Most state tourism offices spend October promoting somebody else's attractions. This year West Virginia's is building one of its own, in the lobby of its own building. On Wednesday, Oct. 29, the Department of Tourism will turn the Great Hall of the West Virginia Culture Center, in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, into a family-friendly haunted haven — an evening of free, festive fun that runs from 6 to 8 p.m. and asks nothing of visitors but a costume and a willingness to putt a golf ball past something frightful.
The lineup is not the usual municipal trick-or-treat. There is a six-hole, Halloween-themed miniature golf course, which the department's own announcement describes as "as fun as it is frightful." There is folklore storytime, craft stations, face painting and balloon art, and a cryptid scavenger hunt. And there is a character meet-and-greet with two of the Mountain State's most famous alleged inhabitants: the Mothman and the Flatwoods Monster, available for photographs.
That pairing is the heart of the thing, and it is a distinctly West Virginia move. The Mothman, as the legend is usually told, was first reported around Point Pleasant beginning Nov. 15, 1966, when the Point Pleasant Register ran a story headlined "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something." Sightings were reported in the area through the following year, and the creature was later popularized nationally by John Keel's 1975 book "The Mothman Prophecies," which tied the reports to paranormal events and to the December 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge. Sceptics have long suggested the original sightings were of out-of-migration sandhill cranes or herons, or possibly misidentified barred owls — a detail that has never once dampened the enthusiasm of the town that now hosts a Mothman Museum and a statue of the creature.
The Flatwoods Monster, sometimes called the Braxton County Monster, Braxie, or the Phantom of Flatwoods, dates to Sept. 12, 1952, when, according to the accounts, a group of boys saw a bright object cross the sky and land on a farmer's property in Flatwoods. The party that went to investigate — the boys, an older brother, and their mother — reported encountering a tall figure with a spade-shaped or hooded head and glowing eyes. Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell later proposed that the light was a meteor and the creature a barn owl perched in a tree, its shape distorted by shadows. Flatwoods, too, has made its peace with the story; the town is home to a free Flatwoods Monster Museum.
Putting those two in a room with face painting and balloon art is the kind of programming that only a state with this particular folklore could pull off, and the department is leaning into it. "Our Halloween Bash is a wonderful way for families to come together and celebrate the magic of fall in the Mountain State," Tourism Secretary Chelsea Ruby said in the announcement. "Come join in on the fun as we celebrate our rich history and unique culture through entertaining hands-on activities." The event is free and open to the public.
Guests are encouraged to come in Halloween attire, and prizes go to the best-dressed in three age categories: pre-K and under, kindergarten through second grade, and third through fifth grade. The age brackets are a fair signal of the intended audience — this is an evening built for young children and their adults rather than a grown-up costume party.
The setting is part of the appeal. The Culture Center is a large, gray, stone-clad building that opened in July 1976, timed to the nation's Bicentennial, and it fulfilled a need that had been building for more than eighty years. Efforts to create a proper repository for the state's history date to the 1890s, when the West Virginia Historical and Antiquarian Society was organized to collect documents and artifacts. In 1905 the legislature established the Department of Archives and History, led by the state historian Virgil A. Lewis, and from 1929 onward both the museum and the archives were housed in the State Capitol. Four decades later the department had outgrown that space, coping with overcrowding, inadequate climate control, and a small, underpaid staff; the museum famously had to turn down an offer to take the entire Headsville Post Office building. The Culture Center, with its soaring Great Hall, resolved that, and it has welcomed millions of visitors in the half-century since — housing museum exhibits, archives, educational programs, and performances, and now, for one evening, a six-hole Halloween mini golf course.
The department has run the Bash before, and it draws a crowd. After last year's edition, a state official wrote that the Tourism and Culture Center teams had welcomed more than 500 people to the Halloween Bash, and that staff held a costume contest of their own alongside the family programming.
There is a second stop built into the evening. Families are encouraged to take a short walk after the event toward Kanawha Boulevard, where Gov. Patrick Morrisey and First Lady Denise Morrisey will greet trick-or-treaters at the north gate of the Governor's Mansion with a special treat. "I'd like to personally invite local families to join us in celebrating the season with some free and safe Halloween fun," the governor said in the release. "After enjoying a night of games, crafts, and entertainment at the Halloween Bash, be sure to bring your family by the mansion for some trick-or-treating. We look forward to seeing all of you there!"
For anyone who has spent October driving between strip-mall trunk-or-treats, the pitch is unusually specific to its place: a state agency using its own stone-clad public building, its own archives-and-folklore portfolio, and its own two most bankable monsters to give Charleston families a free night out. The Mothman, after all, is a state export. On Oct. 29 he is a photo op in the Great Hall.