Cathedral State Park: West Virginia's Ancient Hemlock Forest

In a state where most of the old forests were logged bare by nineteen ten, Cathedral State Park in Preston County holds something remarkable: one hundred thirty-three acres of virgin hemlock that were never cut. The oldest trees here sprouted around fifteen hundred, before Columbus reached the Americas, and the tallest now stand about ninety feet high with trunks up to sixteen feet around at the base. The park takes its name from what visitors feel standing among them: the columnar trunks and filtered light recall the interior of a cathedral.

The land was once a summer resort called Brookside, built in eighteen eighty-two. When the caretaker sold the property to the state in the nineteen forties, he required by contract that the trees remain untouched. That condition has been honored for more than eighty years, and the forest is now a National Natural Landmark.