Collapsing timber and coal industries left thousands of West Virginia families destitute by the early 1930s. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt witnessed conditions first-hand during several visits and encouraged President Franklin Roosevelt to provide help. Within 100 days of taking office in 1933, FDR’s Administration issued loans to fund construction of three “Subsistence Homestead Communities” in the Mountain State. The largest, Tygart Valley Homesteads, offered two hundred families the opportunity to rent modern homes with indoor plumbing, and an acre or two for a vegetable garden. Most families soon purchased their homes, and the community fully repaid its government loans within ten years.

The innovative Tygart Valley project included a lumber mill and furniture shop, weaving and canning facilities, a general store and post office, a modern school, a health clinic, and hundreds of acres for collective farming. The community has evolved, but almost 90 years later a significant number of homes are still occupied by descendants of the original hardworking homesteaders.