Qualla: Blackwater Canyon

Blackwater Canyon: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, Public domain. In 1914, the Blackwater Canyon burned for six straight months. The Allegheny gorge in eastern West Virginia had been clear-cut over the previous decades by the timber empires of Senator Henry Gassaway Davis and his successors. The slashings left behind - branches, sawdust, stumps - turned the canyon into a tinderbox. By 1910, fires were sweeping the wasteland annually, often burning continuously from spring until the first snows. The 1914 burn was the worst. When the smoke finally lifted, what remained was thin mineral soil and bare rock. Soil erosion and flooding followed. The river ran black with sediment. A century later, the canyon has substantially regrown - a thousand feet deep, eight miles long, walled by second-growth spruce and hemlock - but the fight over its future is not finished.

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Image: Valerius Tygart | Public domain

Blackwater Canyon: How the River Made the Cut

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. Blackwater Canyon runs eight miles, from the foot of Blackwater Falls near Davis to the confluence with Dry Fork near Hendricks. The river drops 1,250 feet along that stretch - from about 3,000 feet of elevation to 1,750 feet - producing some of the most concentrated whitewater i...

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Image: Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant) | CC BY-SA 2.5

Blackwater Canyon: The Senator's Railroad

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, Public domain. In 1881, coal and timber magnate Henry Gassaway Davis - former US Senator from West Virginia - and his West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway laid first tracks in eastern West Virginia. By 1884 the line reached Thomas. In 1888, Davis decided to extend it through Blackwater ...

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Image: Valerius Tygart | Public domain

Blackwater Canyon: Clear-Cut, Burned, and Restored

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, Public domain. By 1914, the canyon was virtually denuded. The clear-cuts of the 1890s and 1900s had left almost no standing timber. The fires that followed completed the destruction. Large-scale clear-cut timbering in the canyon has not occurred again since. The Monongahela National Forest was ...

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Image: Valerius Tygart | Public domain

Blackwater Canyon: The Long Negotiation

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, Public domain. In 1970, the National Park Service recommended the canyon for National Natural Landmark status. The railroad fell out of service in 1983; six years later, the grade became the Blackwater Canyon Railroad Grade Trail, twelve miles long and passing the great Big Run culvert and trib...

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Image: Valerius Tygart | Public domain

Blackwater Canyon: What Lives There Now

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, Public domain. Today about half the canyon outside the state park is owned by Allegheny Wood Products and half by the Monongahela National Forest. About 6,000 acres of spruce, hemlock, pine, oak, maple, yellow poplar, and rhododendron now cover the slopes. Black bear, white-tail deer, squirrels...

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Image: Valerius Tygart | Public domain