44 Cool and Unusual Things to Do in West Virginia - Atlas Obscura

Unusual
Attractions
in West Virginia

Rock, West Virginia

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park

This abandoned amusement park was built on an American Indian burial ground. Seriously.

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Added by kelseythomas

Weston, West Virginia

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

A particularly creepy abandoned asylum which sparks interest with the morbid and the ghost hunters.

Added by cinapelayo

Thurmond, West Virginia

Thurmond, West Virginia

Once connected to the outside world by a single train track, a boomtown-turned-ghost town.

LeahC

Point Pleasant, West Virginia

Mothman Museum

A small storefront museum explores the history and myth of West Virginia's famous urban legend.

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Added by Jane Weinhardt Goldberg

Moundsville, West Virginia

Archive of the Afterlife

The museum calls itself the "National Museum of the Paranormal" and is full of eerie oddities.

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Added by Hummel1600

Ansted, West Virginia

Mystery Hole

The "mysteries" of this quintessential roadside oddity were almost destroyed by neglect but were saved by fans of kitschy wonder.

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Added by ellenshenk

Moundsville, West Virginia

West Virginia State Penitentiary

Beyond your average beatings and shankings, this pen has a pretty bloody undercurrent running through its history.

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Added by Nicholas Jackson

Fayetteville, West Virginia

Nuttallburg

Hikers can still stroll beneath the long conveyer of this abandoned mining facility hidden in a West Virginia river gorge.

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Added by outdoors602

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Unique
Food & Drink
in West Virginia

Snow Cream

Gastro Obscura

Snow Cream

Ice cream made with fresh snow is a beloved Southern tradition.

Gastro Obscura

Added by Sam OBrien

Ohio Valley-Style Pizza

Gastro Obscura

Ohio Valley-Style Pizza

In parts of Ohio, pizza topped with cold, unmelted mozzarella reigns supreme.

Gastro Obscura

Ike Allen

Added by Ike Allen

Roadkill Cook-Off

Gastro Obscura

Roadkill Cook-Off

West Virginia's annual competition features the likes of squirrel gravy over biscuits and snapping turtle stew.

Gastro Obscura

Added by Sam OBrien

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Stories
About West Virginia

A cemetery surrounded by a coal mine in West Virginia.

The Mountaintop Cemeteries Surrounded by Coal Mines

Hard to access and hemmed in by explosive activity, these graveyards are stuck in limbo.

by Jessica Leigh Hester

October 30, 2018

Engraving of salt works on Kanawha River, West Virginia.

Making Salt From an Ancient Ocean Trapped Below the Appalachians

West Virginia was once a seabed.

by Eric J. Wallace

January 08, 2018

A "sea devil" from Icones animalium (1553).

Where to Find the World's Best Hometown Monsters

Here are 25 places to see yetis, sea monsters, Sasquatch, and other cryptids.

by Molly McBride Jacobson

February 24, 2017