Poking Around in Morgantown, Filling Deep Hollow
Craig Mains, December 2021
When I first moved to Morgantown more than 50 years ago I spent a lot of my free time walking and hiking around the area. If I had a chance, I went to the woods but I didn't own a car so that wasn't always possible. When I needed a walk and couldn't get to the woods I just hiked around in town. I came to realize that as hilly as Morgantown is, that over the years the topography has been changed. The original landscape was even more convoluted than the one we see today. Sometimes it was obvious and sometimes not so obvious. One area of town caught my interest, perhaps because I lived in a few different houses in that area.
Walking around Forest Avenue in the area where Central School used to be I noticed a thick layer of fill. That made me think about what that area may have looked like before it was filled. Some years later when I read Earl Core's history of Monongalia County I learned that there was a steep-sided ravine called Deep Hollow [1] just to the east of the downtown area. That made sense to me---that the fill was where Deep Hollow used to be.
I've never heard anyone refer to that part of Morgantown as Deep Hollow, even older residents. That made sense too since after the hollow had been filled, it no longer felt much like a hollow. When the hollow mostly disappeared, so did the name. There are, however, some remnants of the hollow and places where the fill is so obvious it is almost possible to imagine a little bit what the hollow might have looked like long ago.
Some of the earliest maps of Morgantown, based on the original 1785 patent, show a ravine labeled as Deep Hollow just to the east of downtown. This section of a later D.L. Lake Co. map from 1886 shows a small stream running in that area. North Boundary St. and East St. are what today is Willey St. Although two streets, Poplar Alley (now Forest Ave.) and Bumbo Lane (now Fayette St.), are portrayed as crossing the stream, they both ended as the edge of the ravine. The stream from Deep Hollow, labeled as Deep Hollow Run on some maps, joined Deckers Creek across from the bottom of what is now Kingwood St. Note that the loop at the bottom of what is now Richwood Avenue already existed, although it formed a sharper turn than today.
The blue line shows where Deep Hollow would be today. Three current streets cross what was once Deep Hollow: Forest Avenue, Richwood Avenue (at the loop), and Oak Street. It is clear that Willey Street (in yellow) was laid out to go around Deep Hollow
This small section of the 1897 T.M. Fowler bird's eye view map of Morgantown shows the lower end of Deep Hollow in the center of the image. Willey St. skirts the edge of the ravine. As it still does today, Fayette St. dead ends at the edge of the hollow---except in 1897 Fayette St. was still euphoniously called Bumbo Lane [2]. The Fowler map, unfortunately, does not extend far enough to include the upper end of Deep Hollow.
The bird's eye maps were not very good at portraying the topography of hilly towns like Morgantown. They were, in part, intended to serve as street maps and if the bigger hills were shown too accurately some streets could then be at least partially obscured. That makes it hard to judge from the map how deep Deep Hollow was. The houses on the bend in Willey St. appear to be on the edge of considerably bigger dropoff than what exists there today
Above is a section of the 1902 US Geological Survey topo map for Morgantown. It shows Deep Hollow starting at the top near the second i in university. It continued downstream in a fairly straight line crossing in the middle of the loop at the bottom of Richwood Avenue. A little further down, near the curve in Willey St., it bent to the west and then again to the south where it flowed into Deckers Creek. The lower section from just below the Richwood loop to where the creek bends was the section shown on the Fowler map.
The early USGS topo maps, unfortunately, were fairly small scale maps (1/62,500) so they do not have the same level of detail as later topo maps. This map though clearly shows a blue line stream indicating a perennial stream, one that, although small, would be expected to usually flow year round. The map also shows a street crossing the ravine at what would today be Forest Ave. (then Poplar Alley). This would have had to have been a bridge because the ravine is too steep for a street to cross in a straight line as shown on the map.
Shown is a view of part of downtown Morgantown as seen from South Park from sometime between 1902 and 1907. The hill in the far background is Wiles Hill. The bigger buildings on the left are university buildings near where the Mountainlair is today. In the center of the photo is a trestle bridge on Poplar Alley, now Forest Avenue, that spanned Deep Hollow. This was almost certainly the bridge shown on the 1902 USGS map. The house that is underlined in red is still standing today, although considerably modified. It is located on the bend in Baird Street and helps to pinpoint the location of the bridge.
This is the only photo I've seen that shows the bridge over Deep Hollow on what was then Poplar Alley. The bridge had a short life as a free-standing structure. There was no bridge shown on the 1899 Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Morgantown. Poplar Alley dead ended at the edge of the ravine so we know the bridge was built after 1899 but before 1902, when it was indicated on the USGS map.
