West Virginia, Preston County

Kingwood. For local youth, a social highlight of the Preston County Buckwheat Festival each fall is the Coronation of Queen Ceres and King Buckwheat. The titles sound pagan, but the costumes aren’t: Judging from photos, the queen wears a tiara and, like her female attendants, a sash and gown; the king and his male sidekicks wear suits, ties and big black cowboy hats, and would fit right in on Yellowstone. “The festival began in 1938 as a way to promote the local buckwheat industry, which had been a staple crop in the region since the early 1800s. … The Buckwheat Festival has since grown into a five-day event that attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year.” Proceeds benefit the Kingwood Volunteer Fire Department. For more info, visit https://buckwheatfestival.com/. 

Rowlesburg. According to Jefferson M. Buckner’s diary, February 19, 1886, was unusual: “It was as dark as night at 2 o’clock in the afternoon.” See Hunt, J. William. Across the Desk, Vol. 1: 4-8-45 to 10-31-48. Cumberland, Maryland: Allegany County Historical Society, c. 1968. Columns originally published weekly in the Cumberland Sunday Times. Accessed via Ort Library. Unpaginated. 4-22-45. 

Tunnelton. The town is located on the east end of its namesake, the Kingwood Tunnel of the B&O Railroad, which upon completion in 1852 was the longest in the United States at 4,137 feet. That distinction lasted only four years, however, as the Blue Ridge Tunnel through Afton Mountain in Virginia soon bested it by a suspiciously exact 100 feet. Dynamite and power tools not having been invented, these epic pre-Civil War tunnels were built using horse-drawn hoists, hand drills and blasting powder, which combined with epidemics and corporate indifference to guarantee high casualties among their hundreds of builders, many of whom were Irish immigrants and enslaved Black men. By 1850, the labor camp for the massive dig had grown into a full-fledged town, Greigsville, “which already boasts of 80 houses, two churches, two schools, seven stores and a post office,” a New York newspaper reported. When the work was finished, however, Greigsville melted away. The tunnel itself has been sealed off and abandoned to only ghost trains since 1962. See Hunt, J. William. Across the Desk, Vol. 1: 4-8-45 to 10-31-48. Cumberland, Maryland: Allegany County Historical Society, c. 1968. Columns originally published weekly in the Cumberland Sunday Times. Accessed via Ort Library. Unpaginated. 4-21-46. See also Wikipedia entries for the Kingwood Tunnel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingwood_Tunnel) and Blue Ridge Tunnel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ridge_Tunnel).