From the May 26, 2012 Bluefield Daily Telegraph Archives - A great day for Bramwell, newest section of Hatfield-McCoy trail system opens in Mercer Co.

Sep. 24—By BILL ARCHER

BRAMWELL — Bob and Linda Hoge called Bramwell town hall early on Friday to find out when the Pocahontas Trail — newest leg on the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System — would officially open.

"They said 9 a.m., so we came out at 8:30 a.m.," Hoge said. "We have been waiting for this part of the trail to open since they started talking about the trail 12 years ago." and their opinion? "It was great!" Linda Hoge said.

After years of discussion and design, followed by six months of construction led by Jared Stone and his crew of ATV trail builders, Bramwell Mayor Louise Stoker and Hatfield-McCoy Executive Director Jeff Lusk used a really big pair of scissors to snip a blue ribbon on the parking lot in front of the old Bluestone School to mark the formal opening of the trail. It would be the first of several ribbon-cutting events in and around Bramwell that afternoon.

"This is a great day for Bramwell," Lusk said. He expressed thanks to the legislative leaders who attended, the Mercer County Commission, the Greater Bluefield and Princeton-Mercer County chambers of commerce, the Coal Heritage Highway Authority, and the town of Bramwell for their support of the concept.

"Thank you, Mayor (Stoker)," Lusk said. "You've been a real fireball in support of this project. This is going to be a blast!"

Lusk also expressed thanks to William C. Robinson, State Trail Coordinator and program leader for grant administration, and pointed out that Robinson was instrumental in securing the $250,000 grant to develop the Pocahontas Trail as well as an additional $400,000 to transform the vacant Bluestone School into the Trailhead Headquarters for the Pocahontas Trail.

"I think this will be a very successful opening," Robinson said prior to the start of the ceremony at the Coal Heritage Interpretive Center. "You can see what has happened after the trail opened in all the small communities of southern West Virginia. A lot of bed and breakfast places will open. The trail is designed to create entrepreneurs."

"I just talked with a group of riders from Virginia," State Delegate Clif Moore, D-McDowell said. "When I asked them how they liked the trail, they said they planned to come back again next week."

Chief Joe Miller of the Bramwell Volunteer Fire Department presented the transfer of the lease and the property agreements for the Bluestone School to Lusk as part of the program. During segregation, the Bluestone School served African American students who lived in that part of Tazewell County.

When Lusk saw that State Sen. H. Truman Chafin D-Mingo, had arrived for the ribbon-cutting, he talked about the way that Chafin and (now) Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, who was a state senator from Logan County at the time, stood up for the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System when there was opposition to the plan, so much so that the state's largest newspaper called it a "boondoggle."

"Even with all that opposition at the time, Senator Chafin and former Senator Tomblin got $1.5 million in the state budget for the Hatfield-McCoy Trail. We can't thank Gov. Tomblin and Senator Chafin enough for what they did," Lusk said.

In addition to the ribbon-cutting at the future trailhead headquarters, a caravan of dignitaries and ATV riders traveled to additional ribbon-cutting ceremonies at the Bramwell ATV Resort, the Pocahontas Trail Bramwell Connector on the Simmons/River Road, another ribbon-cutting at the Pocahontas ATV Resort near the West Virginia/Virginia border and returned to the Coal Heritage Interpretive Center for another ribbon-cutting ceremony and a picnic lunch prepared and served by Scott and Dreama Spangler, owners of the Bramwell Café.

As part of the ceremony at the interpretive center, Chief Miller rolled out Bramwell's new John Deere emergency response ATV that will enable emergency responders with the Bramwell Fire Department to serve ill or injured persons on the Pocahontas Trail. "It's one of the first purpose-built ATV's of its kind," Miller said.