Bethany

Old Main, Bethany College is a historic building group on the Bethany College campus in West Virginia. It was constructed from 1858–1871 on a... design by architect James Keys Wilson with the firm of Walter & Wilson and is an important surviving example of 19th century Gothic Revival architecture. Wilson became a renowned architect in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wilson's design was influenced by James Renwick, whose office he studied in, and may have been modeled after Renwick's Smithsonian Museum design. Wilson was in partnership with William Walter, an older architect, at the time of Old Main's construction but the design was most likely Wilson's "because his training had occurred during the increasing vogue of the Gothic style". William Kimbrough Pendleton, a faculty member and vice-president of Bethany College also had a role and contributed his practical knowledge of architecture with the supervision of construction and has been credited with responsibility for its placement on the crest of the hill as well as suggesting the arcade on the back of the building.
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    West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Upland South, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia on the southeast, Kentucky on the southwest, Ohio on the northwest, and Pennsylvania and Maryland on the northeast. The capital and largest city is Charleston.     Historically the area now occupying West Virginia had a separate identity from the early days of pioneering settlement. The... early British American settlers called the area Vandalia. After the American Revolution the settlers of the area sought the status of an individual state of the union under the name Westsylvania, but their attempts were blocked by Virginia which claimed most of the area, and Pennsylvania which claimed a small part of the area.     After the Wheeling Conventions, West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War and was admitted to the Union as a separate state on June 20, 1863, and was a key Civil War "border state." It is one of only two states formed during the American Civil War and is the only state to form by seceding from a Confederate state and one of three states to secede from another state .     The Census Bureau considers West Virginia part of the South because most of the state is south of the Mason-Dixon Line. The northern panhandle, however, extends adjacent to Pennsylvania and Ohio with the West Virginia city of Weirton on a parallel with Pittsburgh, while Bluefield is less than seventy miles from North Carolina and Harper's Ferry is considered to be a part of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. The unique position of West Virginia means that it is often included in a wide variety of geographical regions, including the Southeastern United States and even the Northeastern United States. Notably, it is the only state which entirely lies within the area served by the Appalachian Regional Commission, which is a common definition of "Appalachia".[4]     The state is noted for its great natural beauty, its historically significant logging and coal mining industries, and its labor history. It is also known for a wide range of outdoor recreational opportunities, including skiing, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, caving, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, and hunting.
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