When Opportunity Knocks....

The Difference…..


A few weeks ago, a buddy of mine was talking about the difference between some of our towns in Southern West Virginia. In particular, he was pointing out how places like Gilbert, Matewan and Man had benefited quite a bit more from the creation of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails than other towns had.
As I pointed out to him, there were various reasons for this….

For one thing, some of our more historic towns like Matewan were fairly much on what the locals called “their last legs.” IE the population numbers were down, businesses were boarded up and so forth. The town of Man, in large parts, looked like a ghost town due to the number of boarded up windows in their downtown area.

Then, a funny thing happened….

You good people came to town….
To ride the new-fangled Hatfield-McCoy Trails of course…and local people like Pat Garland and Terry Fekete and numerous others renovated existing structures into places like Historic Matewan House and The Rockhouse Lodge. Others opened campgrounds and even new hotels like the Holiday Inn and Best Western came to the area….

Within less than two years, Gilbert was suddenly booming again. And all the boarded up structures in Man were now being rented out for more new businesses than you could count. Hatfield-McCoy brought TOURISM to the coalfields and you fine tourists folks brought a healthy injection of MONEY.

You see, for many decades our local leaders had put all the economic eggs in one basket - the Coal Industry. The thing is, as one stunned vendor pointed out to me when his newfangled business investment turned into a bigger money maker than he could ever have imagined, “When tourists come to town and spend money that is new money coming into our area. The thing with coal is that the coal industry makes money, but that money mostly goes out of our area.”

Marshall University did a study on the new tourism economy in West Virginia and found that in fact, the Hatfield-McCoy Trails were bringing MILLIONS into our region. And that was millions in NEW MONEY coming IN from the OUTSIDE. That is why it had such a powerful effect on our local economy, as say, compared to the coal industry, which has always suffered from a cycle of booms and busts. When coal booms, people have money to spend. When the coal cycle busts, money gets tight, but, as my friend noted and as more than one local elected official noted, Tourism money was OUTSIDE money coming in and it had a bigger impact in many ways than anybody could have predicted.

Towns like Gilbert, Man and Matewan really took advantage of the influx of tourism that Hatfield-McCoy offered. Those towns virtually EXPLODED overnight and benefited greatly. People in Man, Gilbert and Matewan took a chance and invested in lodging and food businesses and those investments paid off in a big way. And everybody benefited, from the folks who lived in those towns, which suddenly had an extra influx of Business and Occupation Taxes, to folks who had more places to buy stuff, to the folks who got jobs in those new businesses.

But some towns did not do as good.
To be blunt, some towns fumbled the ball that was offered to them. Case in point was the town of Logan. Some of the folks who used to be on the town council back then did not get too excited about that opportunity and in all honesty, missed the boat, somewhat compared to smaller towns.
There were people on the town council back then who did not like the idea of the trails and there were others who paid too much heed to the various whiners who pooh poohed the idea.
I recall one town council where somebody complained about how ATVs would be noisy…as if the windows up on the second floor of the Newspaper office I used to work in did not get rattled constantly by guys (suffering from an overcompensation complex) riding motorcycles with excessively loud pipes, or even worse, the folks who drove around in an old hoopty car that had a stereo system that cost ten times more than the car blaring the absolute worst taste in music to be had.Sometimes the actual building shook. A concrete building... I can assure you, to this day I have never heard an ATV, Dirtbike or UVE as loud as that.
One member did not like the idea of having to purchase a permit to ride the trails, etc… There were numerous excuses, none of which held water…
Mind you, these naysayers were not bad people...They were just short sighted....and they missed an amazing opportunity for their towns....
And in time, Common Sense came to the fore…Eventually, Logan and other towns reached out to HMT and asked for a Community Connector. Thanks to new people on the council at the time, the town and local businesses actually worked WITH Hatfield-McCoy to get the popular Logan Connector that now connects Bearwallow to the town.
And restaurants in Logan have benefited. And new hotels have come to the Logan area. Slowly, but surely Logan has been working to catch up, and I believe it will happen.

But a lesson was learned.
When Opportunity Knocks that window is not open forever and sometimes you have to jump through as fast as you can. The towns that jumped first benefited the most right from the first.

An HMT Valentine of sorts....

As I sit here starting this new McBlog it is still Valentine’s Day.

And of course, spring is right around the corner. As the old saying goes, “when Springtime comes, a man’s thoughts turn to Romance.”

Romance....
The things we love....

I got to thinking about this when I saw a posting one of our regular visitors made on our very popular Facebook page.

A rider named Jerry King wrote, “ Im coming this weekend and have been checking the extended forecast for the past week. Cant wait. This will be one of my 2 yearly trips to HMT. 425 miles one way and 6.5 hour drive...and worth every minute.....
This will be my 7th or 8th time to HMT and I'm the newbie of the bunch.”

