Mother's Day was first celebrated on May 10, 1908, when Anna Jarvis hosted the first official Mother's Day service at St Andrew's Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia. St Andrew's Methodist Church now holds the International Mother's Day Shrine.
The world's largest teapot stands on a manicured lawn in Chester, West Virginia. It measures 14 feet (4.3 m) in height by 14 feet (4.3 m) in diameter. The teapot was originally a giant root beer keg. It was purchased in 1938 by William "Babe" Devon, who brought it to Chester and added the spout, lid, and handle.
Despite its name, the New River, which runs through West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina, is actually one of the world's oldest rivers, perhaps as old as 340 million years. In contrast with the west-to-east flow of most other major rivers in the area, the New River flows south to north, on account of it predating the mountains that surround it.
Thornsbury Bailey Brown of Taylor County, Virginia (now West Virginia) is generally considered the first Union soldier killed by a Confederate soldier during the American Civil War. Brown was a member of a Virginia militia company, the Grafton Guards, which supported the Union. He was killed by a member of a Virginia militia company which supported the Confederacy from the same general vicinity, the Letcher Guard, at the bridge at the intersection of the Northwestern Turnpike and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Fetterman, Virginia (now West Virginia) on May 22, 1861.
Huntington's nickname is Jewel City because at one time it was the western terminus of the C&O railroad and was rich in goods and natural resources.
Sugar maple trunks are tapped early in the spring to collect their sap, which is boiled or concentrated further with evaporation to produce maple syrup.
The timber rattlesnake ((Crotalus horridus) is venomous but usually docile unless threatened. It can live as long as thirty years and is the only species of snake in the state with a segmented rattle at the end of its tail.
Established by consecutive acts of the Virginia House of Burgesses and approved by the governor on December 23, 1762, Romney and Mecklenburg (later renamed Shepherdstown), in Jefferson County, are the oldest towns in West Virginia. The bill containing the Act for establishing the town of Romney, in the county of Hampshire, and for other purposes therein-mentioned, is listed 20th on a list of approved "publick and private bills" and precedes Shepherdstown by perhaps only minutes as it is immediately followed by An Act for establishing the town of Mecklenburg, in the county of Frederick.
At 4,863 feet (1,482 m), Spruce Knob is the highest point in the state of West Virginia and the summit of Spruce Mountain, the highest peak in the Allegheny Mountains.
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