Rafting pioneer anticipates region's future

Oct. 6—THURMOND — Pennsylvania transplant Tom Dragan was one of the pioneers who introduced a groundbreaking new normal for southern West Virginia in the late 1960s.

And he's stuck around and is witnessing yet another new normal in the region — and beyond — over 50 years later.

Tom was one of three Pennsylvania brothers — he was joined by siblings Jon and Chris and Jon's wife, Melanie — to launch West Virginia's first commercial whitewater rafting trips on the Upper New River from Prince to Thurmond in the summer of 1968. On the first voyage, Tom Dragan said, "We had Voyager rafts we had borrowed from Wilderness Voyagers up in Pennsylvania, small 10-footers. We were doing Voyagers coming down the Upper in low water. It was so low it took us all day just to get that 15 miles in." They continued on the Lower New the next day.

In the state's rafting infancy, the business brand Wildwater Expeditions Unlimited was formed to help launch a new brand of excitement.

"We came down in '68," Tom Dragan recalled on a recent lazy, late-summer day at the home he shares with his wife, Cindy, on the banks of the New. "It was a couple of weeks at a time in the summertime, because we were in college." (He was 18 and a student at California State College when the adventure started). "A season for us was last week of June through second week of August, you know, between semesters and stuff like that.

"I was in outdoor rec, Jon was in outdoor rec. We had professors who were trying to develop a program in outdoor recreation back in 1968, '69, '70. So, everybody jumped in those first couple summers. In 1970, we actually moved down here. That's when Jon bought the house off Erskine Pugh. That's where we started. Jon, Mel (Melanie, Jon's wife), myself, Chris. It didn't take long for growth to happen."

"In the early '70s, we started extending the season," Tom recalled. "I actually graduated before Jon, who graduated a year later, and that's when we started extending the season. Even then, it was from the first of June to the first of September. In '71-72, we really got into the full swing of things. Even then, it was May through September, until the Gauley started. And we built from there."

They bought the original house in 1970, then purchased the property that became the base camp in late 1972 or early 1973. Tom and Cindy got married in 1977. The house in which the Dragans now live was originally a staff house for some of the family and full-time guides. They soon acquired other properties in Thurmond.

"In 1976, I was working as a marketing specialist for the Department of Tourism," said Cindy Dragan. "I brought a group of travel writers to take a raft trip, and Tom was my guide. A year later, we were married. And if I would have taken a dollar for everyone that said, You're never going to make it in Thurmond,' I'd have money now."

Did something click that day? "Yeah, for me it did," was his quick reply. "He was very persistent," she said. "It was all good. It's 45 years later and I'm still here, so I guess it worked. It's been awesome."

Her father actually told Cindy, a Colorado native, a couple years after they married, "I wanted to say, 'I hope you know what you're doing, moving to Thurmond and marrying a river guide. I hope you know.'"

"Our parents were supportive," said Tom. They did question "whether or not it could be a business."

Looking back with the benefit of his experience in the tourism industry, Tom said he "didn't have any idea" Wildwater's early venture would help propel what first morphed into the New River Gorge National River and is now the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. And he thinks better years lie ahead.

"I think we've missed opportunities," he said. "I think you're always going to miss opportunities. It's a learning curve, and I think you need to jump on the bandwagon."

"There are so many people coming to Thurmond right now," said Cindy. The area simply needs to provide more to keep them coming back, the couple said.

He said the Boy Scouts organization utilizes Thurmond more than anybody these days. They have a local camp and bought some property, Dragan said. "It is wild to see 35 or 40 Scouts walking down this road on Tuesdays and Thursdays to go over and explore in Thurmond at night. Religiously. I think that's great. ... I'm a foot dragger; it takes me a while to come around. I've got to say, 'I've come around.' I was leery of the Boy Scouts in the beginning; I'm a big supporter now. I see what they do."

Thurmond is also still a big draw for train enthusiasts, he stressed. "People loved to come here because of the train; that's why most of the people come now. They set up cameras and wait for a train to come through. It can be developed. It should be developed. Hopefully some day it will be."

The Dragans do see a new normal in the region with the recent national park designation.

"I think it has changed drastically," said Tom. "I think it will continue to change. I think numbers will continue to increase, maybe not by the jump in numbers we had with that first year's designation.

"There will always be new people coming. Everybody wants that stamp in their passport book for the National Park Service. As long as those people are out there, people are going to come to Thurmond. I think you can do more in Thurmond in years to come by developing some of the properties on Main Street.

"River traffic is good," he added.

Cindy says she sees many people branching out from the usual method of navigating the river and the surrounding area. "What we've seen I think a lot is there's a lot of locals and families that now bring their own gear and do trips on their own," she said. "When I first moved here in 1977, everyone went with an outfitter. Now, they take duckies by themselves. We see a lot more private boaters on the river than we used to see before."

"A lot of the reason for that is because the Park Service now has access and egress," Tom said. "Before, it was kind of limited. The development of Cunard has done a great deal for non-commercials. Because they can run from here to Cunard and learn the river and learn river technique without risking life and limb. And they can gradually build up to the (lower section of the river).

