Along with Oregon and Massachusetts, West Virginia was once one of only three states to feature a two-sided state flag. Oregon is the only one to still have a double-sided flag. West Virginia consolidated their images onto one side in 1929 to save money on printing. The state flag depicts the branches of a laurel, a farmer, and a miner alongside the motto “Montani semper liberi” (Mountaineers are always free).

Located in the mountains of West Virginia and once frequented by the Founding Fathers, Berkeley Springs is America’s oldest spa, established in 1776. Thomas Jefferson was the first to mark the warm mineral waters on a map in 1747, labeling it Medicine Springs, and it became a favorite getaway of George Washington after he first visited in 1748. Native Americans had long taken advantage of the region’s healing waters before Europeans arrived.

With 14 piers and 11 aircraft hangers supporting 75 ships and 134 aircraft, the Norfolk Naval Station is the largest naval station in the world. Air operations are conducted once every six minutes, and the site functions as the U.S. Navy’s logistics hub for European, Caribbean, and Central Command theaters.

On October 19, 1781, a British army of 8,000 led by General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to the Continental Army in Yorktown, Virginia — marking the end of the American Revolutionary War. The colonial forces were led by future President George Washington, who was working alongside French allies in Virginia.

While Kentucky is typically credited as being the home of bourbon, the liquor’s beginnings were technically in Virginia. A preacher and entrepreneur named Elijah Craig was the first person to age whiskey in charred oak barrels (the process for making bourbon) in 1738 in Orange County. This area of Virginia later became part of Kentucky, in what is now Scott County.

Born in 1864 to enslaved parents in Richmond, Virginia, Maggie Lena Walker joined the Independent Order of St. Luke’s at the age of 14 and worked to help the sick and elderly. In 1902, she became publisher of the organization’s newspaper, encouraging Richmond’s Black population to pursue financial independence. A year later, she founded the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, becoming the first American woman to own and run a bank.

Prior to the Civil War, Ann Reeves Jarvis started a series of “Mothers’ Day Work Clubs” to help teach mothers about parenting. In 1908, her daughter Anna Jarvis organized the first ever official “Mother’s Day” celebration at a church in Grafton, West Virginia. Six years later, Woodrow Wilson signed a measure officially naming the second Sunday in May Mother’s Day.

The motto across the Virginia state shield reads “Sic semper tyrannis” (Thus always to tyrants). Emphasizing that revolutionary spirit is the image above it, which depicts a woman wearing a helmet and holding a spear while standing triumphantly with a foot on the chest of a fallen king. The image was added to the state flag in 1861.

The original name of Virginia Tech’s turkey mascot, a “HokieBird,” originated in 1896 from a cheer submitted by a student: “Hoki, Hoki, Hoki, Hy Techs!” Two other nicknames were used in addition to Hokie at the time: “Techs” and “Gobblers.” Eventually, the university introduced a live turkey as their “Hokie” mascot in 1913.

In 1971, John Denver released his classic song “Take Me Home Country Roads,” which begins with the line, “Almost heaven, West Virginia” and references several locations in the state. The following year, the West Virginia University football team began playing the song at every game, and Denver played at the dedication of the football stadium in 1980.

The Potomac and the Shenandoah are two rivers with significant roles in U.S. history, and they meet at “The Point” in Harpers Ferry. Due to the rivers’ courses, Harpers Ferry served as an important junction during colonial times. Harpers Ferry was also the site of America’s first railroad intersection — the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Winchester and Potomac Railroad.

West Virginia is called the Mountain State for a reason. The state’s landscape is dominated by the Allegheny and Blue Ridge ranges of the Appalachian Mountains. It’s the only state to lie completely within the Appalachian region, which stretches from Alabama into eastern Canada. The state also marks the halfway point of the popular Appalachian Trail.

West Virginia is closely associated with the coal industry, for good reason — in 2023, coal was by far the state’s biggest export, bringing in approximately $3.8 billion. That number accounted for almost exactly half of the state’s $7.6 billion in total exports for the year. West Virginia is the second-largest producer of coal in the United States, behind Wyoming.

Four of the first five Presidents (and seven of the first 11) were born in either the state of Virginia or the colony of Virginia before the creation of the United States. Only John Adams was born outside of the territory in Braintree, Massachusetts. The most recent Virginia-born President was Woodrow Wilson in 1856.

When King James I granted the Virginia Company a charter to establish a colony in North America in 1606, the group paid homage to him with the name of their settlement: Jamestown. Roughly 100 settlers arrived onshore in 1607 on three ships: the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery.

The question of where to form the border between the original commonwealth of Virginia and the younger West Virginia was a matter of great conflict throughout the mid- to late 1800s, but the natural border of the Blue Ridge Mountains provided a guide. The legal battles over the border continued until a Supreme Court ruling in 1911, 48 years after the official federal recognition of West Virginia as a state.

West Virginia the only state to form because of the Civil War. The far western part of Virginia, which eventually became West Virginia, refused to take part in the secession from the Union as other Confederate states did during the war. On June 20, 1863, President Lincoln recognized West Virginia as a new state.

The only two states that border both West Virginia and Virginia are Kentucky to the west and Maryland to the northeast. Virginia also borders North Carolina and Tennessee, while West Virginia also borders Ohio and Pennsylvania.

At the age of 14, Thomas Jefferson inherited from his father the 5,000 acres of land that became his Monticello estate and plantation. Jefferson also designed the University of Virginia in nearby Charlottesville; together they form a joint UNESCO World Heritage Site that was designated in 1987.

In 1969, ad agency Martin & Woltz Inc. coined a tourism slogan for Virginia that would change depending on audience and destination, such as “Virginia Is for History Lovers” for Colonial Williamsburg or “Virginia Is for Beach Lovers” for the coast. Eventually, it was simplified to the general slogan, “Virginia Is for Lovers,” which became hugely successful and remains the state’s slogan to this day.