Huttonsville offers two distinct starting points for planning a trip: landscape and history. Kumbrabow State Forest combines elevation, a large area, and trails leading to scenic overlooks; historic attractions include Route 250, Tygarts Valley Church, and the E.E. Hutton House. If you’re looking for a vacation rental, you can decide in advance whether you want your stay to focus more on nature or history.
Forest and Views
Kumbrabow State Forest covers 9,474 acres, sits more than 3,000 feet above sea level, and is West Virginia’s highest-elevation state forest. These three facts answer different questions: how large the area is, how high it sits, and how it ranks within the state. For a landscape-focused visit, they provide a specific combination of size, elevation, and regional context.
Several scenic trails lead to overlooks of the surrounding terrain. The overlooks give the nature theme a practical focus: it’s not just about area and elevation, but also about trails whose destination is a view of the terrain. If you enjoy taking in landscapes from scenic overlooks when you travel, these trails are a specific option to consider.
Another figure for comparison is the size of the Huttonsville State Farm Wildlife Management Area: it covers 2,804 acres. At 9,474 acres, Kumbrabow State Forest is more than three times as large. These two figures give you a simple shared basis for comparing the size of the areas.
Cultural History and Landscape
Tygarts Valley Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986; the E.E. Hutton House was built in 1898. The dates can be understood as two different time markers: the church’s listing date and the house’s construction year.
The E.E. Hutton House stands on a hill overlooking the plains at the foot of the nearby mountains. This setting adds a landscape dimension to its history: the house looks out across the transition from hill to plains in front of the mountains. If you also pay attention to the setting of historic buildings, the house offers a specific spatial perspective alongside its construction date.
Historic Routes
In Huttonsville, historic Route 250—the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike—meets Route 219. The name Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike gives Route 250 its historic connection; its intersection with Route 219 places that connection within the town. This offers a different kind of historical context from a construction year or a listing date: the focus here is on the relationship between roads, not the history of a single building.
If you’re looking for a vacation rental as a base, this distinction can help with planning: the forest combines measurable size with scenic overlooks, while the historic attractions differ in whether they’re associated with a construction year, a listing date, or a road connection.
Discover more destinations: Beverly, Dryfork, Elkins.
For the broader travel overview: Randolph County.
