I Drove Through Berwind, West Virginia | Heres What I Saw
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Berwind, WV...wow! This is such a beautiful place gone bad. With the closing of the coal mines, this McDowell County town has suffered greatly and a recovery is not exactly within sight. Currently Berwind has a population of 170 and declining each year. Many dilapidated homes just abandoned, can it be saved? Let's take a drive and check some of it out!
Thank you for taking the time to record and post these videos; they make me realize how good I've got it. It's heartbreaking to think of all the families affected by the downturn of the economy in their towns.
The horrible thing is there's no need for it coal can be burned cleanly... the whole world needs energy everyday and fossil fuels are the best providers
It's sad to see places run down like this, but once the shock wears off, as an introvert, I wouldn't mind living in a small quiet ghost town with only 170 people. 😇 Peaceful and quiet. You only saw 3 people your whole time there? Lovely! ☺ That's my kind of place!
Agreed. I grew up in a tiny upper Appalachian town and moved to a big city. Now Im in a much smaller city, but I am beginning to miss my roots and the peace and quiet. The hills are calling me back home.
Thought the same thing.
Yes but where do you buy foods and stuff ?
I don't think I've ever been to the State of West Virginia when it wasn't raining.
That's because that's all it does is rain here. Lived here my entire life and that's all it does. Closest thing to an American rainforest.
Same. I've had to drive across it several times, and it always starts to rain just as I cross the border, and every town and village looks like the end of civilization.
@@dnwitte That happens to me every time I go to Seattle, which reminds me of one of the reasons I left WV - too many gray rainy days and rained-out picnics.
I live in WV and all these coal mining towns look the same. They are all dying and decaying yet state leaders keep promoting coal as the state's savior.
THIS IS SO SAD. THERE MUST BE SOME TYPE OF BUSINESS THAT WOULD BRING JOBS TO THIS COMMUNITY OTHER THAN COAL.THE COUNTRY IS BEAUTIFUL, GREEN HILLS LOVELY.
I lived in Berwind in 1956-57. My father pastored the church at 03:52. We were forced out of Berwind by the flood of 1957.
If I had the money, I'd buy a piece of property up there. Beautiful countryside!
This video reminds me of John Denver's song Country Road. Guess the town was quite lively, when he wrote the song back then. It almost seems like a ghost town now.
Interesting ride, thanks. Damn shame about the town.
Nice job guys
I've found that when I'm watching your West Virginia videos, I tend to see the beauty of the place first, before I notice the dereliction.
Yup I agree!
Absolutely. It’s such a beautiful area.
I have been to West Virginia and Kentucky and the greenness and vitality is awesome unfortunately everybody needs money and when you shut down coal there is no more money and no reason to be there
@@glennbeadshaw727 Pretty places are good for tourism and retirees.
@@glennbeadshaw727 I mean it's a perfect opportunity to live off grid don't need a whole lotta money to not participate in consumerism
West Virginia is such a beautiful state. It's sad to see the good people living so poorly.
That Berwind train station was Hardin’s Grocery. Never knew it to be a train station since railroad tracks were across the creek from Hardin’s! My stepfather was company doctor and we lived upstairs in the “biggest house in Berwind” I went to school in Berwind from the first grade to the ninth and left Berwind that summer in 1958. I greatly appreciate your video. Crying shame what has happened to Berwind, it was really a great place to live!!
I used to go to Hardin's to get grape bubble gum for a penny.
Seems the lights are still on, on the upper floor.
I guess I'm a country girl at heart. I really like the quiet peace in this video, and I love the forest. I'm from a small town in PA, but not this small. My mom is from West Virginia. It is almost Heaven.
Would be a nice place but can you please explain why American people love collecting or leaving so much trash , old cars out the front of their homes and businesses ?
That's a John Denver song
The need for specific activities such as mining usually evolve into obsolescence as technology advances. Building wagons was a thriving business in my city of Winston-Salem until cars were developed enough to become the main source of transportation. Should the wagon building industry been protected because people lost jobs? In a rational world, folk would retool as needed to meet the job requirements of the new era. West Virginia could possibly use those mountain tops and slopes to put wind and solar farms. Just a thought.