Mr. King obviously is one of the people who "gets it" as I like to say in regards to why so many people love Hatfield-McCoy and Southern West Virginia.

Ironically, so many people who love this area are from other places and many of the people who grew up here do not appreciate it like they should.



This was something I noticed years ago, when HMT came online. Soon, people who came for an initial visit were coming back a second time that year.
Some even came back three and four times!

There are riders from other states who have made WV a second home for themselves because they come to our area a couple of times a year to ride the trails and enjoy the gifts of Southern West Virginia - IE beautiful mountains and hills, verdant trees everywhere, all sorts of wildlife and some of the friendliest people on earth.

I was fortunate enough to meet many of these folks through my friendship with one of our vendors, Terry Fekete who began operating the Rockhouse Lodge many years ago. Terry would call me up and say things like , “Hey man, I have that group of riders here from New Jersey that were here just a few months ago. Stop by and meet them.” And things like that. I have met many soldiers, police officers, firefighters and just plain ole All - American families like that. From all over the place. Who love it here, just like I do.

Later, when I began working for Hatfield-Mccoy, first as a Customer Sales Representative, I began encountering even more folks who LOVE HMT. Many of them would stop by the trailhead at Bearwallow for a map or a new shirt or just to talk and I would recognize them, or, more often, they would recognize me as they had been there before.

There are people all over the world - literally - who love Hatfield-McCoy. Last summer I spoke with folks from all over the USA, as well as fine folks who traveled here from Germany and Canada. And it filled my heart with joy to hear how happy they were to be here in the beautiful mountains of Southern West Virginia.


Because even though I am mountain born and bred, and grew up in this region, at times, I feel, disconnected. Because I was raised by my grandfather and grandmother to love, respect and appreciate the great outdoors and all it has to offer. I had a childhood of camping, fishing, swimming, hiking and so forth.

But today, it seems, many people who have grown up in Southern West Virginia do not appreciate our hills, our mountains, our streams and our valleys. They overlook our many blessings, which you, our visitors DO appreciate. You guys "get it." Far too many locals do not.

They grumble about living in rural Appalachia as if it was some curse and not a blessing.

When they wake up in the morning and step outside their front door they pay no attention to the beautiful hills and trees and our scenic vistas. Their spirits are numb to the great beauty of nature which overwhelms folks like you and me.

I am happy to live here. I am proud to live here. But too many people from this area overlook what it has to offer and I feel sorry for them and saddened that they just do not get it- how lucky they are to live here in “Almost Heaven- West Virginia.”

It never occurrs to them how cool it is to be able to ride your ATV or UTE around in town. It seldom dawns on their thoughts that people in other places do not have over 500 miles of well maintained trails to ride around and enjoy like we do.

So when I meet people who love this area, and who have come here because of the Hatfield-McCoy Trails, many times I am overjoyed to meet kindred spirits out there who DO appreciate our beautiful area.

You see, that is what turned me onto Hatfield-McCoy over a decade ago. I didn’t think the venture would fly at first and was critical. Then a good friend (Terry) showed me how to drive a Honda ATV and took me out around Rockhouse. He knew that I loved to hike and camp and we went to several plateaus throughout the course of one day that would have taken at LEAST three days to visit on foot.

By the end of that day, I was convinced.

I was overwhelmed with the fun of riding an ATV through the Great Outdoors and I knew that other people would be as intoxicated by the experience as I was. So I started attending the board meetings, meeting vendors, visitors and people who worked for HMT and even writing stories about it all for our local newspaper.
Which lead me to where I am at today.

I love West Virginia. I love our hills and mountains. I love the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.
And it makes me happy that you guys and gals feel the same way that I do.
Every time I hear from somebody like you guys and gals who "get it' the same way I do, its Valentines Day all over again for me.


Your Friend,

Big Jim Charles

Reality Check

Early in the 20th century a pretty rotten excuse for a human being who got into European politics made the boast "If you tell the same lie over and over enough, people will start to beleive it is true."
This horrid man brought the entire civilized world into conflict. I am no fan of that rat, but I have to give even the devil his due, he was an expert about human nature and the power of lies upon the intellect of gullible people.

(If you watched a lot of the History Channel in its early years, you probably know who that goose stepping weasel was....Far as I am concerned, the less said about him the better...)

