Ten years ago today, a resort in Mt. Nebo, West Virginia dedicated a lighthouse.
Which is really something, because West Virginia is landlocked.
The resort is several hundred miles away from the ocean!
There is a lake nearby, as you can guess from the resort’s name, Summersville Lake Retreat.
But this wasn’t to keep ships on Summersville Lake safe; there’s not a lot of shipping coming through.
As Steve and Donna Keblesh, the owners of the resort, say on their website, “it all started over a joke.”
In 2009, one of their guests was Rick Butler, who was helping to build a wind power project in nearby Greenbrier County.
The owners watched trucks bring huge pieces of the wind tower on the nearby roads.
One day they joked to Butler that if he ever had a spare tower, they wouldn’t mind installing it on the property.
No one would know it was from the wind project, they laughed, because they would disguise it as a lighthouse.
Butler said, funny you should say that, we actually do have a spare tower.
A turbine tower had rolled off a truck and down a hillside, slamming into some trees.
It couldn’t go into service as a wind tower, but it was perfectly fine to end up as a lighthouse.
The Kebleshes weren’t the only ones who liked the idea.
It turned into a community project.
Engineers, electricians, contractors and students from the area all helped design and install the tower, as well as a staircase, an observation area and a vintage rotating light beacon.
There were several thousand people on hand for the official dedication today in 2013, which also happened to be the 150th birthday of the state of West Virginia.
Now, in the warmer months, you can climb to the top of the lighthouse.
Unlike most lighthouses you probably aren’t going to see the ocean, but it’s still a pretty magnificent view.
This week, Hampton, South Carolina is hosting the Hampton County Watermelon Festival.
There’s going to be plenty of fruit on hand, of course, but the event is also known for having a more than three mile long parade, the longest in the state.
The reason why landlocked WV has a lighthouse (WVTourism)
Hampton County Watermelon Festival