Yeah, I miss southern Illinois sometimes. Much different here in Tucson, AZ.
Granted different people like different things there is no right or wrong but as I see this video as they are driving down streets many homes are either burned down or abandoned because of poverty and the mining operations closing.
The mountains in the background are gorgeous.
OMG I literally spent summers here visiting my grandparents and Aunt and Uncle. My grandfather was a coal miner in Berwind. I remember the Doctor's house as a child. I go far enough back that I can remember the company store at it's heyday.
A beautiful state!
I am an old lady and seeing towns in this state of decline only saddens me.
thanks for watching Margaret!
Thank you for sharing!
Especially in the "richest" country in the world. Scenes rarely visible in other western countries. Reminds me of why Tom T Hall recorded "the Promise and the Dream".
Beautiful countryside. Sweet nature.
I've never seen anything like it, and I live in the Texas Hill Country ...everything's so green .. some people see dilapidated houses but I see where nature intervened and prevailed... It takes my breath away imagine being able to see it firsthand ..
@@kimberlylay1005 Got the same type of impression you had!
Was owned by a Dr then owned by CL young. I lived across that bridge on the right. Lived there from the late 70s to the late 80s. Know every corner in Berwind
I was actually gonna talk to someone if I could have found someone near that area. Amazing place.
@@hoodsnhollers there are still a few of the old timers left. I still have family there. The Dr's house if you go back across that bridge the that road ends in about 100 yards or so you can go left or right. You were on these rds. You take the left the 3 house on the left is a big white house with a chain link fence. My aunt lived there. Louise vesalasky was her married name madden name Love. Her son Mike lives there now he would be happy to give you plenty of information
I have seen several of these videos from Bandy VA and Amonata area where my mother was from to war and Welch. I have offered others I would set something up and drive there for some of the past
I did Amonate its uploaded on the channel. I was thinking of uploading bandy but to be honest it gets hazy in terms of where im really at, there's no cell service and the gps kinda goes bonkers so its hard to tell where the lines are drawn. Thats kinda how a lot of these places are near here so I try to be as accurate as i can. But yeah if i get an idea of when ill do more i will perhaps contact you thanks for watching!
I really enjoy your videos. I am from Germany and seeing towns and landscapes from rather unknown parts of the US is very interesting.
Thanks for watching!
Same, i'm from Estonia and landscapes fascinate me. subscribed and hit the bell
Interesting? Humm....
Wow. Thanks so much for sharing this video. When people talk about poverty today, the people living in these mountains are rarely part of the conversation. Reminds me so much of where I grew up in Somerset county Pa. I'll never forget the coal miners coming out of the mines covered in black when my family went to church Sunday mornings. Yet, you will not find more helpful and genuine caring people anywhere.
Thanks for watching!
Just think if ya ever needed a hospital be awhile away.... The war on fossil fuels is just dumb.. be well.
That’s definitely something to consider when living in an area like this. I do wonder how many lives could have been saved had they were closer to help. It’s something I think about anytime I go to remote areas.
@@hoodsnhollers , Thinking the same, sometimes ya only get an hour to save your life..... Plus just finding where your at might be hard..
My father had a medical emergency (in Carretta) & was lucky that the medic unit was in a nearby town. They drove him to Welch & he was life flighted out to Kentucky from a ball feild. All of his rehab & follow-up droctor visits were an hour and a half away from home.
Awesome video & heartbreaking at the same time. Such beautiful area with so much trash littering it. Im from Detroit & oddly enough, Brightmoor where Im from is eerily similar but no where as beautiful as this. Abandoned houses after businesses left or in Berwinds case, coal mines shut down. God Bless the good people of Berwind
👍Berwind-White was an industrial magnet that built these small coal mines and towns all over the north east. My wife is from “Windber, PA”, many immigrant Polish, Russians settled there & Berwind-White worked them like dogs. We’ve all heard the stories of owing the company store …. many workers were paid w/ company dollars to only be spent inside coal company stores & often short therefore owing the man every week after a hard week of work. Horrible times. Coal company would build duplex homes and rent to the miner and his family. It was a time almost like indentured servants.
