WestVirginiaVille

A slideshow from the Charleston Gazette series “The Shape We’re In” tracks how the literal shape of things — of people themselves — has changed in West Virginia.

A heads up if you’re within striking distance of Charleston, W.Va. This month’s free Charleston ArtWalk features a superb exhibit of remarkable historic West Virginia photos previously profiled in two audio slideshows on WestVirginiaVille.

There are far smaller disasters that no one outside of a region knows about – just a handful of people killed. And yet these events are no less seared into a local community’s consciousness.

Take a listen to Catherine Moore’s 10-minute audio documentary on the recent 50-mile march on Blair Mountain by a colorful crew of hundreds of marchers, intent on preserving the historic site.

“As we awoke on the morning of November 5, 1985, none of us could imagine the changes that were being wrought upon our world …”

“November 4, 1985, may just be another day to most of you,” writes Matthew Burns, “but it will forever be imprinted in my psyche as the day that defined my life.”

A second musical slideshow of richly detailed portraits of long-gone West Virginians by Finley Taylor, shot between 1917 and 1949, and by the staff of the Richmond News Leader from the 1940s to 1960s.

The back-to-the-land influx in the early ’70s profoundly changed West Virginia to this day. An excerpt from a book project tracing part of the Mountain State’s hippie history.