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Appalachia

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This article is about the modern area called Appalachia. For the Mesozoic island, see Appalachia (Mesozoic). For the town of the same name, see Appalachia, Virginia.
Areas included within the Appalachian Regional Commission's charter; other definitions of Appalachia often cover a much more restricted area.
Appalachian zones of the US - USGS

Appalachia is a term used to describe a region in the eastern United States that stretches from New York to Mississippi. Surrounding the Appalachian Mountains, it includes rural, urban, and industrialized regions. Although parts of the Appalachian Mountains extend through Maine into Canada, New England is usually excluded from the definition of Appalachia.

Over twenty million people live in Appalachia, an area roughly the size of the United Kingdom, covering mostly mountainous, often isolated areas from the border of Mississippi and Alabama in the south to Pennsylvania and New York in the north. Appalachia also includes parts of the states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, and the entire state of West Virginia.

Culture

See also: Appalachian folk music, Country music, Appalachian English, and Melungeon

Prior to the 20th century, the people of Appalachia were geographically isolated from the rest of the country. As a result, they preserved the culture of their ancestors (most of them English, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and Irish) who settled the region in the 18th century. The region's culture includes a strong oral tradition (including music and song), self-sufficiency, and strong religious faith. Coal deposits in the region were tapped in the latter half of the 19th century and drew a new wave of immigrants from Ireland and Central Europe. With this industrialization came increased urbanization.

Long characterized as economically underdeveloped, Appalachia has received more sympathetic treatment by historians and anthropologists in recent decades. The Foxfire project, an anthology of writings that began in 1972, appealed to the counterculture and gave the region new visibility in academia. The creation in 1936 of the Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine, also helped open the area to hikers and outdoor enthusiasts from all over the world.

A long-running series of documentary films by Appalshop takes a historical and critical view of the region, especially the effects of coal mining, poverty, and other aspects of local life.

Appalachian Regional Commission

The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) was created by the U.S. Congress in 1965 to bring the 13 Appalachian states into the mainstream of the American economy. The commission is a partnership of federal, state, and local governments, and was created to promote economic growth and improve the quality of life in the region. The region as definded by the ARC includes 406 counties, including all of West Virginia and counties in 12 other states: Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The ARC is a planning, research, advocacy and funding organization; it does not have any governing powers.

The ARC's geographic range of coverage was defined broadly so as to cover as many economically underdeveloped areas as possible; it extends beyond the area usually thought of as "Appalachia". For instance, parts of Alabama and Mississippi were included in the commission because of problems with unemployment and poverty similar to those elsewhere in Appalachia. The ARC's wide scope also grew out of the "pork barrel" phenomenon, as politicians from outside the traditional Appalachia area saw a new way to bring home federal money to their areas.

Economy

The economy of Appalachia traditionally rested on agriculture, mining, timber, and in the cities, manufacturing. In the late Twentieth Century, tourism and second home developments have assumed an increasingly major role.

Coal mining, the industry most frequently associated with Appalachia in outsiders' minds, remains important, however its economic role should not be overstated. Coal is mined only in some portions of the area traditionally thought of as Appalachia . Coal mining employment across the country has generally dropped over the last several decades with increased mechanization, notwithstanding a spike in employment accompanying the coal industry boomlet that started in about 2004 . While with annual earnings of $55,000, Appalachian miners make more than most other local workers, Appalachian coal mining employed just under 50,000 in 2004. , Restrictions on high sulfur coal in the 1980s resulted in the closure of some mines. The high, continuing "legacy" costs associated with earlier mining activities — retiree health care, environmental reclamation, and black lung disease compensation — impact Appalachian coal economics. The region still has very large coal reserves , however the least expensive, most accessible, thickest seams have largely been mined out, complicating the area's ability to compete with very low cost Colombian, Western U.S. and especially Powder River Basin strip mines. About two-thirds of Appalachia's coal is produced by underground mining, the rest by strip mining.

Etymology

The name is a back-formation of "Appalachian," created to provide a political designation for the territory in and around the mountain chain. The word "Appalachian" comes from the Apalachee tribe, historically located in northern Florida. After the de Soto expedition Spanish cartographers began to apply the name of the tribe to the mountains themselves. The name was not commonly used for the whole mountain range until the late 19th century. A competing and often more popular name was the "Allegheny Mountains", "Alleghenies", and even "Alleghania". In the early 19th century, Washington Irving proposed renaming the United States either Appalachia or Alleghania (Stewart 1967:173).

There are various ways of pronouncing the word "Appalachia." People from the Southern United States tend to say /æpə'lætʃʲə/ (appa-LATCH-a), while others, especially from the Northeast, often say /æpə'leɪʃʲə/ (appa-LAY-sha).