Thanks for the video.
I’m from Windber. 👍the company store is still there. The company houses are to everyone just remodeled them over the years. My elderly neighbor told me stories about working in the mine when he was a kid.
I'm from Windber too. Both of my grandfathers and dad worked the 40th Mine.
It is a great video made better by your comment, thank you.
I live in a "ghost town" in Oregon and as a writing and social studies teacher I have been teaching my students the history of our town and the pioneers who settled it. They have learned to love the abandoned buildings and homes and even single fence posts because they are all representations of someone's dreams, hopes and goals - how they were going to provide for their family. This town in your video is beautiful.
Wish you had a chance to talk to a local resident and get some insight on the past and present life of this town. Such a beautiful area.
They would probably like to talk about what It was like years ago 😊
That's a good idea.
West Virginia Aaagh...I got lost in some Corn Fields in West Virginia, Thank you Father God I believed in you to get me outta there alive. All glory, praise, and honor! AMEN!
I absolutly love these small appalachain towns !!!!
Maybe these videos will give enough publicity to all these small towns and generate new interest that could lead to a rebirth of them.
I just can’t understand empty homes in a country with so many homeless……..somewhere there is a family who just need a chance and some support to create their own paradise
Hauntingly beautiful
Huh? 🤢
What a beautiful area. The scenery is amazing. Looks like it would be a great place to retire.
From a British/ European perspective, this looks like every horror movie ever made and I love everything about it. .
sad. i remember going through Birwind, Canebrake and War with my mom and dad on the way to Coretta to visit my grandfather. All the neighborhoods were so clean and well-kept in the 1960's.
I see a huge amount of potential here for market gardening. Are there any stores or other services available? What are the winters like with those high mountains/ hills? Lust green vegetation, serene and peaceful looking.
Even with the run-down homes, it still looks beautiful!
My wife graduated from Big Creek High School in 1959. Over the years we spent many happy days visiting with her large extended family. Her house is still there and looks pretty good.
My mom graduated from Big Creek in 1957. Sandy Counts. Your wife may have known her.
The vegetation is so lush. I bet you get a lot of rain there. Seems a nice, quiet, peaceful place and I'm sure the people who live there are nice too.
Glad you explain about what side of the road you were on.😅
LOL! You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve gotten asked about that in the last few videos.
Fascinating viewing. I immediately subscribed after the first one that I watched. Thanks for sharing with us
Thank you so much!
Being from the UK it’s an eye opener to see such deprivation in the richest country on earth. It’s indicative of the society that the biggest and best house belongs to the local doctor. I wonder what healthcare is like if you can’t pay!!
same as if you can
Thanks for taking us places I'm sure most if not all of us would ever visit. Such a beautiful town.
My heart breaks for these places! America’s forgotten poor.
Grateful for your videos! Just found you recently. Do you encounter many locals while you’re recording? If so, do they have any reactions to you recording their towns? Just curious. I wish I could help but such a massive project.
I picked the wrong time of year to fall in love with this channel. What you do has to take some real bravery but is also heartbreaking.
Thanks so much for watching!
Super sweet camera shots. Those houses.. look at all that history there.
Thanks! And yeah it’s jaw dropping to see how time stands still in places like this.
Despite some Dumpy and abandoned house's the place is country green beautiful! Like the John Denver song take me home Country Road!!!!
Look at all that beautiful green land.
Very interesting and the skies add to an eerie vibe
Awesome tour! Stunning nature and beautiful landscapes but many abandoned houses! Thanks for sharing! Have a great day
Just saw your videos and I love them. I felt like I was riding in the car with you and thank you for not narrating. Enjoyed the peace and quiet.
