Today the Hatfield-McCoy Trails are viewed as one of the most successful tourism ventures the Mountain State has ever seen and the leader in outdoor motorized recreation, but it wasn't always a project held with such esteem.
It started out as an idea held by two unusual local men: Leff Moore and John English. The duo felt that the rugged hills and terrain of rural West Virginia, combined with the growing popularity of All Terrain Vehicles and such ventures as the venerable Appalachian Trail could be combined in a manner to create a network of local ATV and dirtbike trails that would draw tourists from all over the nation to Southern West Virginia.
"When the idea first came up, many people around here laughed about it," noted Hatfield-McCoy Board of Directors Chairman Art Kirkendoll.
Kirkendoll, a very popular local political leader, listened to Moore and English's proposal and decided to swing what support he could as the president of the Logan County Commission to the project.
"I felt it couldn't hurt," he said, noting that remarks from naysayers in the late 90s were often scathing. "Who ever thought that something like this was going to come along and make rural counties like Logan and Mingo into legitimate tourism destinations? At the time it was just a dream, but the reality has far surpassed what the dream started out as."
In 1992, the Hatfield-McCoy Steering Committee was formed in the town of Matewan to explore the possibility of building an ATV trail system, and two years later County Commissions in seven southern West Virginia counties passed resolutions in support of it. These became the original Hatfield-McCoy counties. As part of those agreements it was approved that the original counties would get their trail systems first before expanding to other counties. In 1996, the West Virginia legislature created the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Authority. The Board then voted to let Mercer in as the eigth of the original counties.
The initial goal was to create a proposed 2,000 miles of trails. Currently there are six individual systems and more than 500 miles of ATV, dirtbike and UTV (side by side) trails across five of the original counties with connectors to the towns of Logan, Pineville, Williamson and many more.
The primary purpose behind the Hatfield-McCoy Trails was to directly benefit the economies of those small towns in rural Southern West Virginia. To that end the Hatfield-McCoy Trails have beeen even more successful. Towns like Gilbert and Man and Matewan have seen a boom in hotels, motels, lodging, restaurants and more as dozens of businesses have followed in the wake of the trails themselves.
Moore and English continued to meet periodically with local business and political leaders about the project and it moved forward. Years of meetings ensued until the grand opening a decade ago. At that time, I myself was skeptical. Art Kirkendoll asked me to go ride the trails and see for myself what we had to offer here. I told him I would, but not to hold his breath waiting on Big Jim Charles to endorse such an idea. Terry Fekete arranged a ride for me and within a few hours I realized I WAS WRONG.
I called Art that night and told him of my experience and my prediction that everybody involved had no idea how big this Hatfield-McCoy Trails thing had the potential to become.
Art laughed and said,"I knew you would see it my way, when you went out and experienced it for yourself."
Art invited me to the regular board meetings which turned out to be major news, not just for local papers like the Logan Banner and the Williamson Daily News and the Coal Valley News, but in national magazines as well. In no time at all I was riding with professional riders when new trail systems opened up. I did feature stories for my local paper while the pros did features for national magazines. Turns out that Art, Leff and John were right. They thought outside the traditional box and several counties in Southern West Virginia immediatly benefitted from that.
The trail may look like an overnight success, with 9,000 ticket sales in the 18 months of operation, but it took many, many years of dealing with land companies, the legislature and just plain old hard work to get to that point, a place it has since exceeded dramatically.
Local political fixture Paul Hardesty attended the initial meeting with Moore and remembered the meeting being very long and dry. He was told that there was no trail open at that time, because there was no trail to be had.
"The problem was, they could not get the land owners to sign on," Hardesty explained.
Hardesty told Moore that he knew landowners like Glen Yost (whom he played golf with) and Greg Wooten of Dingess Rum Properties he could get interested in the concept. Those properties would eventually become the home of the Bearwallow Trailhead in Logan County and Wooten and Yost have been longterm Board members.
Hardesty felt the project could offer a landowners something of value — legal liability — because many people were riding their ATVs illegally, in effect trespassing on private property leaving the landowners liable. By accepting the trail system, the liability is covered by the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Authority.
The early years of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails were often touch and go. The economy was tight and direct funding from the state was often limited. Early budgets from the state did not go far when you took into consideration salaries and benefits for 11 full time workers and seven part timer employees. But other funds were soon made available to the HMRRA. Also, local businesses have helped. Over the years permit sales increased dramaticaly as well, although at one point a former executive director (now board member) Matt Ballard told told the board the Authority might never be fully self sufficient from permit sales alone. In time, that too changed as grant money from the federal government, funding from sponsors and a new initiative by current Executive Director Jeff Lusk to increase marketing and merchandising revenues proved to be very successful indeed.
There have been many major challenges in helping to make the trail what it is today. But through all the challenges and all the changes, the Hatfield-McCoy Trails has continued to grow and expand and to bring economic prosperity in its wake to Southern West Virginia. Current Executive Director Jeff Lusk was no newcomer to the project either. In fact, he was there in the beginning.
"In 1993, Paul McCallister, Left Moore, Mike Whit and I used to meet at the Depot restaurant in Matewan about this new and great idea," he told me. "Needless to say, we were not as popular back then as we are now."
Lusk points out that almost a decade later and their are over 500 miles of managed trails in a system that has nine counties signed on and begging for more.
"Right now, we are the largest state managed trail system in the nation and the best," Lusk said. "We have a unique niche. No other state will ever catch up to us."