Click/tap map for a larger image
A section of the 1904 Sanborn fire insurance map shows a wooden bridge over what is labeled as a "deep ravine." The 1906 Sanborn map shows a similar wooden bridge at this location. The area labeled as "Old Cemetery" is where the First Presbyterian Church is today. The house outlined in red is the house that was underlined in red in the above photo.
Click/tap map for a larger image
The 1911 Sanborn map, however, portrays a different type of bridge across what is now labeled as "Deep Hollow." From the drawing it looks as though the bridge is now composed of an earthen embankment with a culvert beneath it for the stream to flow through.
It seems unlikely that the trestle bridge, which in the photo seems to be a substantial structure, would have been dismantled and then replaced by an earthen embankment. It is much more likely that the embankment was placed around the existing trestle, which then added some stability to the overall structure. If the trestle bridge was covered before 1911 this means it stood as a free-standing structure for, at most, about 10 years. Note that Poplar Alley has changed to Forest Avenue, but only on the far side of the hollow.
In 1911 Forest Avenue was not a dead end street as it is today. It connected with what is today Valley Crossing and Powell Avenue and was a route to the Sabraton area.
Above is a section of the 1925 topo map of Morgantown. It is somewhat hard to see because Morgantown grew rapidly between 1902 and 1925 and the urban overlay obscures some of the contour lines. The contour lines further suggest that there is an earthen embankment bridge across the ravine.
Also, there is no longer a blue line stream---Deep Hollow Run has disappeared, likely diverted into a mostly underground sewer [3]. The lower end of that sewer is visible from the Deckers Creek Trail near the dead end of Baird Street. Once the stream was diverted into a sewer it paved the way for the ravine to be filled.
Above is a section of the 1957 topo map for Morgantown North. By 1957 the USGS had begun issuing larger scale (1/24,000) topo maps so there is more detail. The contour lines indicate that considerable filling has occurred, especially in the lower part of the hollow. What once was once a steep-sided, V-shaped ravine had become a shallower, broadly U-shaped hollow.
The curve in the loop on Richwood Avenue is no longer as sharp. I've been told this was to make it easier for the street cars that ran on Richwood Avenue to negotiate the curve.
Although much of Deep Hollow has been filled, there are some vestiges of the original topography. This photo, taken from the Deckers Creek Trail, shows what is left of what was once the mouth of the hollow. Along this part of the trail, which is not far upstream from the Walnut Street bridge, the uphill side of the trail is mostly nearly vertical exposed rock until you get to this point, where there is a big indentation. It looks as though it might be from some long ago excavation or quarry. But, it is where the stream used to be. The houses in the photo are at the end of Fayette Street, near the Farmers' Market shelter.
It's rather briery, but it's possible to make your way into the interior of the bowl. Unfortunately, there is a lot of accumulated trash that people have thrown down from the edge of the ravine above. The edges of the bowl are quite steep, probably even steeper than the original topography because some filling probably took place from the edge to extend flat areas on the top.
A view of Forest Avenue today, which, by Morgantown standards, is almost flat. Deep Hollow once crossed at a right angle about where the nearest telephone pole is located. This was also the approximate location of the trestle bridge that was shown in an earlier photo. Once the stream was diverted into a storm sewer it was possible to begin filling in the ravine until it was almost level. There is a good chance that the old trestle bridge is buried here at a location where no one now would expect there was ever a need for a bridge.
In case that seems unlikely---that a good-sized bridge is buried under Forest Avenue. Someone who grew up nearby in the 1950s and 60s, told me he remembers hearing stories from people of his parents' age about how when they were kids entire structures were buried when the lower hollow was filled. It is quite possible that one of those structures might have been the trestle/embankment bridge and that the stories were more than just stories.
According to the contours on the topo maps there is somewhere between 40 and 60 vertical feet of fill at the deepest point along this stretch. Because of the small scale of the maps and the 20 feet contour intervals, this is an unavoidably inexact estimate.
This side view of Unity Manor shows that it is built on a thick layer of fill, which was there long before it was built. This layer of fill, just above where Central School used to sit, is what initially got me thinking about what type of landscape had been filled in. From where the mouth of the creek used to be to the top of the hollow there is evidence of at least five layers of fill. It's hard now to determine the exact depth and extent of the various layers of fill but I believe that some of the fill layers, including the one shown here, overlap lower layers.
