WEST VIRGINIA Preserving a heritage on a byway

Farmers can be spotted working their fields, and they'll graciously stop what they're doing to chat with the curious.
PICKAWAY, W.Va. (AP) -- Farming has been a fixture in southern West Virginia's Monroe County since the 1700s, so when talk began of creating a national scenic byway to lure tourists, it wasn't hard to choose what to promote.
Established in 1996, the Farm Heritage Road winds 59 miles from Peterstown to the Virginia state line near Sweet Springs, through verdant valleys and rolling hills filled with cows and cornfields, barns and balers.
Around any given bend, a traveler is likely to see something related to agriculture, including the historic Cook's Mill near Greenville. The restored mill was built in 1867 on the site of an earlier mill constructed in the 1700s.
One of the historic farmsteads along the byway is the Estill block house, built on Indian Creek near Union by Wallace Estill in the 1700s and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The three-story stone structure's 18-inch thick walls served as protection against Indian raids.
Seasonal attractions include fall foliage, which peaks in mid-to late October. Cattle can be seen grazing in the fields year-round, and farmers cut feed corn for them into November.
Other byway attractions include the Indian Creek Covered Bridge, constructed in the early 1900s; and Old Rehoboth Church outside Union, a log structure built in 1786 that is considered the oldest church building west of the Allegheny Mountains.
Curious chatter
Farmers also can be spotted working their fields, and they'll graciously stop what they're doing for a bit to chat with the curious.
"It's beautiful here, a laid-back way of life," said Stanley Asbury as he tried to coax a balky hay baler to run.
Asbury, a 52-year-old former coal miner, left the coalfields of his native McDowell County to become a farmer. His family owns more than 140 acres near Forest Hill in neighboring Summers County, which the byway crosses for a few miles before turning back into Monroe County.
"It's a nice place, no rat race," Asbury said. "It's a good place to raise my grandchildren."
The Farm Heritage Road also passes remnants of a bygone era, when well-to-do Northeasterners came to the villages of Red Sulphur Springs, Sweet Springs and Salt Sulphur Springs in the 1800s to partake of Monroe County's mineral waters.
All that's left of the old mineral water spa in Red Sulphur Springs is a stone spring enclosure, but the hotel and cottages at Sweet Springs still stand. Several structures also remain at Salt Sulphur Springs, including part of the old hotel. Today, not far from the byway route, The Greenbrier luxury resort in White Sulphur Springs continues that tradition, winning honors as one of the top spas in the country from the October issue of Travel+Leisure magazine.
Remnants of industry
There is some industry in this picturesque county, but reminders of its farming roots are all around. At Pickaway, bales of hay sit in a field beside a Goodrich Corp. plant.
"That's a big part of the reason the county still looks like it does. We have plenty of green space," said Monroe County Commissioner Craig Mohler, a member of the Monroe County Byways Committee and one of the byway's founders.
"It's really important to us. A lot of people in the county are interested in preserving that."
The county recently formed the Farmland Protection Board to oversee conservation easements, a program that allows landowners to forever forfeit their development rights in exchange for cash.
Monroe County's proximity to manufacturing plants in neighboring Virginia allows residents to work in good-paying jobs while preserving their rural lifestyle, said Bill Shiflett, a Union businessman and former state legislator. The county had one of the lowest unemployment rates in West Virginia in August with 5 percent.
People from the Washington, D.C. area and other states, including Florida and Georgia, are starting to move into Monroe County, attracted by its bucolic beauty, Shiflett said.
"Our biggest problem today is we're being discovered," he said.