Popular culture


Transportation

Map showing the route of the National Road at its greatest completion in 1839, with historical state boundaries.

Appalachia's geography presents special challenges to transportation. In Europe while mountain ranges presented challenges to transport they could be avoided. In North America the Appalachian Mountains presented a barrier that could not be easily out flanked. Intially European settlers found gaps in the mountains. One of the better known being the Cumberland Gap and the Wilderness Road.

Early Roads

The first modern road to be built through Appalachia was the National Road starting at Cumberland, MD an early hub of Appalachia and heading west first to Wheeling, VA. Other roads soon followed such as the Northwestern Turnpike and James River and Kanawha Turnpike.

Water

By 1772, George Washington had identified the Potomac and James rivers as the most promising locations for canals to be built to join with the western rivers. Washington proposed a canal to connect the Potomac River and the Ohio River and founded the Potowmack Company. In 1824, the holdings of the Potowmac Company were ceded to the Chesapeake and Ohio Company. Construction began with a groundbreaking ceremony on July 4, 1828 by President John Quincy Adams. It followed the course of the Potomac River to Cumberland, MD. Had it been completed it would have continued west from Cumberland along the Potomac River and then followed the Savage River crossing the eastern continental divide near present day Deep Creek Lake, and eventually following the Youghiogheny River to navigable waters.

The other the James River and Kanawha Canal was a project first proposed by Washington when he was a young man surveying the mountains of western Virginia. In 1785, the James River Company was formed, with George Washington as honorary president, to build locks around the falls at Richmond. By then, Washington was quite busy with the affairs of the new nation which would elect him as its first president in 1789. The goal was to reach the Kanawha River at its head of navigation about 30 miles east of today's Charleston, West Virginia. The canal eventually extended 196.5 miles west of Richmond, Virginia to Buchanan, Virginia by 1851 westward progress had stopped due to increasing competition from the rail roads.


Even today river systems provide transport through barge traffic on the Ohio River system. The Monongahela River is navigable its entire length with a series of lock/dams ensuring a 9' depth, deep into the interior of West Virginia.

Rail

The next major transportation leap for Appalachia was the Rail Road. The Baltimore and Ohio was the first to cross. It has finished to Piedmont, VA July 21, 1851, Fairmont, VA June 22, 1852, and its terminus at Wheeling, VA on January 1, 1853. The was the death nell to the canals.

In 1855 the Norfolk and Western Railway, under the direction of Frederick J. Kimball, began to push across Appalachia. Starting from Big Lick the lines extended to the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia and on north to Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Southern Railway linked Charleston, South Carolina and Memphis, Tennessee, crossing Appalachia in 1857 in the Ashville, North Carolina area, although rail expansion halted with the start of the Civil War.

By 1867 the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway had reached the eastern edge of the mountains and was also reaching for the Ohio valley via the New River and Kanawha Valleys of West Virginia. The West Virginia stretch of the C & O was the site of the legendary competition between John Henry and a steam-powered machine; the competition is said to have taken place in a tunnel south of Talcott, West Virginia near the Greenbrier River. In 1888, the C&O built the Cincinnati Division, from Huntington, West Virginia down the south bank of the Ohio River in Kentucky and across the river at Cincinnati, connecting with the "Big Four" and other Midwestern Railroads.

Henry G. Davis started the West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railway in 1880 in the ensuing years it opened a huge swathe of timber and coal territory in northern West Virginia to use. It started in Piedmont, WV and pushed west creating such towns as Elkins, Davis and Thomas. It pushed east to Cumberland, Maryland where it connected with traffic from the C&0 Canal and National Road. West from Elkins, West Virginia Davis created the Coal & Coke Railway to Charleston completing another crossing. These eventually formed the core of the Western Maryland Railway. The Western Maryland's Connellsville Extension was built west from Cumberland, Maryland, to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, beginning around 1906 and was completed in 1912.

Today the crossing of the Eastern Continental Divide by the West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railway is now abandon and is used as a Rails to Trails area. The other crossings are either part of CSX or Norfolk Southern Railway and remain the only rail crossings of Appalachia. Cumberland, Maryland still serves as a major rail hub for Appalachia where two main lines head west.

Highways

Appalachian Development Highway System

The next great leap in transportation was the passing of Federal Aid Highway Act of 1925 which created he modern numbered highway system. The longest primary US highway contained in Appalachia is US 11 traversing the eastern side. US 21 was another primary US highway, but much of its route has been decommissioned and replaced with Interstate 77.

In 1965 the Appalachian Regional Commission created the Appalachian Development Highway System which was the first highway system designed specifically to service Appalachia.

Other Appalachia-related articles

The six physiographic provinces of Appalachia:

See also:

References

Further reading

External links

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