Unfortunately for us all, Madison Avenue, Big Media and modern politicians have also adopted that strategem for manipulating the masses. Todays politicans often tell the same lie over and over again because they know people who don't know any better will often buy into it.
Locally I hear one lie over and over again to the point where I try my best to ignore it ....But it won't just go away.
Here is how it worked the last time...
I was at a dinner following an important meeting of a fraternal organization when one of my friends - who is a wonderful guy- spouted it.
Now he was grousing about having to buy a permit to ride the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.
Mind you, this guy probably made about three times what I make a year. Mind you, he probably spent more than a resident permit costs for lunch that day.
But he went ahead and spouted the lie anyway.
It goes like this...
"I don't see why I have to spend $26 dollars a year to ride the trails, because it was people around here riding who built the trails."
Now, me being me, I pointed out, "No, the guys who were riding around the hills back then were not building anything.They were generally trespassing on private property. I actually know the people on the trail field crew who really did build the trails and they can explain to you that none of the trespassing did a thing in regards to grading levels and making things in complaince with federal transportation guidelines."
Of course, after that, people started ragging him about not wanting to spend fifty cents a week.....
And even though I am not good with math, the way I figure it, if a $26.50 a year permit is divided up by 52 weeks per year, its just a wee tad over fifty cents a week.
You cannot go to the movies for fifty cents a week. You cannot go to the swimming pool for fifty cents a week. You cannot read a book for fifty cents a week, unless you get really lucky on EBAY, or borrow one from a friend or a library. You darn sure can't watch tv for fifty cents a week!
But the sad fact is, over the past decade I have heard a LOT of grousing about the costs of the permits, (Even though the old system cost more for a year's riding). And I keep hearing that one spurious complaint, that same silly lie told over and over and over again.
And I am sure some of our visitors have heard it too. In fact, I know some of you who hear a variation of it regularly when an irate local grumbling because he cannot trespass on somebody else's property tries to lure you into riding so-called "outlaw trails."
Just remember. If you are riding on somebody elses property without permission, you are the outlaw.
The people who like to trespass want to take credit for something they never did. There were a lot of people on the varous HMT field crews over the years and THOSE GUYS deserve the credit. Not trespassers.
Thats' a Reality Check.
I have spoken with Johnny Fekete, Jarrod Stone, Todd Hamrick and others when they worked on different trails and listened to them explaining the importance of grading levels and such, for which there are requirements. This entailed the use of dozers, graders, and other peices of heavy equipment. And the fine folks who used that equipment built the trails. They deserve the credit.
Not whiners, grumblers and grousers who THINK they deserve some credit when they were trespassing, usually without legal permission on somebody else's property.
And that is the key- property.
Lots of folks mistakenly think HMT is built on public property or property owned by the state. Not so.
The Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recration Authority builds and maintains trails to boost the local economy.Because much of the large tracts of land needed to have such a system is owned by land companies engaged in natural resource extraction (Coal, Gas and Timber) we have to get permission from them in the form of landowners agreements to build and maintain trails on their private property.
Some refuse it. Many let us. The reason is simple.
They are so aggravated, annoyed and worried by trespassers that they realize that HMT can help them out by providing liability insurance on their land, which takes care of much of their concerns with trespassers. We can also provide RANGERS who keep down on problems caused by trespassing.
HMT was built so that local communities and folks could benefit from tourists coming here, staying with us and spending money like they do for other vacation spots. And many of you have. Southern WV has become a LEGITIMATE vacation and tourism destination. And we folks who live here have indeed benefitted. Look at towns like Man, Gilbert and Matewan today....then look at them back in the late 80s and 90s.
But to build and maintain trails, well, that takes money. To provide legal liability insurance to the property owners also requires money. And remember, the Authority's only sources of funding are permit sales, merchandising sales and grants. ....
So the folks who used to go riding, where Bearwallow is now, and did not have permission from Dingess Rum land company they were in fact trespassing. Not building a trail. Dingess Rum only gave permission to natural gas companies, coal extraction companies and timber companies to be there, according to the management of the company when I spoke with them many years ago.
The people who think trespassing is no big deal, or that it is somehow beneficial, need to listen to the worries of property owners who have had their land torn up, vehicles wrecked on their propety and have to keep paying for "no trespassing" signs that get torn down and run over again and again and again. Not to mention worrying about some poor fool with bad judgement getting hurt or injured riding around where they are not supposed to be in the dark, or getting lost.
That is another Reality Check for the "We built the Trails" crowd who keep touting the same lie over and over again. For the reality is this. No matter how many times you tell a lie. No matter how much somebody wants to beleive it, a lie is still a lie. No matter what a person's opinion is, only truth and facts matter.
Trespassers did not build the Hatfield-McCoy Trails.
The only 'credit' trespassers can take in terms of "building" the Hatfield-McCoy Trails is in helping create a problem for property owners who got fed up with them. Some of the property owners later decided that in return for getting help from HMT in terms of insurance and liability and control of the situation, it was worth letting HMT build trails there.
That's the main reason why many landowners went along with the idea of having a trail system plopped down in the middle of their property. They did it to get help in dealing with a nuisance and in return for allowing HMT to put a trail system in, they recieved a hefty insurance liability policy and trained law enforcement officers protecting them from people who were riding on their property without legal permission.

So the next time you are in our neck of the woods and somebody spouts their opinion based on a lie, remember the facts. Men on bulldozers and graders built the Hatfield-McCoy Trails. Not trespassers.
Then go ahead and make fun of the guy for whining about paying less than a tank of gas's cost for a year's worth of riding....