The toast of West Virginia
At the turn of the 20th century, Bramwell, W.Va., boasted more millionaires per capita than any other town in America, said Kathy Legg in The Washington Post. Today it remains “a tiny Victorian testament to a time when coal was king.” Bramwell’s Bryant Pharmacy used to be the only place other than Paris and New York where Chanel No. 5 was sold. The town’s electric street lamps were among the nation’s first, and “the originals are still here.” In December and May, the grand mansions open their doors for tours: The star is the turreted Cooper House with its “vast copper roof” and yellow bricks imported from England. The train station serves as a museum, where mementos on display recall an era “when 100,000 miners worked the rich and dangerous coal seams without benefit of modern machinery and safeguards.” In nearby Pocahontas, visitors can walk deep into an old mine for “a chilly look at the real thing.”
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