Qualla: Ritter Park https://qualla.com/ritter-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/v/6/ritter-park-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Ritter Park https://qualla.com/ritter-park Ritter Park: Introduction https://qualla.com/ritter-park/ Photo credit Youngamerican at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Charles Ritter cut down trees for a living, but the park that carries his name is shaded by them. In 1908, a future mayor named Rufus Switzer convinced the city of Huntington, West Virginia, to buy 75 acres of bottomland along 13th Avenue. The lumberman threw in an additional twenty acres of his own. Five years later, in September 1913, Ritter Park opened to the public - a green ribbon stitched into a young river town that was still figuring out what kind of place it wanted to be. More than a century later, locals call it the heart of Huntington, and the name fits in a way park names rarely do.

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Image: Youngamerican at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/ritter-park-wp/dnv6-ritter-park-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Ritter Park: A Town Built for Walking https://qualla.com/ritter-park/ Photo credit Youngamerican at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ritter Park does not announce itself the way bigger parks do. There is no monumental gate, no grand fountain at the entrance. Instead, the park spreads along a creek bed, with footbridges crossing the water at three points and nine miles of hiking and biking trails threading thro...

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Image: Youngamerican at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/ritter-park-wp/dnv6-ritter-park-a-town-built-for-walking.mp3 0:06 2 full Ritter Park: From Alice in Wonderland to the Woodland https://qualla.com/ritter-park/ Photo credit Youngamerican at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. For thirty years, children climbed through an Alice in Wonderland playground built in 1987 - giant teacups, a Cheshire Cat, the whole strange world rendered in wood and metal. In 2017, Huntington set aside $236,000 to rebuild it. The new playground, completed soon after, traded L...

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Image: Youngamerican at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/ritter-park-wp/dnv6-ritter-park-from-alice-in-wonderland-to-the-woodland.mp3 0:06 3 full Ritter Park: The Park That Made the Cameo https://qualla.com/ritter-park/ Photo credit Youngamerican at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Ritter Park has wandered, briefly, into national pop culture. The ESPN documentary Rand University, part of the 30 for 30 series, traces NFL wide receiver Randy Moss's roots in nearby Rand, West Virginia. In one stretch of the film, fellow West Virginia quarterback Chad Penningto...

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Image: Youngamerican at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/ritter-park-wp/dnv6-ritter-park-the-park-that-made-the-cameo.mp3 0:06 4 full Ritter Park: The Lumberman's Long Shadow https://qualla.com/ritter-park/ Photo credit Youngamerican at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. There is something quietly satisfying about a park named for the man who donated part of the land. Charles Ritter made his fortune in West Virginia timber, an industry that flattened entire ridges and floated logs down the Guyandotte and Big Sandy rivers to mills near Huntington....

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Image: Youngamerican at en.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/6/ritter-park-wp/dnv6-ritter-park-the-lumbermans-long-shadow.mp3 0:06 5 full