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Almost heaven--that's what the song says about West Virginia. And indeed some things are looking up for this state, whose people have never lost their sense of hope or their affection for the hills and mountains that make this the most unhorizontal state in the nation. But West Virginia has had more than its share of tragedy and heartbreak. It was born out of the tragedy of the Civil War, when 55 mountain counties with few slaves seceded from Virginia, and it has made its living most of the years since on that cruelest of commodities, coal. Coal kept the sons of large mountaineer families here for much of the 20th century, men who would otherwise have left for big cities; coal brought immigrants in, a few from odd corners of Europe, but more from adjacent areas of the South where the local farming economies were stagnant when West Virginia's coal economy was booming. Coal and local rock salt and brines brought the large concentration of chemical plants 50 years ago to the Kanawha Valley around Charleston; it built steel mills and glass factories in the panhandle and the Monongahela River valley, not far south of Pittsburgh.

But coal did not build a self-sustaining economy. When America was beleaguered abroad, demand for coal increased and energy prices rose, and West Virginia boomed, during World War II (the state reached its all-time population peak of 2 million in 1950) and the oil shocks of the 1970s. Coal changed the state's politics too. West Virginia's heritage from the Civil War days was Republican, though some counties tilted toward the Confederacy and the Democrats. But after John L. Lewis's United Mine Workers organized most of the West Virginia mines, the coal country shifted toward the New Deal Democrats, and West Virginia for more than half a century was one of the most Democratic states, deserting the national ticket only in Republican landslide years (1956, 1972, 1984) until George W. Bush carried it in 2000; its legislature has been controlled by Democrats since 1930. But neither Democratic administrations nor the pensions and medical benefits the UMW negotiated for retired miners were able to provide the economic growth to keep thousands of West Virginians from leaving their mountains to find work elsewhere--now more often south on I-77 to the booming Carolinas than north to the Great Lakes' industrial cities. As underground miners were replaced by strip-mining machines, coal tonnage went way up but coal mine employment dropped from 22% of the state's work force in 1950 to 10% in 1980 and only 4% in the late 1990s; coal employed 126,000 West Virginians in 1948, 63,000 in 1978, 13,500 in 2002. The state's population, 2.0 million in 1950 and 1.95 million in 1980, fell to 1.8 million in 2000--the largest decrease, absolutely and in percentage terms, of any state. In the 2000 Census West Virginia ranked 50th among states in household income, 50th in median value of housing (but first in percentage of home ownership), 48th in percentage of adults with a high school diploma and second in percentage living in poverty. Still, West Virginians have a strong attachment to this unique state, where the accent sounds Southern and the early 20th century factories and houses look Northern, where the landscape is rural and the economy industrial.

In the 1990s West Virginia was on the rebound, only to be threatened at the end of the decade with economic disaster. Population increased during the decade, though at the second-lowest rate of any state, and the number of jobs rose by 8%. Unemployment was down to 4.3% in 2001, the lowest since 1975. Government has played a role. Senator Robert Byrd, as both chairman and ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, achieved his career goal of channeling $1 billion of federal projects into West Virginia, and more. They include offices for the FBI, Fish and Wildlife Service, NASA and the National Institute of Occupational Safety; federal jobs in West Virginia have grown 20% since 1988. West Virginia's universities have received directed funds for a biotech center, forensic science research and positron emission tomography. Old mining towns like Nellis and Matewan have been given new firewalls and preservation funds to keep up their historic buildings; a memorial to the 130,000 men killed in underground coal mining is being planned for Nellis. State tax breaks promoted by Governor Gaston Caperton (1988-96) attracted investments from Georgia Pacific, Swearingen Aircraft, NGK Sparkplugs and Toyota; Lexus engines are produced in Buffalo, West Virginia. Forest products are replacing coal in rural counties, health care is growing as everywhere and telemarketing is growing as well. Even the number of farms is increasing. West Virginia has finally completed its interstate highway network and in a computer age it is no longer isolated; with low wages, good work habits, low land costs, the state has even developed a software industry in the I-79 corridor between Morgantown and Clarksburg.

The threat to West Virginia's economy came in October 1999 when, in a case brought by environmental groups, federal judge Charles Haden ruled that mountaintop mining violates federal environmental laws. Most underground mines in West Virginia have been closed; they were uneconomic and the most unsafe workplaces in the country except for Alaskan fishing ships. Since the 1970s, mining companies have been leveling mountaintops with 20-story removal machines, exploding the loose dirt and rock and extracting low-sulfur coal from the resulting surface, and filling in local rivers and streams with piles of slag; when a mountain is mined, the companies are supposed to reclaim the land. Far fewer miners are needed for this work than in underground mining, but the pay is good and the jobs highly valued in counties which, in some cases, have half as many people as they did 50 years ago. Mining companies said that Judge Haden's decision would end coal mining in West Virginia. Senator Robert Byrd threatened to overturn the decision in an appropriations bill; Bill Clinton said he would veto any such bill, and the provision was dropped. But the issue became important--arguably crucial--in the 2000 presidential race. The Clinton administration came out in April 2000 opposing a ban on mountaintop mining, but calling for stricter regulation; Al Gore was caught in the middle between environmentalists who supported it and West Virginia's all-Democratic congressional delegation which opposed it. George W. Bush, spotting an opening quickly, came out in favor of mountaintop mining and called for increased federal support of clean coal technology; he said that the Clinton administration "fears coal" and managed to mention coal in one of the presidential debates. Bush's support of coal and his opposition to gun control enabled him to carry West Virginia 52%-46%--a stunning upset in a state that hadn't voted for a Republican in an open presidential race since 1928. Its five electoral votes were crucial: Without them, it would not have mattered who won Florida. The environmental stands which helped Gore in large East and West Coast states proved fatal to his candidacy in West Virginia. Bush ran well ahead of local Republicans: Democratic Congressman Bob Wise beat incumbent Republican Governor Cecil Underwood 50%-47%, and Republican Shelley Moore Capito, who won Wise's 2d District House seat 48%-46%--the first Republican victory in a congressional race here since 1980--ran 6% behind Bush. In April 2001, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Haden and ruled that under the 1977 Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, West Virginia's mining standards superseded federal standards; The Washington Post wrote, "There's a growing feeling here that coal is back." West Virginia now produces only half as much coal as Wyoming, but much of it is high-quality bituminous coal and West Virginia's production is worth more.

That doesn't leave West Virginia without problems. High-paying chemical and steel jobs are being eliminated, and even during the growing 1990s the number of people aged 25 to 34 fell by 33,000. Students at the state's three medical schools are now required to spend month-long rotations at rural medicine clinics (and the number of doctors specializing in rural medicine has risen), but a rapid rise in malpractice insurance costs and the withdrawal of the state's largest insurer from the business has forced some doctors to quit obstetrics or leave the state altogether. On New Year's Day 2003, dozens of surgeons at four West Virginia hospitals went on strike in protest of rising malpractice premiums. The state Supreme Court is notoriously sympathetic to trial lawyers, and the resulting bitter fights between trial lawyers and doctors and insurance companies occupy much of the legislature's time. There are bitter fights as well over the treatment of overweight trucks. In early 2003, state government faced a revenue shortfall amid a consensus that there is little room to raise taxes. And there are other controversies as well. As the result of a poorly drafted statute on two highly sensitive issues in West Virginia--guns and God--35 counties held referenda in May 2002 and voted to ban hunting on Sundays; this is an issue that is likely to be revisited.