Capitol: Charleston
Date of Statehood: June 20, 1863
Population: 1,793,477 (1990 Census)
Flower: Big Laurel

West Virginia farm products are poultry and eggs, dairy products, apples, and feed crops. Seventyfive percent of West Virginia is covered with forests.

West Virginia ranks third in total coal production with 15% of the U.S. total. It also is a leader in steel, glass, aluminum, and chemical manufactures; natural gas; oil; quarry products; and hardwood lumber.

1844-1900: Confederate spy. She became a Confederate heroine in May, 1862 by signaling Jackson’s troops to accelerate their advance to save the bridges at Fort Royal. Three times arrested, she escaped to England carrying Confederate dispatches in 1864 and was captured again. She wrote a dramatic account of her life as a spy, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. She was born in Martinsburg (then in Virginia).

1856-1915: He was an educator who was appointed organizer and principal of what is now Tuskegee University in 1881. Washington made the institution into a major center for industrial and agricultural training and in the process became a well-known public speaker. He was born on a plantation in Franklin Co., Va., the son of a slave. Following the Civil War, his family moved to Malden, WV, where he worked in a salt furnace and in coal mines.