Let’s all lift our pepperoni rolls for a toast.
That’s because West Virginia’s birthday celebration is coming back to downtown for the first time since COVID.
The Mountain State turns 160 on June 20, but Main Street Morgantown is getting the jump with an all-out party this coming Saturday, June 17.
Everything from live music to bounce houses and craft beer will be part of the proceedings which will run from noon-5 p.m. that day on the block of High Street between Walnut and Kirk streets.
Visit www.wvbirthday.com for all the details.
“This is a chance for us to get back together so we can celebrate our ‘West Virginia-ness,’” said Mark Downs, the president of Main Street’s board.
“This is a culture you embrace,” he said. “It’s about our character, our history, our architecture, our community. You’re not going to find a place more special than this.”
Or more tenacious than this, as related to both that history and the collective courage of convictions presented by the residents of then-western Virginia, pre-statehood.
While much is made of the fact the state was the only one born of the Civil War, residents of the northwestern climes were already philosophically and socially breaking away — as early as the mid-1800s, even.
Part of it was geography.
Richwood wasn’t Richmond.
Homesteaders here were more about the Ohio Valley than they were the Antebellum South.
The cultural, political divide got even more pronounced when those same residents trended more Union in the early days of the massive conflict between North and South.
It was a war that threatened to rip the very fabric of the Republic in two jagged halves.
West Virginia’s admission as the 35th state in the Union on June 20, 1863, literally put the cause of the North back on the rails.
Besides the aforementioned philosophical and political impacts of creating a new state with Union sympathies during the darkest days of the fighting, the Union was now bolstered by the might of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
The rail line traversed key northern and eastern sections of the new state marked by rugged terrain not easy for troops on foot or horseback to negotiate — no matter the color of the uniform.
In the new West Virginia, the B&O’s rails were now Union rails by default, as the carrier’s management officially had Union tendencies also.
Jamie Summerlin, the community booster whose event-planning firm is part of the team putting Saturday’s celebration together, said West Virginia is now powered by the heart of those who live here, as the place works to redefine itself for the 21st century.
“Our people make us famous,” said Summerlin, who can trace his family back to the 1800s in Braxton County.
“There’s a strength of character there,” he said.
“I’ve always called myself an ‘unapologetic West Virginian.’ I want this place to shine. I want to showcase it. We have a lot to offer.”
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