WEST VIRGINIA

West Virginia was formed during the Civil War when the western counties of Virginia voted to separate from the Confederacy and join the Union, becoming a state in 1863 under circumstances unique in American history. Its New River Gorge, designated a national park in 2020, contains one of the oldest rivers in North America cutting through some of the most rugged terrain in the Appalachians, and the New River Gorge Bridge, completed in 1977, was the longest steel arch bridge in the world for more than two decades.

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