Preston County History Day

History isn’t just in books.

Walk back in time on Preston County History Day, August 21 at Arthurdale Heritage, open 10 AM–3 PM; the Aurora Area Historical Society Museum, 1 PM–4 PM; the McGrew House in Kingwood, 1 PM-3 PM; the Szilagyi Center museums in Rowlesburg from 1 PM– 4 PM; the History House Museum in Terra Alta, 1-4 PM; and the Tunnelton Train Depot from 1 PM–3 PM.

Find out more about Arthurdale’s purpose and its past at the five-building museum commemorating the nation’s first New Deal subsistence homestead community championed by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Why were those 165 homesteads built by the federal government?

Connect with the good old days when Aurora’s clear mountaintop air made it a summer resort town for wealthy city residents, servants included, who came by train to get away from the cities that were thought to be much less healthy.

Did you know that Kingwood businessman, James McGrew, participated in the momentous events that resulted in West Virginia becoming the 35th state in 1863? His home shows the lifestyle of the era, along with other historic exhibits from county residents.

If genealogy is your interest, the History House’s Preston County genealogical archives in Terra Alta are open for tracing family lines. While there, you can see a great variety of daily life objects from long ago, even many that will ring a bell.

Thanks to the efforts of many volunteers, the Szilagyi Center in Rowlesburg provides insightful connections to World War II and its many heroes, our county’s own high school star athletes and their teams’ history, and the important engineering of railroad bridges.

What do a top hat and a stereopticon have in common? Both are on display in the History House along with various ways to learn about family and everyday life from earlier times. Search the genealogical records too.

The 109-year-old Tunnelton Train Depot, now a museum, gives you a chance to sit in the spacious B & O waiting room and learn more about railroad life and commerce during the 20th Century.

A shopping trip to Grafton on the train cost 10 cents. There are two historic tunnels nearby.

Also, three outdoor Civil War Trail sites near Aurora and Rowlesburg commemorate the Jones-Imboden Raid and its effect on those areas of the county. The Confederates lost the confrontation in Rowlesburg and had to withdraw from the area.

Many of these county sites will be open the third Sunday of each month through October 16.

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Preston County, WV, USA