Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike

Landmark: Monongahela National Forest

Home to Cranberry Glades, Spruce Knob, and Dolly Sods, the Monongahela National

Forest offers exceptional opportunities for exploring West Virginia.

Suggested Time at This Site: 10 minutes

This inn on the turnpike served travelers and as a stagecoach stop. It was the post office for the community, that was originally known as Traveler's Repose. The town was renamed Bartow after the Civil War camp. There are interpretive signs, but the home is private property, please view from the road.

Stop 4
Landmark: Cheat Summit Fort

Continue on the route, US Rt 250, through Bartow (you can stop for information or restrooms at the Greenbrier District Ranger Station) and the lumber boom / railroad town of Durbin, where you might have lunch at the Old Pike Grill. Continue up the mountain, across the Shavers Fork Bridge, then take an immediate left and follow signs to the fort.

Suggested Time at This Site: 45 minutes

Cheat Summit Fort is the Union fortification facing Camp Bartow and Camp Allegheny. All three were strong positions -- the Confederate attack on Cheat Summit, and the Union attacks from here on Bartow and Allegheny, all failed. It was the severe winter weather that defeated them, as all the troops moved east to the Shenandoah Valley in spring 1862. On a clear winter night, soldiers here could see the campfires of their adversaries at Camp Allegheny.  Battle Cheat Mountain

Stop 5
Landmark: Tygart Valley Homesteads

Directions from previous place: Return to the byway and continue west then north on US Rt 250, through Huttonsville and Mill Creek to Valley Bend.

Suggested Time at This Site: 20 minutes

Coming down off of Cheat and driving through the Tygart Valley, you see more of the twentieth-century experience along the turnpike. Lumber mill towns like Mill Creek, operating sawmills, family farms, and many modern residences mixed in with the older homes. At Valley Bend and Dailey you can explore a community created during the Depression for resettlement of unemployed. 

Drive the back roads of Valley Bend, and notice the similarity of house designs (there were three original designs), and how each home has its own large lot for garden, outbuildings, and root cellar. Back on the highway, stop at the Homestead School - built for the community and still in use - and see the interpretive sign there. In Dailey is the sawmill built for the community, and still an operating sawmill, and the buildings that were for administration and craft workshops for the community.

Stop 6
Landmark: Antique shopping

Suggested Time at This Site: 30 minutes

While in Beverly, visit the Lemuel Chenoweth house. This unique, beautifully restored home was built by the talented builder of many of the turnpike bridges.  You can tour the house and learn about Chenoweth, while shopping for quality antiques.

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