without some confusion. By simply looking at a state map it is fairly easy to determine the state’s center is in Braxton county but finding its precise spot within the county is another matter.

Four miles south of Sutton at the intersection of Old Turnpike Road and Wolf Creek Road there is a state historical marker which says the geographical center “is near this point.”

However, almost five miles north of Sutton at the Flatwoods intersection of I-79 one will find a large sign that claims Flatwoods is home to the geographical center. This is a difference of nearly nine miles by road. Which of these claims, if either, is correct? What town can factually lay claim to being the home of the geographical center of West Virginia? These are questions that have interested me for years, and as detailed below finding the exact spot with certainty has proven to be, at least for now, an impossible task. However, the center can be found with a margin of error of only a few hundred feet.

During the 1970s I took an interest in finding the geographical center since I lived very near the area as described in official state documents. Most records indicate the center is around 4.5 air miles east of Sutton, and since I live around 3 miles due east of Sutton I was curious as to the exact spot. Having searched every official document available on the subject none were really much more specific than the general “4.5 miles east of Sutton.” Finally I wrote the state Geological Survey office in Charleston and asked them for more information on the precise spot of the center.

A reply came from Robert B. Erwin, then Director and State Geologist. What he told me about the way they determined the geological center of the state was interesting and somewhat suprising. I was expecting an elaborate method of precise measurements with heavy use of higher mathematics and geometry, but he said they merely “constructed a model of the State” using “very dense fiberboard on a scale of 1:500,000 (1” = 8 miles)” and then he said, “thus determining the balance to within 1/8 of an inch would designate a one mile circle.” In other words they simply cut out a pattern of the state on a board and hung it from a nail to find the balance point! Frankly, I thought this was a pretty “low tech” method even for the 1970s.

Since the method they used was open to many variables, Mr. Erwin emphasized that the geographical center could not be pinpointed. He sent me a large relief map of the state which had the center marked to within a half-mile radius as they had determined it. The area marked was about 4.5 miles southeast of Sutton in what was then Elk Public Hunting Area. Since receiving this information and learning there was no exact spot identified, I  pursued the matter no further until recently.

In 2003 I was searching the woods in the “Stony Creek” area of what is now Elk Wildlife Management Area for some old graves I had stumbled on while hunting several years earlier.

These graves [possibly of early county settlers] were on an isolated ridge top and I wanted to see if I could find them again and also see if they had any markings. After walking several miles and not finding them I called the manager of Elk Wildlife Management Area, Mark Clarke, and asked him if he knew of the graves and where they were located. He said he had been to them once but could not remember their exact location either. While we were talking about where I might look next, Mr. Clarke happened to mention that old interest of mine—the location of the geographical center of the state.

I went over to the Wildlife Area headquarters the next day and met Mr. Clarke near the area we thought the graves were and he pointed to an old field only a couple hundred yards away. He said he was told by a former area manager that about 15 years earlier a group of WVU students placed an unnamed marker in this field among the Chestnut trees marking the geographical center of the state. My old interest in this curiosity was instantly renewed.

I went home and found again the old map sent by Mr. Erwin years earlier and discovered the field appeared to be within the small circle marked as the center on the map. Since this is now the “computer age” and computers are able to solve mathematical problems with extreme speed and accuracy I figured the precise spot of the center must have been determined and wanted to find an “official” to verify this information. I contacted the WV GIS Technical Center at WVU, which is apparently their Geography Department, and they claimed to know nothing about the matter. I then contacted the Geological Survey office in Charleston again and received a reply from the present head of the service, Steven McClelland.

Contrary to my assumptions Mr. McClelland stated that he is “very skeptical” that the precise spot of the geographical center has ever been determined. He said the center was still determined by the hanging pattern method and emphasized “two obvious sources of error here are the accuracy of cutting out the outline and the accuracy of finding the exact balance point.”

He went on to say concerning finding the spot with the aid of computers, “There is the possibility that a computer could calculate the ‘centroid of the polygon’ as our computer people say. When I asked about that possibility those who worked with the program that might do the calculation told me that they were unsure how accurate the calculation itself is and that the answer would be no better than the outline of the state that was used.” Thus with these words the matter seems settled at least for now, the geographical center of the state cannot be precisely pinpointed.

Another interesting fact is even the exact border of our state is not always easy to precisely locate and thus any variance with this boundary would affect the position if the geographical center. Much of West Virginia’s border is marked by rivers which can change course and remote ridge lines which can sometimes be hard to define. There is still a dispute over the border with Virginia near Gap Mills in Monroe county. It seems a surveyor made a mistake which affected the border in the 1930s and the US Forest Service has a different designation for the border than is generally accepted.

Nevertheless, though the center cannot be exactly located it is not unreasonable to assume it can be located within a few hundred yards. The small field marked by the WVU students on the west end of Stony Creek Road [Poplar Ridge] can represent the center even though it is not precise. If one would walk a large circle around the field he would most likely walk around the exact spot of the geographical center of the state. Until a more precise method of determining it comes along, this is the best information available.

If you are interested in visiting this field, simply drive to the Elk Wildlife Management Area office on the west end of Stony Creek Road and turn left as soon as you pass Mr. Clarke’s house. After driving about 200 yards you will come to a gate and a sign marked “Cemetery Road.” Park your vehicle and look down the road past the gate and you will see and small field with scattered Chestnut trees about 150 yards away bearing a little to the left. The marker the students placed there is now gone but it was placed in that field. For those of you interested the coordinates of the center of the field are approximately 038º 38' 11" North by 080º 37' 35" West.

As for the distances to various points in the county, the center of this field is [in air miles]:

3.3 miles from Centralia
4.1 mile from the historical marker on Old Turnpike Road -- [Note: Henry Ruppenthal's house is just south of this marker.]
4.8 miles from Sutton
4.8 miles from Tesla
5.0 miles from Exit 67 of I-79
6.0 miles from Flatwoods

As you can see there is not a lot of difference between any of these locations; but for the record, Centralia is the closest named community, and Sutton is the nearest incorporated town.

PS. I finally did find the old graves again in the woods about 2500 feet from the field. I stumbled upon their forlorn and abandoned headstones much as I did the first time. Old grave sites are often hard to see in the woods unless one is quite close to them. There appeared to be six graves. Two seemed to be graves of infants or small children, two of larger children, and one or two more of adults. There is a large “H” carved on one stone. I have been unable to find out who these people were or when they were buried. It is only about two miles from the Mouth of Holly River which is reported to be where the first settlement in Braxton county was established during the 1780s. Whether these stones mark the graves of early county pilgrims or more recent settlers, one can’t help but wonder about the lives of the long forgotten souls whose bodies dwell on this lonely ridgetop.