Qualla: Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/y/b/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park: Introduction https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park/ Photo credit TwoScarsUp, CC0. John D. Sutton was a teenager carrying a rifle when he climbed Droop Mountain on November 6, 1863. Sixty-five years later, he was a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, gray-haired and patient, lobbying his colleagues to preserve the ground where his regiment had fought. He got his wish. On the Fourth of July 1928, Droop Mountain Battlefield was dedicated as the first state park in West Virginia - a piece of land set aside because one old soldier refused to let his war fade into pasture and second-growth.

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Image: TwoScarsUp | CC0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/y/b/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-wp/dnyb-droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park: The Park's Origin https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park/ Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. Sutton had served as a private in a West Virginia Union regiment that fought on this mountain in 1863. The battle was the largest fought entirely inside the borders of the new state, and the Union victory effectively ended Confederate efforts to retake the Greenbrier Valley. Afte...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/y/b/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-wp/dnyb-droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-the-parks-origin.mp3 0:06 2 full Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park: The CCC Years https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park/ Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. The newly dedicated park was a few signs and a fence until the Civilian Conservation Corps arrived during the Great Depression. CCC workers built the lookout tower, the picnic shelters, the museum building, and the trail system that visitors still use. The architecture is unmista...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/y/b/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-wp/dnyb-droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-the-ccc-years.mp3 0:06 3 full Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park: What You See https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park/ Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. The summit lookout tower offers a panorama of the Greenbrier Valley, mountains folding into mountains all the way to the Virginia line. The Droop Mountain Museum holds battle artifacts - rifles, belt buckles, fragments of shell, a hand-drawn map or two. Confederate graves are mar...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/y/b/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-wp/dnyb-droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-what-you-see.mp3 0:06 4 full Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park: Getting There https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park/ Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. Droop Mountain Battlefield sits on US-219 about 25 miles north of Lewisburg and 15 miles south of Marlinton. Two other state parks are nearby: Beartown, with its strange labyrinth of weathered sandstone passages, and Watoga, the largest state park in West Virginia. The combinatio...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/y/b/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-wp/dnyb-droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-getting-there.mp3 0:06 5 full Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park: Why It Matters https://qualla.com/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park/ Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. Most Civil War battlefields are preserved because of the importance of the battle. Droop Mountain is preserved because of the persistence of one veteran. The fight here was not Gettysburg or Antietam; it never appears in the standard surveys of the war except as a footnote. But t...

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Image: Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/y/b/droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-wp/dnyb-droop-mountain-battlefield-state-park-why-it-matters.mp3 0:06 6 full