Like the barren surface of the moon, the crest of Cabin Mountain stretched out in a desolate field of rock. Botanist Harry Allard came across this stark image when he walked in the wastelands of Grant County’s spruce forests following an era of intensive logging and roaring forest fires. The life and death of West Virginia’s high altitude valleys is a story of a hidden boreal ecosystem, the transformative harvest of the forest, and its devastating aftermath, leaving little but the seeds for a hopeful rebirth.

If the unmistakable rust-red and ochre brick walls of the Golden Rule Building could talk, what stories would they tell? Most likely they would beam about the town of Belington, a place that has long relied on the Golden Rule and in the building’s darkest hour, brought it love and new life.

For European settlers, Hampshire County, Virginia in the early 1800’s was an unknown territory on the periphery of American society. The land, while previously inhabited by Native Americans, was only recently reached by Europeans.  For immigrants like the Pugh’s coming from Wales, the Capon Valley was reminiscent of their former homeland.  Establishing a homestead in the remote valley required self reliance, innovative spirit, and sheer will.  David Pugh would carve out a legacy into the Capon Valley, one that continues to shine as a beacon honoring a family’s determination to establish a place they could call home.

In July of 1877, a strike on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad threw the United States into a crisis that shook its very foundations. The outburst became the first nationwide general strike in US history, travelling across major and minor railroad lines and spreading into countless other industries. In the Appalachian Forest, battlegrounds erupted in Allegany, Morgan, and Mineral County in the mountains and woods along the B&O line. The uprising crossed divisions of race, gender, and status as the downtrodden rose up against an absolute power.