White Water!

Millions of years ago the New River—it’s the continent’s oldest, incidentally—carved a deep gorge through the Appalachian mountains. Indians fished and trapped near and in the river they called the River of the Dead, because of its swift and treacherous waters. But it wasn’t until the 1870s that industrial man put his stamp on the narrow New River Gorge, blasting out a stretch of rail along its rocky, wooded flanks. And with the railroad in place, other men moved in to tap the area’s rich sources of bituminous coal and to send its virgin timber to market.

Today, the mines are abandoned; the settlements where the miners lived are ghost towns, most of them long since re-engulfed by vegetation, victims of fire, decay, and long, hard winters. And the river is given over again to fishermen and to new invaders, white water enthusiasts eager to run its testing waters.

PL

About the Author

Priscilla L. Buckley

Millions of years ago the New River—it’s the continent’s oldest, incidentally—carved a deep gorge through the Appalachian mountains. Indians fished and trapped near and in the river they called the River of the Dead, because of its swift and treacherous waters. But it wasn’t until the 1870s that industrial man put his stamp on the narrow New River Gorge, blasting out a stretch of rail along its rocky, wooded flanks. And with the railroad in place, other men moved in to tap the area’s rich sources of bituminous coal and to send its virgin timber to market.

Today, the mines are abandoned; the settlements where the miners lived are ghost towns, most of them long since re-engulfed by vegetation, victims of fire, decay, and long, hard winters. And the river is given over again to fishermen and to new invaders, white water enthusiasts eager to run its testing waters.