures in the Thurmond area—our nation’s NEWEST National Park! Yes, some of these structures need to come down, but many of them do not. Some of them have even undergone preservation and renovation work in recent years! In a time where we are struggling to maintain our unique Appalachian identity and heritage as new people move into our part of the state to take advantage of our area’s natural beauty, this is just absolutely unconscionable. I do not know of another more accurate word to describe this.
As budget cuts were cited as the reason for these planned demolitions, I am calling on our National Delegation: Senator Manchin, Senator Capito, Congresswoman Miller, and Congressman Mooney to please step-in and put a stop to this process until more federal funds can be allocated to the New River Gorge National Park so that many of these historic structures can be saved. I am also asking that concerned members of our communities and local political figures please attend the scheduled public meeting in January so their voices and concerns can be made known to representatives of the National Park Service.
We were led to believe that this new National Park designation for the New River Gorge area would bring tourism dollars and economic development to our area, and would work to preserve the dwindling number of historic structures we have left—not fast-track the destruction and demolition of our culture and history.
Those of us who grew up here and have deep personal ties to our local history must start speaking out. What kind of West Virginia history teacher would I be, and what kind of Delegate would I be if I did not speak out and advocate for the preservation of our county’s history, heritage, and culture? What would my students think of me if I did not speak out? What would my constituents think of me if I did not speak out? We must preserve our local history, not destroy it.
Delegate David Elliott Pritt
Fayette County (District 50)