Content from e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia may be easily accessed from the pages of a new coal heritage guide produced by the National Coal Heritage Area in Oak Hill. Exploring the West Virginia Coalfields offers four driving tours complete with maps and scannable Quick Response (QR) codes that allow people with smartphones to display information from e-WV about the sites on the driving tours.
The new guide includes 33 sites in southern West Virginia related to the state’s coal history that are located within aptly named routes such as “The Coal Heritage Trail,” “The Road to Blair Mountain: The Struggle to Unionize the Southern West Virginia Coalfields,” ”Moving the Coal: Southern West Virginia Railroad History,” and ”The Country Roads Scenic Byway.” Copies of the guide are available at West Virginia welcome centers, West Virginia Turnpike visitors centers, Convention and Visitors Bureaus in southern West Virginia, and from the National Coal Heritage Area website at www.coalheritage.org or by email at info@coalheriatge.org and phone at 1-855-982-2625.
“e-WV’s QR Codes allow us to put the great depth of our online encyclopedia at the instant disposal of visitors to historic locations located along the Coal Heritage Trail,” said Ken Sullivan, director of the West Virginia Humanities Council which operates e-WV.
The staff of e-WV provides QR codes for other projects, including the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame display at Tamarack and every issue of Wonderful West Virginia magazine.
