West Virginia
Opened in 1927, the first Federal women's prison in the United States. Famous inmates at Alderson have included Billie Holiday, Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally and would-be Gerald Ford assassins Sara Jane Moore and Squeakie Frome. The original design was a horseshoe-...
The tunnel opened in 1954 as part of the West Virginia turnpike, a two-lane road that required the movement of 30 million cubic yards of earth. In 1987, the tunnel was bypassed by an open cut that displaced earth from a 371 foot cut in the mountain to a 311...
Planned by the Eisenhower Administration and completed in 1961, this formerly secret underground bunker was designed to house members of Congress and their staffs during (and after) nuclear attack and is located below the Greenbrier Resort Hotel. Construction...
One of two major chemical plants operated by Dow Chemical in West Virginia, the Institute plant was originally constructed by the military in 1943 to produce synthetic rubber for the war. In 1947 it was purchased by Union Carbide. The plant site is now owned...
The Internal Revenue Service's National Computer Center was dedicated in 1961. Data from taxes filed at the IRS's ten regional service centers is transmitted over secure phone lines to the center, which maintains IRS "master" files and electronically examines...
According to the plant's owner, American Electric Power, this 2,900 megawatt plant burns five million tons of coal per year, which "equates to roughly 500 coal mining jobs" and can power two million homes. Unit 3, completed in 1973, was the first 1,300...
The more than 1,800 workers in this plant slaughter, process, and pack one million pounds of meat per day (1.7 million chickens per week). The plants capacity was doubled in 1993 by WLR Foods Inc., which later merged with Pilgrims Pride to become the second-...
The last link in Appalachian Corridor L, completed in 1977. This 876-foot tall bridge, which weighs 88 million pounds, is the world's largest single arch steel span and the second-highest bridge in the United States. (The Royal Gorge Bridge over the Arkansas...
A plant was built at this location by the Carborundum Company in 1957, primarily to process Nigerian zirconium for the nuclear industry, an ore that also contains uranium. In 1968, after pyrophoric waste material (capable of exploding) began to leak from...
The New Vrindaban community was founded in 1968 as part of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) founded by Srila Prabhupada. It is a spiritual center and pilgrimage site for Hare Krishnas and other Hindus and, along with the nearby...
The Arch Coal Company's Sample Mine may be the largest surface mine in West Virginia, with an output of 5.5 million tons of coal annually. This is a "mountaintop removal" mine, the Appalachian equivalent of the open pit and surface mines of the West, that is...
Opened in 1925 by the Union Carbide Corporation, this plant was a successor to Carbide's Clendenin, WV plant, which opened in 1920 and was the company's first commercial ethylene plant. In 1927, Carbide purchased Blaine Island, then 80 acres of melon patches...
Sugar Grove is a military communications center, with a two-story underground facility, operated primarily by the Navy. One function may be to monitor microwave communications for the National Security Agency. It is located within the National Radio Quiet...