Lusk points out that it is easier to create a large outdoor trail system in West Virginia than in other states because so much of the vast tracts of land needed are owned by a few land companies, which means that there are less people to work out land useage deals with.
It started out as an idea held by two unusual local men: Leff Moore and John English. The duo felt that the rugged hills and terrain of rural West Virginia, combined with the growing popularity of All Terrain Vehicles and such ventures as the venerable Appalachian Trail could be combined in a manner to create a network of local ATV and dirtbike trails that would draw tourists from all over the nation to Southern West Virginia.
"When the idea first came up, many people around here laughed about it," noted Hatfield-McCoy Board of Directors Chairman Art Kirkendoll.
Kirkendoll, a very popular local political leader, listened to Moore and English's proposal and decided to swing what support he could as the president of the Logan County Commission to the project.
"I felt it couldn't hurt," he said, noting that remarks from naysayers in the late 90s were often scathing. "Who ever thought that something like this was going to come along and make rural counties like Logan and Mingo into legitimate tourism destinations? At the time it was just a dream, but the reality has far surpassed what the dream started out as."
In 1992, the Hatfield-McCoy Steering Committee was formed in the town of Matewan to explore the possibility of building an ATV trail system, and two years later County Commissions in seven southern West Virginia counties passed resolutions in support of it. These became the original Hatfield-McCoy counties. As part of those agreements it was approved that the original counties would get their trail systems first before expanding to other counties. In 1996, the West Virginia legislature created the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Authority. The Board then voted to let Mercer in as the eigth of the original counties.
The initial goal was to create a proposed 2,000 miles of trails. Currently there are six individual systems and more than 500 miles of ATV, dirtbike and UTV (side by side) trails across five of the original counties with connectors to the towns of Logan, Pineville, Williamson and many more.
The primary purpose behind the Hatfield-McCoy Trails was to directly benefit the economies of those small towns in rural Southern West Virginia. To that end the Hatfield-McCoy Trails have beeen even more successful. Towns like Gilbert and Man and Matewan have seen a boom in hotels, motels, lodging, restaurants and more as dozens of businesses have followed in the wake of the trails themselves.
Moore and English continued to meet periodically with local business and political leaders about the project and it moved forward. Years of meetings ensued until the grand opening a decade ago. At that time, I myself was skeptical. Art Kirkendoll asked me to go ride the trails and see for myself what we had to offer here. I told him I would, but not to hold his breath waiting on Big Jim Charles to endorse such an idea. Terry Fekete arranged a ride for me and within a few hours I realized I WAS WRONG.
I called Art that night and told him of my experience and my prediction that everybody involved had no idea how big this Hatfield-McCoy Trails thing had the potential to become.
Art laughed and said,"I knew you would see it my way, when you went out and experienced it for yourself."
Art invited me to the regular board meetings which turned out to be major news, not just for local papers like the Logan Banner and the Williamson Daily News and the Coal Valley News, but in national magazines as well. In no time at all I was riding with professional riders when new trail systems opened up. I did feature stories for my local paper while the pros did features for national magazines. Turns out that Art, Leff and John were right. They thought outside the traditional box and several counties in Southern West Virginia immediatly benefitted from that.
The trail may look like an overnight success, with 9,000 ticket sales in the 18 months of operation, but it took many, many years of dealing with land companies, the legislature and just plain old hard work to get to that point, a place it has since exceeded dramatically.
Local political fixture Paul Hardesty attended the initial meeting with Moore and remembered the meeting being very long and dry. He was told that there was no trail open at that time, because there was no trail to be had.
"The problem was, they could not get the land owners to sign on," Hardesty explained.
Hardesty told Moore that he knew landowners like Glen Yost (whom he played golf with) and Greg Wooten of Dingess Rum Properties he could get interested in the concept. Those properties would eventually become the home of the Bearwallow Trailhead in Logan County and Wooten and Yost have been longterm Board members.
Hardesty felt the project could offer a landowners something of value — legal liability — because many people were riding their ATVs illegally, in effect trespassing on private property leaving the landowners liable. By accepting the trail system, the liability is covered by the Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreation Authority.
The early years of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails were often touch and go. The economy was tight and direct funding from the state was often limited. Early budgets from the state did not go far when you took into consideration salaries and benefits for 11 full time workers and seven part timer employees. But other funds were soon made available to the HMRRA. Also, local businesses have helped. Over the years permit sales increased dramaticaly as well, although at one point a former executive director (now board member) Matt Ballard told told the board the Authority might never be fully self sufficient from permit sales alone. In time, that too changed as grant money from the federal government, funding from sponsors and a new initiative by current Executive Director Jeff Lusk to increase marketing and merchandising revenues proved to be very successful indeed.
There have been many major challenges in helping to make the trail what it is today. But through all the challenges and all the changes, the Hatfield-McCoy Trails has continued to grow and expand and to bring economic prosperity in its wake to Southern West Virginia. Current Executive Director Jeff Lusk was no newcomer to the project either. In fact, he was there in the beginning.
"In 1993, Paul McCallister, Left Moore, Mike Whit and I used to meet at the Depot restaurant in Matewan about this new and great idea," he told me. "Needless to say, we were not as popular back then as we are now."
Lusk points out that almost a decade later and their are over 500 miles of managed trails in a system that has nine counties signed on and begging for more.
"Right now, we are the largest state managed trail system in the nation and the best," Lusk said. "We have a unique niche. No other state will ever catch up to us."
Lusk points out that it is easier to create a large outdoor trail system in West Virginia than in other states because so much of the vast tracts of land needed are owned by a few land companies, which means that there are less people to work out land useage deals with.
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