Qualla: Mountains and Lakes Country

Mountains and Lakes Country: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. The smallest church in 48 states sits beside US-219 near Silver Lake. It is twenty-four feet by twelve, made of fieldstone and pine, and around it cluster a wishing well and what its keepers claim is the smallest mailing office in the country - a tiny outpost where a person can in theory walk in, write a postcard, and have it stamped. Our Lady of the Pines is exactly the kind of detail that defines the Mountains and Lakes Country region of north-central West Virginia: small, eccentric, scenic, and slightly contested. (Plenty of other places make the same 'smallest church' claim.) The region runs from the Maryland border south and west through Preston County and the high country around Kingwood and Morgantown, where the Allegheny Mountains soften into a patchwork of bogs, hemlock groves, manmade lakes, and tiny brick-built towns.

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

Mountains and Lakes Country: Tunnels of the 1850s

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. Near Tunnelton, on route 26, a long railroad tunnel burrows through Cheat Mountain — the original Kingwood Tunnel, joined by a second bore added in 1911. The original Kingwood Tunnel was dug by hand between 1849 and 1852 by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crews, and when it opened it...

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

Mountains and Lakes Country: Smallest Church, Smallest Office

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Kiser (w:User:Malepheasant), CC BY-SA 2.5. Our Lady of the Pines was built in 1958 as a roadside devotional, a tiny chapel that any passing traveler could stop into. The interior holds six pews. Couples occasionally rent it for weddings; the venue is, by necessity, intimate. Beside the chapel stands its companion claim to...

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

Mountains and Lakes Country: Bogs, Hemlocks, and Brachiopods

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brian M. Powell (user Bitmapped on en.wikipedia), CC BY-SA 3.0. The Mountains and Lakes Country has older treasures than the chapel. Near Kingwood, Cathedral State Park preserves 133 acres of ancient hemlock forest - the only stand of mixed virgin timber left in West Virginia. The dim, cool understory beneath those uncut hemlocks gives a glim...

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

Mountains and Lakes Country: Big Bear and Buckwheat

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerius Tygart, CC BY-SA 3.0. Big Bear Lake, east of Morgantown, is a 35-acre artificial lake at the center of a resort complex - mountain-bike and hiking trails, a waterslide on the beach, miniature golf, country-western dance nights, rental cabins. It has the slightly homemade feel of a regional getaway bui...

Image: Valerius Tygart | CC BY-SA 3.0

Mountains and Lakes Country: How to See It

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Generic1139, CC BY-SA 3.0. The region is best approached by car, looping a long figure-eight that takes in the tunnel at Tunnelton, Cathedral, Cranesville, Silver Lake, and Bruceton Mills over the course of a couple of days. None of these attractions is famous outside the region; each is small. The cumulat...

Image: Generic1139 | CC BY-SA 3.0