Shown is a view of the loop on Richwood Avenue. The loop is a relic of a topography that no longer exists. Deep Hollow and the small stream that ran in it once extended through the center of the U where the cars are parked. Too steep to cross perpendicularly, the loop was built to allow for more gradual slopes across the ravine, which may have been even more important in the horse and buggy days when the street was first laid out.
There are about 20 vertical feet of fill at the base of the U. If you could look at a longitudinal cross section of the fills as they run down the hollow they would be wedge-shaped, with deeper fill in the downstream direction. This area would be near the top edge of a fill so there is, I think, less depth of fill that along Forest Avenue.
The issue with the Richwood Avenue loop is that once the hollow was filled, probably in the 1920s, the loop was no longer necessary. It's just an echo of the old topography but with no current purpose. It does, however, create a present-day, hazardous intersection where Richwood joins Willey Street at a sharp angle. A driver on Richwood trying to get out on Willey has a short line of sight looking uphill and, because of the angle, has to practically look over their shoulder to keep track of traffic coming down Willey. Because of the volume of vehicle traffic plus a busy pedestrian crossing, it is probably one of the more dangerous intersections in the downtown area---all of which is unnecessary because the intersection, once the hollow was filled, could have then been reconfigured to intersect at a safer right angle. Traffic likely was sparser and slower then so no one saw the need.
Almost all of what was Deep Hollow below the Richwood Avenue loop has, to a large extent, been filled. However, above the loop there is still a feeling of being in a hollow. This is a view into the upper part of the hollow from Battelle Avenue looking roughly northwest. Willey Street runs left and right about midway in the background. Price Street runs along the hilltop in the distance.
A photo of Weaver Street, one of the two streets that branch off at the base of the Richwood Avenue loop, taken in 1938 or 1939. The WPA was building a retaining wall along the bank on the left side of the photo.
A view of Weaver Street in December 2021, including the WPA wall that was under construction in the previous photo.
This also gives a good view of what I think of as the hump on Weaver. I have no evidence, but I think the hump is the bottom edge of another layer of fill. The hump divides Weaver Street into a short relatively level section at the bottom and a longer, relatively level section at the top, which I don't think matches what would have been the original topography. If this is a fill layer it would have been added sometime before 1938 since the hump is visible on the previous photo. The fill that created the hump did not extend laterally across the entire hollow as there is a noticeably lower area behind several of the houses on the right.
This photo is a familiar view to me because I lived on Weaver Street from about 1984 to 1994. For a short while, maybe a year or two, the house on the corner in the photo above was a neighborhood bar called Mr. Bill's Place. In some of the Sanborn fire insurance maps from the early 1900s it is shown as being a grocery store [4].
Although the hollow has been largely filled, there are still some reminders of the former topography above the loop. This view of A Avenue, which connects Willey Street and Weaver Street just above the hump, shows that Weaver, in the foreground, is considerably lower than Willey. The original topography has been altered but still leans in in places.
(This photo shows the entire length of A Avenue, which must be one of the shortest streets in Morgantown. I don't believe anyone has an A Avenue mailing address because the couple of houses along it front on either Willey Street or Weaver Street. There are no B, C, or D Avenues.)
Another reminder of the original ravine that was Deep Hollow is the patch of woods behind the backs of some of the houses on Weaver Street and Garrison Avenue. When I lived on Weaver Street some of the neighbors referred to it as "the pit." I had to wait until the leaves were off the trees to photograph it. During much of the rest of the year it wouldn't be possible to get much of a sense of the topography because of the dense vegetation. This photo is looking up from the bottom of the pit toward the back of an apartment on Garrison Avenue. Some parts of the pit are easily accessible on foot and other parts are a nearly inpenetrable brier thicket.
Someone who grew up on Snider Street said that as a kid some of the neighbors had grape arbors and a small open shelter in what he thought of as "the jungle." The shelter wasn't fancy enough to call a gazebo but was big enough to have a porch swing. Those were gone by the time I lived on Weaver Street.
Another view from the pit at the backs of houses along Weaver Street. From the front side, the two nearest houses appear to be tiny one story houses. It's only from the back that you can see they have multiple stories. The taller house in the background is the house I lived in for many years. From the front side on Weaver Street it appears to be a typical two story duplex, with an apartment on each side. Visitors were often surprised when I told them there were two levels of apartments underneath mine.
I appreciated the pit as a tiny enclave of nature when I lived on Weaver Street. It was a welcome bird haven. I became friends with an English Geology grad student and his Italian girlfriend who had an apartment just down the street. Like mine, their back windows opened on the pit. He grew up in London and she grew up in Rome and neither had ever lived anywhere other than in very urban environments. They considered Morgantown to be semi-wilderness. He once referred to the the neighborhood bird sounds as "all that bloody nature going on out back."
