Laurel Mountain (West Virginia)
Laurel Mountain, West Virginia | |
---|---|
Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians | |
Topo map | USGS Colebank |
Laurel Mountain, also called Laurel Hill, is a long ridge in north-central West Virginia, US. Along with Rich Mountain to the south, it is considered to be the westernmost ridge of the Allegheny Mountains and the boundary between the Alleghenies and the Allegheny Plateau.
Geography
Running northeast to southwest through Preston, Tucker, Barbour, and Randolph Counties, the ridge forms portions of the borders between them. It stretches for about 32 miles (51 km) from the Cheat River (near the town of Manheim) in the north to the Tygart Valley River (near the town of Aggregates) in the south. It achieves its highest elevation at the Eliot Benchmark (3,157 ft; 962 m) about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of Pleasure Valley.
The mountain is formed by the same structural fold in the Earth's crust which continues north from Laurel as Briery Mountains (north of Cheat River) and south as Rich Mountain (south of the Tygart Valley River). Although it is a long folded ridge like Backbone Mountain, running northeast–southwest, similar to the parallel Apppalachan Ridge and Valley Section further east, it is not part of the Ridge and Valley Area. Like Backbone Mountain, it is part of the Allegheny Mountain region to the west of the Ridge-and-Valley area. There is a short break, then north of the Pennsylvania state line, it continues northeast as Laurel Hill.
History
Laurel Mountain's name was derived from the prolific "great laurel" (Rhododendron maximum) which the earliest pioneers found there in profusion the late 1700s.[1]
After the June 3, 1861
Later that summer, General
In recent years, production of a "Battle of Laurel Hill Reenactment" has been undertaken at the site of the Laurel Hill Battlefield on its anniversary dates. In 2004, the City of Belington assumed ownership of 50 acres (200,000 m2) of the old camp and battlefield.
Wind turbines
The AES Corporation has constructed wind turbines on Laurel Mountain. The wind farm opened in October 2011 with 61 turbines stretched across 12 miles. AES can generate up to 98 megawatts of electricity with this facility. A notable feature of the project is the largest battery installation attached to the power grid in the continental United States. The purpose of the 1.3 million batteries is to tame the wind, but only slightly. AES states the batteries will be a shock absorber of sorts, making variations in wind energy production a little less jagged and the farm's output more useful to the grid.[2]
References
Citations
- McClain Printing Co., p. 53.
- ^ Wald, Matthew L. (October 28, 2011), "Batteries at a Wind Farm Help Control Output", The New York Times, p. B3.
Other sources
- Cox, Connie Loraine, Our Place In History: Southwestern Preston County, West Virginia, Headline Books, Terra Alta, WV, 2005. (Written and oral histories, photographs)