I love videos like this on one hand you can look at each street and or building on that street each one has its own story to tell some cases good some cases not so good the story behind each one is unique to that one place the history of what it once was to what why and how it is now I find this subject matter quite fascinating especially the older I get there is much connected to the interest in these old and hauntingly sad places for example entire towns that were once thriving living dreaming places for people that have now faded into eternal obscurity forever forgotten by the heaviness of time itself even perpetual care fades and is lost to time and in many cases just like anything else given enough time everything will eventually be reclaimed by nature one never knowing any place ever existed never knowing children once played in the streets family's were formed and sometimes tragic issues and or happenings impacted lives as well but as yet it is all but forgotten as the heavy hand of time slowly erases all traces of anything that may have ever been
My god that is alot to consider and think about sadness happiness all of it has an effect on the life and death of these small towns and or neighborhoods like life itself they come and go and eventually return to the earth that they once were.....
Keep up the great work and or content my brotha greetings from West Virginia!!!
Really enjoyed your videos. I am from Australia and have heard so much of this area. Please keep recording, brilliant!
Thanks so much for watching!
This is exactly what I think about when I see these lost places.I am a West Virginian also still living in a thriving small town.I can't picture it going by the wayside like so many do ..but I realize that even a drive down a familiar country road here ..that time has claimed what as a child held a memory.for me ..such is the circle of life I suppose.Blessings to you my fellow west Virginian.
At 63, I love watching these videos; in my youth I vagabonded myself in such places. This is much easier in every way and almost as enjoyable!
I'm in south central/southern Ohio in Chillicothe which is 45 miles straight down the highway from Columbus! Chillicothe is down in the valley at the foothills of the Appalachians and we have a few of these little towns dotted thru the hills also. It's not so much the delapation as it wondering what happened to the people and what their story was! I loved how the old church was still there that one sign of some kind of stability! Sometimes, church's outnumbered the houses! As sad as it is, it's the history that makes it still fascinating to see. Thank you for sharing!
In Chillicothe, Ohio some of the decay is caused when state highways build by-passes (like rt.23 and rt. 35). If the paper company ever closes there, things will be a lot worse!
Fellow Chillicothen here! First people from here I've seen on RUclips! I too hope the papermill never goes out; that and Kenworth would be disastrous.
The doctor's house in this video is still doing well and in the hands of someone who can maintain it.
My grandmother was born in Berwind way back in 1918. I can't remember for how long she said she lived there though. Her family and her moved to Connecticut while she was still a child. I want to make it there someday and drive around myself.
Go to Northern Michigan-the U.P.- and you’ll find a similar area. The iron mines all began closing in the 70s-80s. Yea Chinese iron and steel put the mines out of business and many small towns and community areas disappeared.
If I had a car I'd move to an area like this
God i love these little towns so much, would love to live in a little quiet place like this one day
When your whole way of life get's left behind, heartbreaking actually. Hard to see opportunity in such places. I lived in southwestern Pa, not too different then as this is now.
this happens everywhere you make a town..built around money..when the money moves so do the people that need it..sad but true thanks for the share
My mother and father's family grew up in Beckley, WV. My maternal family's home is still there. I can remember them talking about Berwind and the coal camps. Beautiful state.
I really enjoy watching your videos even though they can be depressing. It's amazing how infrequently you see any people. It would be great if you could engage in some conversation with someone who may be approachable. Good work as and I like the informative captions!
Thanks so much for the kind words! If i get a chance or someone wants to contact me I would look into it.
I grew up in Beckley West Virginia in 1959 and it still looks the same. I haven't been back since 1983. The state of West Virginia should be ashamed of themselves to allow people to live in these conditions. keep praying for these people. God bless you.
I live in Fairbanks Alaska 35k+. The roads/pavement is sooooo much better there in “dilapidated” Berwind, WV. Oh and I too would enjoy that peace and quiet :). Thank you for sharing.
Absolutely beautiful! That beautiful green just goes for miles.
Such stunning greenery. The section of town by the caboose looks like a fairy tale!!! You can imagine how it looked when it was first settled. I just love it!!!
It really is!
Just let nature reclaim the space.
i'd live there before any major city peaceful cheap
It is so incredibly beautiful and sad. As an artist I would love to have a cabin there. WOW! Bring back the coal mines..
Would you want to work in one though??
