By Charles Owens
For Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Princeton — History will come alive Saturday at the Princeton Railroad Museum in celebration of West Virginia Day.
The railroad museum will celebrate the Mountain State’s birthday with activities from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m, including trolley rides to all of the area museums, including the agriculture museum, the Those Who Served War Museum, the Mercer County Historical Society Museum, the Unauthorized Vehicle Museum and the McNutt House, according to Pat Smith, director of the Princeton Railroad Museum.
Smith said the trolley tours also will include visits to several Civil War gravesites in the Princeton area.
There will also be a living history presentation at the museum Saturday featuring several re-enactors who will be assuming various roles, including that of President Abraham Lincoln.
Crafts and food also will be on display throughout the day along with live music from the Common Ground and Rewind bands.
“Then we have food,” Smith said. “We have face painting. We have chalk the walk. We will give them chalk and let them put whatever they want on the sidewalks around the museum. We are encouraging train orientated drawings. We have the Common Ground band from 12 to 4 p.m. and then at night we are having a street dance from 7 to 10 p.m. and we are featuring the band Rewind from Stanton, Va.”
The concerts will be held in front of the railroad museum.
The West Virginia Day celebration is free with the exception of the food and crafts that will be available.
Smith said the public is encouraged to attend and join the celebration.
This is the 11th year that the railroad museum has sponsored a West Virginia Day celebration. The event continues to grow in popularity each year.
Created as a result of the Civil War, West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20, 1863 after Virginia’s northern counties refused to secede from the United States along with the rest of the state. Saturday is the Mountain State’s 163rd birthday. West Virginia covers 24,231 square miles, with peaks reaching as high as 4,862 feet with much of the state’s unique and challenging geography located in southern West Virginia.
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