05/12/2026
Southern West Virginia spent decades watching coal jobs disappear.
Towns once built around underground mines and preparation plants suddenly faced layoffs, shrinking populations and empty storefronts. But rather than letting thousands of miles of rugged mountain terrain sit unused, local leaders and business owners turned former coal country into one of America's largest off-road tourism destinations.
The result became the Hatfield-McCoy Trails system.
Launched in 2000 with only a few hundred miles of trails, the network has grown into more than 1,000 miles spread across multiple counties in Appalachia. Riders now travel from nearly every U.S. state to explore former mining roads, reclaimed strip mines and remote mountain paths once used by coal operations.
The economic impact became impossible to ignore.
According to trail authority figures released over the years, the system generates well above $100 million annually for the regional economy. Some studies have placed the impact closer to $300 million when lodging, fuel, restaurants, repairs and tourism spending are combined. Millions of riders have visited the trails since opening, transforming places like Gilbert, Matewan and Welch into ATV tourism hubs.
Ironically, much of the terrain that now attracts tourists exists because of coal itself.
Old haul roads, bench cuts and mining access routes created ideal paths for off-road recreation. Former coal properties that once moved millions of tons of Appalachian coal every year now host side-by-sides, dirt bikes and ATVs instead of trucks and draglines.
The region didn't replace coal entirely. Mining still supports thousands of jobs across Appalachia.
But the Hatfield-McCoy system proved something important: communities built around extraction industries could still reinvent themselves without abandoning their identity.
In many parts of West Virginia, coal country didn't disappear.
It simply found a second purpose.
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