This looks like a remote village in Vietnam or Thailand
In Indiana, I used to work with a guy from a very rural area of West Virginia, but he enjoyed having a humorous view of being a "hillbilly". He used to say things like, "We lived so far back the woods that we had to bring sunshine into the house with a pipeline." lol
I was raised in Berwind until age of 5. I came back there many times in my life. I find it tragic that a once up and coming town fell. Sad
This looks like an area that would be well suited to agriculture. It has almost a rain forest appearance.
Even without words it tells a story about the history of coal mining exploiting people in rural america.
Why are people from the cities not buying these places as holiday homes? Be a great place to spend a few weeks every so often away from it all.
Guess what? It never looked that wonderful when it was coal boom town
West Virginia and Kentucky are both beautiful places full of right-minded people but everybody needs some money and if there's no money this is what happens
Electricity, & sat dishes means they have internet access. Teach them how the internet works and how they can make money right there in their house
I recommend reading Harry Caudill's " Night Falls on the Cumberlands " . Though written in 1962, it gives a great background of the coal industry and how it created the coal camps and fostered dependency among the people of the Appalachians. With the mines closed, the people lost hope and decay set in.
Thanks I'm in my 60s know the foothills of the Appalachians well read Night Falls on the Cumberlands in the 70s really should read it again
Как джунгли, ни люднй ни детей, мрачно, грустно .
Thanks for sharing. I been stuck in Florida my whole life. Love the mountains
Such a beautiful but sad place
But everyone seem to have nice vehicles in front of the dilapidated homes…
If you are ever back in the Area, Terry, WV is an amazing old coal camp as well. I grew up there with the new river as my back yard and the woods as my front yard.
I love watching your videos, brings back so many childhood memories. If you ever find yourself near Newhall Holler, please take a video. It would really be a treasure to our family. Thank you! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2023!
What company owned and operated the mines in Berwind,West Viriginia?
It's beautifully lush countryside. It's a pity it's going to waste when so many are homeless. It looks very suitable for farming and holiday houses.
They look better than the ghettos here in Detroit. Alot of stuff is burnt here.
What an area would be a great opportunity for a solar panel manufacturer to come in and set up and pay these folk's a living wage and not a coal miner's wage. Just think of all the deticated hard working labor force you have available to the company.
My mother and grandmother, were originally from Hinton, West Virginia. My family lived in Virginia, but we would go to Hinton, from time to time, to visit my mother and grandmother's relatives, that still lived there.
I'd have a huge Habitat Yard...a pond..beehive boxes..flower gardens..bird sanctuary...I love Crickets....not inside my home..but I just remember crickets from my childhood....omg I will have hundreds of birdhouses....and wind chimes....
It's very sad to see these family homes just discinigrate into the land. People's hopes and dreams gone. I see it every day.
I live in Seattle Washington. It’s hard for me to imagine places like this and other videos I have seen of Virginia. I can’t think of one city or town anywhere close to Washington that has been abandoned like this although I guess it’s due to the Coal mining!
Wha!!!this is in the United States, my beautiful home land Grenada is a paradise comparing 🇬🇩🇬🇩 to this, we have beautiful mansions, much better roads.
Fascinating as always...and sad to see towns that have seen better days going slowly to ruin. Lot of history here that will never be known.
Thank you for these videos. I feel so empty and sick knowing these are our citizens. Now, they're just faded graveyards.
Grow a little weed for local consumption, Shirley the Sheriff won't mind...
No I'm not saying your Sheriff is named Shirley, but if she was, so what?
🙂
In been in California and turkey for thr air force for the 6 years and I always forget how wet home "Ohio" and WV are
I know it’s weird but i kinda want to live in a place like this. Quiet, away from everything, people that have each other, a place where you rely on nature but you still Have the necessities.
I lived in a smaller town the condition was going in this direction. So we're many towns around it. Buildings just falling down. It's sad this is America. Supposed to be the greatest country on earth.
I never understand why homes get left behind. Doesn't anyone own them...? Property Taxes??
My wife and I were just in the Keyser and Piedmont area. I almost didn't recognize the place. So much of it has just crumbled into ruin over the last thirty years.
Ignorant though I am, nevertheless I think of the Appalachians, clog dancing and close and honest communities. This area needs rejuvenation but it is still beautiful.