Charleston: Recreation
Sightseeing
Charleston's parks, museums, and music and cultural activities provide a variety of enjoyable and stimulating experiences. The state's Cultural Center at the Capitol Complex has a museum, performing arts, film and music festivals, and The Shop, which sells only West Virginia native crafts. The Capitol Complex also offers tours of the Governor's Mansion two days a week. On the State Capitol grounds is a memorial honoring Malden, West Virginia, native Booker T. Washington. Glass factories in the area provide tours to groups, and the museums at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences are a favorite of visitors. The Haddad Riverfront Park invites residents and visitors with its river views, evening concerts, and plays. The park offers paved paths for runners, walkers, and cyclists, as well as plenty of areas for picnicking, sunbathing, and relaxing.
A variety of historic homes from the late 1800s and early 1900s can be toured in Charleston. The Craik-Patton House, built in 1834 in the Greek Revival style of architecture, is open mid-April through mid-October for tours. The East End Historical District features homes in a variety of architectural styles, including Queen Anne, Victorian, Richardson Romanesque, Georgian, Italianate, and others, mainly built between 1895 and 1925. Victorian Block on Capitol Street features some of the oldest structures on Capitol Street, with homes dating back to 1887. Shrewsbury Street acknowledges sites and buildings that are prominent in West Virginia's African American history.
Formerly the Daniel Boone Hotel, 405 Capitol Street was built in 1929 at a then-extravagant cost of more than $1.2 million. Renovated in the 1990s, the building now houses business offices and is known for its unique 10-story atrium. Also afforded new life in the city is the C & O Railroad Depot, built in 1905. Refurbished in 1987, the Beaux Arts-style brick and terra cotta trimmed depot houses offices and a restaurant.
Charleston is home port to the P. A. Denny, a beautiful excursion sternwheeler available for scenic rides on the Kanawha or for rental trips for private groups. In addition, many of the forests, parks and resorts in West Virginia's excellent park system are within a half-day's drive of Kanawha Valley.
Arts and Culture
A well-respected symphony orchestra, a resident chamber-music string quartet, a youth orchestra and visiting chamber-music ensembles ensure a steady diet of live classical music in the Charleston area. The new Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences is home to the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, which performs monthly concerts featuring guest artists from around the world. Municipal Auditorium hosts the Charleston Chamber Music Association, Broadway touring shows, and national recording artists. The West Virginia Youth Symphony Orchestra is one of Charleston's special cultural assets, and the group performs extensively in the Kanawha County school system and in schools throughout the state. The Charleston Light Opera Guild provides musical comedy and drama each season. Many community singers, actors, and actresses, such as the Charleston Civic Chorus, have formed a close-knit group of talented performers who act, sing, and dance their way through Broadway musicals each year.
The Civic Center in Charleston contains a 13,500-seat coliseum as well as the 750-seat Little Theatre, home for most of Charleston's community theater groups. Children's Theatre of Charleston introduces many youngsters to the stage. The group produces four plays annually and conducts a performing arts school for its aspiring young actors and actresses. The Kanawha Players—the oldest continuous community theater group in West Virginia—hosts a season of drama and comedy performances each year. From experimental
Charleston is also home to the Charleston Ballet, which performs three to five ballets each season, and the West Virginia Dance theater and the Appalachian Youth Jazz Ballet.
For those with a penchant for the visual arts, the Avampato Discovery Museum at the Clay Center for the Arts and Sciences has a breathtaking gallery and provides art activities, programs, and workshops throughout the year.
Arts and Culture Information: Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau, 200 Civic Center Drive, Charleston, WV 25301; telephone (304)344-5075; fax (304)344-1241.
