West Virginia Ghost Town: All Alone in the (Almost) Abandoned and Lonesome Town of Thurmond

okay guys shane simmons here in the uh this next video is about a ghost town basically almost a ghost town in west virginia known as thurmond and thurman was used in the film mate one because basically the whole town is abandoned as you'll see for the most part there's about maybe four or five people that still live there but you know it's i've been there i guess four times now maybe and i may have seen two people when combined and all of that and those were other people taking pictures so it's you get there and it's pretty much by yourself as you're about to see but i hope you enjoy this and just another look at the era that's passed us by it'd be kind of cool to buy this old town and then you could you could have a town to yourself because it's beautiful gosh it's so beautiful the drive out there is wonderful but i hope you enjoyed this look at thurman west virginia shane simmons the appalachian project coming at you today from fayette county west virginia heading toward a little town called thurman and if you've heard of thurman before it's probably not because of anybody that lives here it's because of virtually no one lives here it's almost a ghost town it was settled by a guy named w d thurman in 1844 and it was named after him in 1900 when it was incorporated w thurman actually served in the confederate army and he lived to be 90 years old and died in 1910 so he actually lived to see this town be named after him it's kind of a cool thing for him i'm sure the town was once a bustling railroad stop it was a major stop for the cno railroad chesapeake and ohio and at one time it had a couple of different hotels the lafayette which some people derisively called the lay flat apparently the cd activity may have happened there but anyway uh the other one was the dun glen and it was a hundred room hotel and resort is actually nationally known in it today it burnt down in 1930 and after that the town kind of went into a downward spiral and became kind of what it is today eventually the hotel after businesses left and then the banks left and people left and pretty much all that's left now we're coming up on it here in just a few minutes and such a gorgeous drive i wanted to show you this it's still still some fall foliage up not as much as there was but still enough to make for a beautiful beautiful drive into town thurman was also used as a backdrop for the movie uh mate one based on the mate one massacre that happened in uh mingo county west virginia which is not all that far away from here not but they used it because of its perfect still intact look of a coal town i said it's mainly a railroad town but back in the day that was a passenger stop but also real uh cold cold cars and used it to call trains and here we go there's a sign welcoming us to thurman home of the wild water unlimited dragon diversified whatever that is so here we go into thurman well i'll be darned there's a train going through that's funny can't beat that you'll notice this is a one lane bridge for a pretty good long weight distance too the other side is for the railroad i always love coming here just a really peaceful atmosphere beautiful water warner's near the new river gorge and it is just an absolutely beautiful place and how cool is that i got really lucky to get this train today that's great and this is the visitor center an amtrak train actually still services the area unfortunately this train will cut me off from getting down to the downtown section for a minute so we'll just sit here and have us ourselves a little chat obviously this is not a passenger train and i would assume i don't see coal on it but at the ball measures looks like a good old coal train it certainly won't be making a stop i'll zoom in down there you can see just over there horizon there that's the downtown section of thurman [Music] [Music] pretty long train too [Music] shane simmons the appalachian project back with you in video number two in thurman west virginia what you see straight ahead there the little yellow building to the right is the thurman town hall and it's quite a tiny as it appears on video just a little cinder block building and at one time thurman had 20 passenger cars that came through here per day not to mention the coal trains that rolled through as well and to the left of this building was where the hotel thurman or what was also known as the lafayette hotel existed before it burnt down and then there was a meat packing plant to the left of it right here is the national bank of thurman before it was a jewelry store in the 19 teens and i think that became early 1920s it became the national bank of thurmond see this downtown district there's a new river banking and trust company walk across here a little shot of that like i mentioned this was shot so we made the movie mate one which i highly recommend if you haven't seen that we've got a few little displays here telling a little bit about the history of the town it's really cool i'm down here by myself right now not often do you have a town all to yourself [Applause] scan back this way and that is what they're referring to as a culling tower right there long since out of use [Applause] i'll go up for video number three and shoot at the visitor center and we'll call it a day here after that just want to give you a little taste of thurman west virginia shane simmons appalachian project video number three in thurman west virginia this is the uh post office just to give you a little shot of that we'll drive one up to the visitor center take a look around see the railroad tracks go in different directions and the dun glen hotel that i mentioned earlier is across the road here that is actually burnt down you can't really see much of it left but at one time it had been here again here's the visitor center which unfortunately is close to the season because this was the old thurman depot this will wrap up video 3 in thurman hope you enjoyed this little trip into what is essentially a ghost town these days

Channel: Real Appalachia

Views: 170,925

Rating: 4.8902516 out of 5

Keywords: ghost town, abandoned, west virginia, appalachia, appalachian, appalachian project, thurmond, fayette county, oak hill, beckley, new river gorge national park, new river gorge bridge, new river gorge, coal, coal mining, coal town, rail town, railroad town, abandoned places, thurmond west virginia

Id: Upekk1DDZeE

Length: 8min 53sec (533 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021