Qualla: Kanawha State Forest

Kanawha State Forest: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David G. Simpson, Public domain. Seven miles from the capital of West Virginia, the city ends and the forest begins. You drive south out of Charleston, follow Davis Creek Road through a narrow valley past a few last houses, and then you are inside Kanawha State Forest - 9,300 acres of hardwood ridges that stretch into the broken country south of the Kanawha River. It is the kind of geography that surprises first-time visitors. Charleston is a Capitol-dome city of about fifty thousand people, but the topography around it is so creased and folded that wilderness is never more than a few minutes away. Kanawha State Forest is what you get when the state legislature decides to leave one of those folds mostly alone.

Read more: Kanawha State Forest on Qualla

Image: David G. Simpson | Public domain

Kanawha State Forest: A Forest That Acts Like a Park

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit WVhybrid at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. Technically, Kanawha is a state forest, managed by the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources for a broader mix of timber and recreation than a state park. But in 2018, the West Virginia Legislature directed that the facility be managed as a state park - a hybrid status th...

Read more: Kanawha State Forest on Qualla

Image: WVhybrid at English Wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Kanawha State Forest: What the CCC Built

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Analogue Kid, CC BY-SA 3.0. The central portion of the forest, along with its historic structures, was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 25, 1993. The honor is for what the Civilian Conservation Corps built here in the 1930s. The CCC was a Depression-era jobs program that put young ...

Read more: Kanawha State Forest on Qualla

Image: Analogue Kid | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kanawha State Forest: Walking the Ridges

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit ChristopherLocke, CC BY-SA 3.0. The forest's terrain is classic Appalachian: steep narrow hollows draining off ridge spines, second-growth hardwood that has been recovering for nearly a century since the original timber boom flattened the region. Spring brings ephemerals - trillium, bloodroot, jack-in-the-pulpi...

Read more: Kanawha State Forest on Qualla

Image: ChristopherLocke | CC BY-SA 3.0

Kanawha State Forest: Why It Matters That It's Here

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Analogue Kid, CC BY-SA 3.0. Charleston is not a large city, but it is the largest in West Virginia and the population center of the Kanawha Valley. To have 9,300 acres of mostly intact forest within a fifteen-minute drive of the state capitol is a remarkable piece of civic luck. Many American capitals do no...

Read more: Kanawha State Forest on Qualla

Image: Analogue Kid | CC BY-SA 3.0