Festivals and Holidays
For sheer spectacle, few festivals match Charleston's Annual Sternwheel Regatta Festival. The festival began as a small Labor Day race for sternwheel boats operating on the Kanawha River. From that modest beginning, the event expanded to an entire weekend, then a week, and finally to its current 10 days, which are scheduled each year during the days leading up to and including Labor Day. While the Regatta Festival's concerts draw the most impressive crowds, its other events are just as exciting. The Grand Feature Parade kicks off the festival and features balloon figures similar to those in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The Olympia Brass Band visits each year to highlight the traditional New Orleans-style Funeral Parade, where the unusual and inventive take to the streets for a spectacle that has to be seen to be believed. The Regatta Festival's Taste of Charleston is a major gourmet food event that brings a number of Charleston restaurants together under one roof to offer house specialties and other tasty dishes to regatta-goers. Other festival events include arts and craft shows, river cruises, film festivals, street fairs, and an antique car show.
"Symphony Sunday," held each year in the spring, features an outdoor concert on the campus of the University of Charleston. Another annual event that has become a favorite of West Virginians and thousands of out-of-state visitors is May's Vandalia Festival. For this event, crowds flock to the Cultural Center and its grounds to see magnificent quilts, traditional folk dancers, and demonstrations of blacksmithing and toy making and to taste treats like corn roasted over open fires. But it is the traditional music that lures most spectators. Banjo pickers, fiddlers, and dulcimer players compete in good-natured contests, and "jam sessions" seem to be going on everywhere. The first Sunday of June the State Capital Complex features artisans, food, and music at the Rhododendron Art & Craft Show. The Capital City Art and Craft Show at the Civic Center, held the week prior to Thanksgiving, brings together craftspeople and music and craft events for an exhibition with a holiday theme.
Sports for the Spectator
Charleston has the West Virginia Power, a single A South Atlantic League farm team of the Milwaukee Brewers, who play baseball at Appalachian Power Park. For fans of dog racing, the Tri-State Greyhound Park in Cross Lanes operates six days a week all year long.
Sports for the Participant
In Charleston, recreation can be as simple as a riverside stroll down Kanawha Boulevard when the dogwoods are in bloom or chipping a golf ball around one of the four private or five public golf courses in the area. Cyclists, hikers, and runners appreciate the miles of wooded trails and paved paths available in nearby parks, and the paved riverfront path at Kanawha Boulevard downtown. The city and county support numerous recreational centers, parks, ballfields, and golf and tennis facilities. These—along with a number of private country clubs and sports and fitness facilities—can accommodate many recreational interests.
Charleston annually hosts the Charleston Distance Run, one of the oldest and rated one of the 10 best road runs in the United States. This rigorous course—set along 4 miles on the hills and 11 miles on the flatlands—has tested the mettle of world champions.
The Kanawha Parks and Recreation Commission operates seven recreational facilities in Kanawha County. The largest, Coonskin Park, has 1,200 wooded acres near Yeager Airport and offers picnic areas, shelters, tennis, swimming, golf, hiking, a modern amphitheater, soccer stadium, and wedding garden. Sandy Brae Golf Course, 20 minutes north of Charleston off Interstate 79, is an 18-hole championship course. Big Bend is a 6,000-yard golf course along the beautiful Coal River at Tornado.
Kanawha State Forest, adjacent to Charleston, is a sprawling, 9,300 acre unspoiled area ideal for picnicking, hiking, fishing, horseback riding, mountain biking and camping, and cross-country skiing in the winter. Some of the best whitewater rafting in the country is available just a short distance from Charleston on the Gauley and New rivers; the area attracts more than 100,000 rafters and kayakers each year.
Shopping and Dining
Opportunities for pleasant shopping and dining experiences are abundant in Charleston. The Charleston Village District features specialty shops for clothing, books, photography, and other unique items in an architecturally interesting setting. The Village District also offers fine dining experiences. Town Center Mall has more than 130 shops and specialties, in addition to its three main anchor stores. Kanawha Mall, 10 minutes from downtown, features 40 stores and unique eateries. A number of hand production glass factories are in the area, where one may observe skilled craftspersons at work and purchase their wares. Quilts and furniture, handcrafted in West Virginia, are available at local specialty stores. Diners in Charleston will find options for casual and fine dining as well as ethnic flavors of Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Indian, Mediterranean, Italian, and Mexican specialties.
Visitor Information: Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau, 200 Civic Center Drive, Charleston, WV 25301; telephone (304)344-5075; fax (304)344-1241.