Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike

Visitor Services

• Fees: There are no fees to drive this route.
• Camping: There are places to camp along the route at the Monongahela National Forest and at the Stonewall Jackson State Park and Inn.
• Picnics: There are places to camp along the road at the Monongahela National Forest and at the Stonewall Jackson State Park 
• Food: There are places to buy food along the route at most small towns and at all cities.
• Gasoline: Gasoline is available at most small towns and at all cities.
• Information: Information is available at the Ranger Station in Bartow, the train depot in Durbin, the Byway Visitor Center in Beverly, and at Visitor Centers in Weston and Parkersburg. Each has information about specific attractions. The road has a detailed interpretive guidebook and interpretive signs that focus on the eastern section of the byway. A four volume audio history can be purchased.
• Lodging: There is overnight lodging along the route at Bartow, Elkins, Weston, and Parkersburg.

Departure: Camp Allegheny
Destination: Oakland
Time to allow: 2 days

Traveling from Staunton, the original beginning of the turnpike, you enter the byway at the Virginia / West Virginia state line on the top of Allegheny Mountain, and travel across West Virginia to Parkersburg on the Ohio River.

These two forests stretch from one end of Virginia to the other, as well as extending into West Virginia, along the ruggedly beautiful Appalachians. Virtually every type of outdoor recreation activity you can imagine is available.

Suggested Time at This Site: 20 minutes

Visit this pristine Civil War fortification that illustrates the remoteness of the territory and extreme challenges faced by soldiers in this first winter of the war.

Read the interpretive signs, then view the landscape while hiking through the earthworks and see the chimney falls marking soldiers' cabins.

Directions from previous place: Continue on Camp Allegheny Backway. Driving this gravel road from Camp Allegheny to Camp Bartow gives the closest experience to the original turnpike. You are driving on the original route, with a minimum of modern intrusions. Imagine that you are in a wagon, passing small homesteads scattered between the deep forest. Summer or fall are the best times, winter and early spring the road might not be passable.

Suggested Time at This Site: 10 minutes

Camp Bartow, on both sides of the backway as you near the bottom of the mountain, was the original Confederate fortification in this area. Artillery on these hills fought Union artillery across the valley in October, 1861. Although the fortification held, it was considered a weak position, and the troops retreated up the mountain to Camp Allegheny.

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