INSECT The HONEY BEE pollinates many of the state’s most West Virginia important crops including fruits, vegetables and grasses Official Symbols and provides a valuable product in its honey. It has six legs, four wings and its coloring ranges from dark yellow to gold with three dark bands on its abdomen. GEM LITHOSTROTIONELLA is technically not a gemstone, but rather the silcified Mississippian Fossil Coral, preserved as the siliceous mineral chalcedony. It has a waxy luster, may be semitransparent or translucent, and is often cut and polished for jewelry and display. LOCOMOTIVE The Cass Scenic Railroad’s SHAY No. 5 steam locomotive was built in FLAG November 1905. This class C-80 Shay has been toiling up Cheat Mountain Prominently displayed on the pure white field and emblazoned for over 100 years, making it one in proper colors is a Coat of Arms, the lower half of which of the oldest engines in continuous is wreathed by Rhododendron. Across the top, lettered on a service on its original line, and the ribbon, is the constitutional designation:“State of West Virginia”. second oldest Shay in existence. These steam-driven locomotives The white field is bordered on all sides by a strip of blue. For were specially designed to climb extremely steep grades and parade purposes, all but the staff side are to be trimmed with navigate sharp curves on frail, temporary tracks. gold fringe. REPTILE DAY The TIMBER RATTLESNAKE is a species President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed th of venomous pit viper found in the eastern West Virginia as the 35th State on April JUNE 20 United States. This is the only rattlesnake 20, 1863, becoming effective 60 days later on June 20,1863. species in most of the populous northeastern United States. SONGS FOSSIL • “THE WEST VIRGINIA HILLS” • “THIS IS MY WEST VIRGINIA” The MEGALONYX JEFFERSONII is the • “WEST VIRGINIA, MY HOME SWEET HOME” remains of an extinct species of ground sloth • “TAKE ME HOME, COUNTRY ROADS (ALMOST that stood more than eight feet tall and weighed HEAVEN, WEST VIRGINIA)” more than 1,000 pounds.. During the Ice Age, it inhabited woodlands, knocking over trees and COLORS digging up vegetation with its giant claws. OLD GOLD and BLUE SOIL Sources: cassrailroad.com, wikipedia.org, wvcommerce.org MONONGAHELA SILT LOAM is a productive agricultural soil that may be found WV Blue Book and e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia on more than 100,000 acres in 45 counties in Compiled “to support and enhance WV Studies” WV and a wide surrounding region. EXHIBITION COAL MINE BECKLEY- Veteran miners provide a realistic look at early coal mining with a ride through the dark passages of a vintage coal mine and a tour of period coal camp buildings. MH3WV.org ©MH3WV,Inc. 2014 Revised June 2014 The GREAT SEAL The GREAT SEAL (reverse) ...of West Virginia, which also is the Coat of Arms, symbolizes The reverse is encircled by a wreath of laurel and oak leaves. A the principal pursuits and resources of West Virginia. Described wooded mountain is on the left; a slope with a log farmhouse is briefly, the obverse side of the Seal bears the legend, “State of on the right. On the side of the mountain is a representation of West Virginia”, together with the motto, “Montani Semper the Tray Run Viaduct with a train about to pass over the viaduct. Liberi” (Mountaineers Are Always Free); a farmer stands to the A factory, fronted by a river with boats, a derrick and a shed, and right and a miner to the left of a large ivy-draped rock bearing a meadow with sheep and cattle grazing, indicate the leading the date of the state’s admission to the Union; in front of the characteristics and products of the state. Above, the sun emerges rock are two hunters’ rifles upon which rests a Phrygian Cap, or from the clouds, and the rays of the sun contain the Latin phrase “Cap of Liberty”. “Libertas E Fidelitate,” (“Freedom and Loyalty”). TREE TARTAN The SUGAR MAPLE or ACER SACCHARUM TheWEST VIRGINIA SHAWL is based produces an excellent wood for furniture as well on a design found at the DAR museum in as maple syrup. A single tree is 70 to 120 feet Barboursville and contains various colors to high and produces two to three pounds of sugar represent different aspects of the state: Scarlet for when “sugared off”; has a five-lobed leaf and the cardinal; Yellow for fall colors; Blue for rivers produces a small wing-shaped pod. and lakes; Black for the black bear, and the state’s oil and coal resources; Green for the rhododendron, and the state’s meadows; BIRD Azure for the sky; White for all the colors of the United States. The CARDINAL or RICHMONDENA CARDINALI measures approximately eight FLOWER inches long. The male is a rich scarlet with a mask and shading of black, while the young birds The RHODODENDRON MAXIMUM or “Big and females are less brilliant. Laurel” is a shrub of the heath family and may be recognized by its large evergreen leaves and delicate pale pink or white bloom, mottled with FISH either red or yellow flecks. The BROOK TROUT is the state’s ANIMAL only native trout and thrives in small, cold, spring-fed streams. The BLACK BEAR or URSUS It is olive with lighter sides and a AMERICANUS is the only species reddish belly (in males) and is easily of bear found in the State. While identified by the light-colored edges of the lower fins. commonly referred to as the “black bear” its coloring is actually deeply BUTTERFLY tinted with brown. Its habitat in the The MONARCH BUTTERFLY is orange State is primarily in the eastern mountain region. The adult and black and dines on milkweed as a reaches an average maximum weight of 250 pounds. caterpillar, sips nectar from flowers as a FRUIT butterfly and migrates south to Mexico for the winter. The butterflies you see in The GOLDEN DELICIOUS APPLE was the spring are the great grandchildren of the ones that lived in discovered by Anderson Mullins in Clay Mexico during the winter. County in 1905.