SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
In West Virginia's New River Gorge National Park, there's a ghost town called Thurmond, where a handful of residents still live. They are now in a fight with the National Park Service, which wants to demolish many of the town's historic buildings. Reporter Andrea River Peterson of Inside Appalachia Folkways Project paid a visit.
ANDREA RIVER ANDERSON, BYLINE: Thurmond was built around the railroad that forms its main street. Cars still share a one-way-lane bridge with trains to get to the town at the bottom of a steep canyon created by the New River.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN BLOWING HORN)
ANDERSON: In the early 1900s, Thurmond was a boom town that served as a shipping hub for nearby mines. It's also an important site for local labor history because it hosted an office of notorious antiunion enforcers, the Baldwin-Felts. That history is now told by the Park Service in the old train depot. It was renovated as a visitor center, along with the facades of commercial buildings on Main Street. But roughly a dozen of the other buildings are now scheduled for demolition later this month, drawing outcry from the town's five current residents, like town council member Tighe Bullock. He points to vines overtaking a two-story home.
TIGHE BULLOCK: It's kind of like having a really bad neighbor, but it's the federal government.
ANDERSON: The Feds bought much of the town in the 1970s and '80s after the coal mines left. The idea was to create a tourist spot for hikers and history buffs. Bullock says residents sold to the government with the understanding their legacy would be preserved. Down the road is the Marilyn Brown house, the only example of an average worker house on the main street. It's small. Visitors have scratched their names across the peeling white paint. Bullock peeks inside where plywood is replacing a door that has been torn off.
BULLOCK: There's no sagging. There's no structural, foundational issues that I see. And, you know, I'm a general contractor. This is my job to assess old historic buildings. I would love to have a building like this and renovate it.
ANDERSON: This house was on the demolition list, but after feedback from historians and the town council, the National Park Service says it's now keeping it. Derek Hildebrand, acting deputy superintendent of the New River Gorge National Park, says it will now be getting some upgrades, including a new roof and paint job.
DEREK HILDEBRAND: It's going to get further stabilized to stay in good condition. It's not going to come to the point where it's going to be a livable house. That's true for most of the structures in Thurmond that lack the utility infrastructure.
ANDERSON: Ultimately, the National Park Service never got the budget it needed to fully renovate the town. The demolitions are part of a new plan, funded by the Great American Outdoors Act several years ago. Hildebrand says some of the buildings that will be left will get repairs, and there are plans for more development in the future. But he recognizes that Thurmond's current state is a disappointment to some in the community.
HILDEBRAND: We collectively have had the big dreams and hopes of the big things that were talked about for design and development plans in Thurmond. I get that. I understand where they see that, you know, feels like a missed opportunity.
ANDERSON: Demolition of the most rundown structures is set to begin soon. For NPR News, I'm Andrea River Peterson in Thurmond, West Virginia.
(SOUNDBITE OF KAYTRANADA'S "BUS RIDE (FEAT. KARRIEM RIGGINS AND RIVER TIBER)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.