Seminole: Ghost Town in the Making Traditional Cache
Backwoods Reviewer: As the owner has not responded to my prior note, I am archiving this listing.
Backwoods Reviewer
Geocaching.com Community Volunteer Reviewer
Seminole: Ghost Town in the Making
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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Seminole, Harrison County, WV, was once a small mining community that
was accessible in a vehicle via a road through Hughes Camp. In
addition to this one road, a swinging foot bridge was in place over
the West Fork River, which allowed access from Gypsy, WV. As the
years went on, the vehicle road from Hughes Camp fell into disrepair
and was eventually consumed back into nature, leaving no vehicle
access for the area. The streets of Seminole went from concrete back
to dirt then grass. The people of Seminole just drove their vehicle
through Gypsy, parked at the swinging foot bridge and walked across
the river. All was well except for the inconvenient fact that you had
to park up to a half mile from your house and walk across a swinging
bridge with your groceries. Then the flood of 1985 occurred in WV.
The Seminole Swinging Bridge was just one of the bridges that were
destroyed during this hundred year flood. The WV Department of
Highways offered to build a vehicle capable bridge but the Seminole
Community refused. In the end, the WV DOH built another foot bridge
(none swinging) and life went on as usual.
Around the year 2002, the community of Seminole was wanting to join
the 21st century by getting a new vehicle bridge built but there were
just a few families left by now so no one wanted to pick up the
expense of the new bridge. In the end it was decided that Harrison
County would just buy up all the property which was cheaper than
building the bridge. The last family moved out of Seminole in 2005
and Harrison County owns most of the property but not all.
The foot bridge used to have side rails and is not in too great shape.
I'm not sure which land on the other side of the river is owned by
the county and which is owned by private owners. There are still 8-10
structures visible and you can tell where the grass streets are/were.
The cache is on the Gypsy side of the foot bridge so you only need to
cross it if you want too.
Congrats to WVcachepirate for the FTF!
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