Curating the View: Tourism & Exploitation in Appalachia
By Caitlin Ware
One of my favorite things to do is visit places across West Virginia to meet people and learn their stories and how they impact my own. I’ve visited nearly every state park and at least three-quarters of our 55 counties. I hope to visit all.
WV Gov. Jim Justice has gone “all in” on tourism. Last September he announced a $7 billion annual tourism impact for 2022. The Office of the Governor reports that “Visitor spending generated $887 million in tax revenues last year, with $520 million going directly to our state and local governments. Tourism-generated tax dollars contributed approximately $715 per household to maintaining government services.”[1]
As Gov. Justice says, “I’ve been saying since my first day in office that we have to tell our state’s story, and we’re doing just that and it’s working.”[2]
Room with a view?
What we see is important. Tourism by nature attracts people to a particular scenic view. But what if they don’t like what they see?
In his 2017 book Ramp Hollow, author Steven Stoll describes the development of the Blue Ridge Parkway. With the development of the parkway came the removal of trees for clearer views, but also the removal of people and their unsightly homes. The people that refused to sell their properties were forcibly removed.[3]
What happens when people impact that view?
Elizabeth Catte recounts the development of Shenandoah National Park and the “problem” of the 7,000 mountain folk that resided within the proposed park boundaries. Photographers and sociologists were sent in to advise Virginia government officials on how to move forward when outright removal from the land wasn’t in the state’s favor.[4]
The photographers and sociologists didn’t like the view either. “These less evolved individuals, the experts argued, could only be saved through the intervention of outsiders.”[5] They advised the government that allowing people there to continue living on the land and having families would create an economic and social “burden” for the state in the future.
These so-called “experts” argued that evicting and re-locating residents would be in the state’s best interest. “The government justified its actions in the name of progress and leveraged the consolidation power of the federal government to modernize the rural poor by force if necessary.”
Waste Land. Waste People.
Ellen Wayland-Smith of The Boston Review adds, “These expert reports on the degradedness of the mountain residents aided park boosters in reframing displacement as a gain rather than a loss”—both for the region, which would reap the economic rewards of a booming tourism industry, and for the displaced themselves, who would be better off in the civilizing hands of the state.
By 1935 these mountain communities were being forcibly scattered to the winds, with the least fortunate among them ending up as wards of the state in facilities such as Western State and the Lynchburg Colony”[6] where they were sterilized and housed.
In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg notes that “wasteland” was the term used for undeveloped land not put to commercial use at the beginning of American colonization. Trees, streams, and land not making money for someone were ‘going to waste.’
People could be waste too. Waste land. Waste people.
A state on exhibit
The New River Gorge is more than the lovely, iconic, (manmade) bridge.
Within park boundaries are living communities with living people and living stories. Tourism has already begun to change this area. Historic structures are being proposed for demolition.
Surely several of the proposed structures for demolition may be unable to be repaired or truly may pose danger to those within the boundaries of the park. However, 21 of 35 structures up for demolition are either listed, or eligible for listing, in the National Register of Historic Places.
What happens when an economically desperate state decides to put itself on exhibit?
I’m not suggesting we’ve reached the same conclusions as Virginia…or that we would.
My point is this: As West Virginia continues to establish tourism as a major sector of our economy how will we allow for people to experience our land, people, and story, without putting it on exhibit…an exhibit subject to the curation of outsiders.
How will we maintain the places that tell our story while creating new ways to tell it?
How will we build up our home without building over others’?
Who will get to tell that story?
[1]https://governor.wv.gov/News/press-releases/2023/Pages/Gov.-Justice-announces-record-$7-billion-annual-tourism-impact-for-2022.aspx
[2]https://wvtourism.com/release/gov-justice-announces-west-virginia-named-top-ten-global-travel-destination/
[3] Ramp Hollow, Steven Stoll, 240
[4] https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/ellen-wayland-smith-logic-eugenics-still-haunts-virginia/
[5] What You’re Getting Wrong About Appalachia, Elizabeth Catte, 74
[6] https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/ellen-wayland-smith-logic-eugenics-still-haunts-virginia/
Feature image by mickael2015 on Pond5.com
Caitlin Ware calls Flemington, WV in Taylor County home. She loves outdoor recreation, mystery novels, and sitting in her rocking chair. In 2023 she served an internship with the WV Faith Coalition and the Welch Charge, six United Methodist churches in McDowell County. Caitlin is interested in just transition and environmental work in energy communities. Caitlin is currently completing her Master of Divinity at Duke Divinity School. She graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 2020 and is pursuing ordination as an Elder in the United Methodist Church in West Virginia.
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