"Like Cindy said, there's a lot of people, normal everyday people, that come and use the river now. We see people floating on inner tubes and SUPs (stand-up paddleboards) and stuff like that. They go to Stone Cliff and put in. It's an hour-and-a-half float, on a Saturday afternoon. We see a lot of that."

"I think the gorge has a lot more biking and climbing, too," his wife said. "I think biking and climbing have exploded, which is awesome."

He says it has on the lower sections such as Fayetteville and the loop trails. "It really hasn't happened up here yet. My goal, if I live long enough, is to see a river trail from Thurmond to Cunard that a family can take a bike trip on. People come down here to Thurmond, cross the railroad tracks and ride the (Southside Junction) trail (on an old railroad bed). I'd just like to see that opened up to the public, and not necessarily as a single-track.

"There is so much railroad memorabilia, history or whatever between here and where ACE is, and they don't really want to disturb that. And that's why it's just single-track. Of course, you're not supposed to cross the tracks at Southside Junction, either."

As a tourism professional whose career included a stint with the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce/New River Gorge CVB, Cindy says, "I think with the people that are coming in to the national park, if Thurmond had a downtown like Harper's Ferry, I think that would be a huge plus for them."

Although a main focus of tourism in the area is whitewater rafting, she said many of the people who come to the park are "looking for a smaller adventure," such as the New River Jetboats she co-owned for 29 years and helped run until retirement a couple years back. "It was always a great business ... for people that come and aren't real outdoorsy and don't want to spend a whole day," she said of the jetboat operation. "We had it for 29 years ... it was a really big part of our life. The other thing is we had really, really good employees (Rick and Sue Larson). We couldn't have done it without them. They were awesome."

"It's a whole new demographic," Tom said in describing the present outdoor recreational environment. "It's not the outdoor adventure enthusiast that it was in the '70s and the '80s.

"Families are really, really big. And the outfitters have accepted that, and they focus on that. I think the communities also need to be aware of that. Things change, everything changes. Equipment changes, techniques change, the river changes, the area changes.

"And if we don't adapt, we're going to fall behind. What we have to do is get ahead of it, and that comes back to infrastructure, parking over at Edmond/Lansing, development of Thurmond, fixing up the road to Thurmond so people aren't afraid of driving faster than 20 miles an hour. And not just Thurmond; it has to be done throughout the park."

"The park runs from Hinton to Hawks Nest. It's a huge task to take that all on," he continued. "They designated it as a national park, so I think they're obligated to do something with that. We can't just pick and choose (areas on which to focus). You've got to keep plugging along or you're going to fall behind.

"And there are people who may not want that, OK? But it's gonna happen, so we need to make it happen the way we want it to happen, and so that everybody takes advantage of it. It shouldn't just be an outfitter or me with my corner store or you with your Airbnb. Everybody should be able to benefit, with better-paying jobs and more taxes."

----"Our primary properties down here were base camp and Fayette Station and Stone Cliff," Tom recalled. "When we sold our property, we sold those three pieces to the Park Service. In their words, that was supposed to be the catalyst for the development of Thurmond (a former boom railroad town)."

Progress has been "minimal at best," said Tom. "And it's nobody's fault. One of the key pieces for Thurmond was the engine repair house (a "great big, beautiful old building" between the tracks and the river looking downstream), and that burned to the ground."

As to Main Street, he said, "Let's face it, it takes a lot of rebuild a town. They (the Park Service) are maintaining. Whether anything will ever happen, your guess is as good as mine. I'm not knocking; I'm not saying whether they should or shouldn't. I'm just naive, and I thought it was going to be more, and it just didn't happen.

"We're fortunate there was money there to redo the train station, because it makes the Park Service still have a foothold in Thurmond." The NPS owns probably 85 to 90 percent of the property in town, he estimated, so "if any development is really going to take place, it's going to be the Park Service that has to do it."

Dragan admits he himself has not done all he wanted to do to contribute to potential further growth in Thurmond. "There's a hundred cars a day coming to Thurmond. And I'm just as much to blame for not opening my store."

A store on property he owns there that could serve as a snack/souvenir business and/or to rent SUPs or duckies or the like was put on hold a few years back. The store was planned in conjunction with a tourism railroad undertaken by his brother, Jon, and a partner, but Jon's death in 2005 caused the project to be shelved.

"So, the store became a storage building. I'm in the process of moving everything out of the store, and next year, I'm going to finish the store. I'm not sure what we're going to do with it. Maybe rent SUPs, maybe rent duckies, maybe rent inner tubes. Because you can now get a license and run inflatables from Stonecliff to Thurmond; people are doing it on their own. I want to make it easier for them to do it."

"And that's just another thing to provide for the people that are coming to Thurmond to do," Cindy said.

"Everybody needs to take advantage of something like that in their town," her husband stressed. "I'm fortunate because I have a piece of property in Thurmond and I built a building and I can keep on going. But things like that need to happen everywhere."

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