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THE VIRGIN FORESTS OF WEST VIRGINIA
The forests of the southern region of the Mountain State, such as those timbered by Devil Anse Hatfield's logging crew, once contained giant hardwoods. Oaks, maples, and walnut trees, and more.
In 2012, Dave Seville, of Central Appalachian Spruce Restoration Initiative (CASRI), wrote, “In many years of travel through the West Virginia backcountry, I’ve often wondered what the original forest must have looked like.”
He added, “Could I possibly envision walking through miles and miles of spruce forest with trees growing to a size difficult to comprehend? What would it have been like to camp in these hollows and flats filled with massive trees and extensive laurel and rhododendron thickets, where in places the cover was so thick that sunlight never reached the ground? What would I have felt standing next to a poplar soaring 140 feet into the sky? I can only imagine.”
Yet, due to the excessive logging during the 19th and early 20th century, most of the virgin forests in West Virginia were heavily harvested … and logged-out — and have subsequently vanished.
— This image is from the WV and Regional History Collection, West Virginia University library, and is described as an early logging operation in the Mountain State.
