There was a major tractor-trailer
wreck on Exit 42 of Turnpike on May 2,2013 blocking northbound
traffic on the turnpike. Mary Jo and I were returning from
Greenbrier County to Charleston and we decided to take Route 60 west
for first time in years. Sam Black Church , Crawly, Rupert, Charmco,
Rainelle, Sewell Mountain, Lookout, Hico, Ansted, Chimney Corner,
Mystery Hole , Gauley Bridge, Glen Ferris, Falls View, Boomer,
Alloy, Smithers, Montgomery, London, Glascow, Cedar Grove,
Shrewsbury, Belle, DuPont. Those are names from my youth and I can
only remember the names of some of the big cities. Plus I forgot
Rand near DuPont, which is the home of Randy Moss the NFL great that
played college football at Marshall. When we traveled on Old 60 Dad
used to ask me keep my eyes out for the famous Indian chief named
Falling Rocks.
Before I-64 ,"Old 60" was the most heavily traveled east west route
from the Virginia State line to Kentucky state line. The final
section from Sam Black Church to Charleston was completed in 1988.
With the divergence of traffic from 60 to I-64 , through traffic
has declined drastically and the old travel related business of
service stations, restaurants and hotels has declined significantly
as has the tourism along the road. A casualty of "progress". I think
that Mystery Hole is still open in the summer. For those of you who
signed the super secret pledge never to reveal what you saw there,
please don't tell me. My curiosity has waned
I-64 in Beckley hooks up with I-77 and goes approximately 60 miles
west through two tollgates on what we called the West Virginia
Turnpike . In order to confuse the public because the public had
been critical of the turnpike they now call this the parkways
authority. The turnpike is one of the few interstates in the country
that has tolls and since approximately 60 to 70 percent of the
traffic on the road is from out of state ,there is no rush to take
the tolls offs. The middle section of this stretch of the turnpike
is curvy and hilly and with increasing traffic volumes especially
semi trucks ,it can be scary driving The other potions of the road
resemble interstates everywhere else.
Two interesting notes. The first is that the Sandstone mountain
section of I-64 in Summers County has a long section of 7% grade
that is a fairly steep grade for interstates. Google says that this
section of 64 is one of the few if not the only section of the
interstate system that has a separate posted speed for trucks
,certainly because of Sandstone Mountain. The decline at Sandstone
Mountain has two emergency truck turn outs They are there if a truck
should lose its breaks. This happens and I once saw a truck gets out
of control, miss the turnout and .apparently purposefully, run into
a guardrail and off the interstate on to a slope. Miraculously the
truck landed in one piece although it jackknifed.
Secondly according to Google there was a mildly successful Boston
Massachusetts hard rock band around the mid 2000s that was known as
Sam Black's Church. The band was named after the West Virginia
location of Sam Black's Church