At one time there would have been a small stream running in the hollow, although it would have been quite small. During dry times of the year there probably would not have been much visibly flowing water. It would, however, have had an obvious rocky streambed, of which there is no evidence today.
Another view of the pit. When I lived on Weaver Street a couple of the neighbors and I occasionally did a garbage cleanup in the pit. There is more garbage now than I remember ever seeing. I don't remember ever having to remove a sofa. Perhaps no one has cleaned it up since 1994. There is also more encroachment.
This is a view down into a remnant of the hollow from a parking lot behind houses on Garrison Avenue. The hillside here is probably steeper than the original topography since fill has been pushed over the side to enlarge the parking area. The couch from the previous photo can be seen in the distance. I don't remember that there was ever much parking space behind the houses on Garrison, which means that the patch of woods encompassing the pit has probably narrowed somewhat over the years.
More fill upon fill.The pit ended behind the house I used to live in at a tall retaining wall on the uphill side. The parking lot in the foreground, next to my old house, is built on about 10 feet of fill held up by that wall. For some reason this parking lot wasn't used much when I lived on Weaver Street and big thickets of blackberries and mulberry trees grew around the edges.
In the background is another retaining wall and additional fill for a church parking lot that is about 15 feet higher than the one in the foreground.
Shown above is a view of Oak Street, which connects Weaver Street and Garrison Avenue. Weaver Street is the street coming in from the right in the foreground with Garrison in the distance. The cars on the right are in the church parking lot shown in the background of the previous photo. Deep Hollow would have crossed this street about where the man is standing. There is about 25 to 30 feet of vertical fill in the deepest section here, which today makes Oak Street almost level.
Above Oak Street there are no remnants of Deep Hollow. It wouldn't have been as deep there as it got closer to the head of the hollow. It appears that whatever hollow existed has been smoothed over to give people relatively level backyards. They still slope uphill but above Oak Street there is no gulch similar to the pit.
Along with the small abyss that was the mouth of the hollow, the pit is the only other vestige of the original topography. Today one could easily walk or drive by on Weaver or Garrison Street and be unaware that just behind the houses a little bit of Deep Hollow still exists.
Footnotes
[1]
Not to be confused with the Deep Hollow in Dellslow. Also, on the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps of Morgantown, there is another 'deep hollow' shown in the Sunnyside/Seneca area, which caused an interruption in McLane Avenue that still exists. It seems likely that the term "deep hollow" may have sometimes been used generically to refer to any hollow that was sufficiently rugged to be inconvenient to road or street construction. The Deep Hollow along Willey Street may have started out as a generic deep hollow but it eventually became more officially Deep Hollow, at least until it was no longer very deep.
Back to Main Text
[2]
Although I couldn't find any information on how Bumbo Lane officially got it's name, I learned that a bumbo is an alcoholic drink that was popular around the time Morgantown was founded. It consists of rum, a little water, sugar, and some spice---usually nutmeg but cinnamon is also acceptable. This raises the question of why Morgantown once had a street likely named after an alcoholic drink? Or, given Morgantown's reputation, why only one street? I can think of two possible explanations. One is that in the early days there were multiple drinking establishments along the street where one could enjoy a bumbo or two. Another possible explanation is that it was a street where politicians solicited votes. Bumbos were, at one time, a common drink that were handed out by politicians when they were campaigning, especially on election day. George Washington's financial records reportedly show that he once bought a large volume of rum with which to make bumbos when he was running for the House of Burgesses in Virginia. So Bumbo Lane might have been a street where candidates commonly campaigned and the name was a humorous reference to the drink of choice distributed to persuade undecided voters.
The bumbo was a quaint and largely forgotten drink until it received some renewed attention not that long ago when it was featured in one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies. The bumbo was at one time considered the drink of choice of pirates, including, apparently, Jack Sparrow. Bartenders suddenly had to learn to mix bumbos because customers started asking for them. In Morgantown, Bumbo Lane was changed to Fayette St. sometime around 1905. Morgantown had a chapter of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) as early as 1884 and it would be interesting to know if the chapter played a key role in having the name of the street changed. The Morgantown WCTU Building was completed in 1922 and still stands today, appropriately, on Fayette Street. One can only imagine the consternation that would have been generated if, when the WCTU chapter moved into their newly completed building, the street had still been named for an alcoholic drink once favored by pirates and politicians.
Back to Main Text
[3]
In some of Morgantown's older neighborhoods the storm sewers and sanitary sewers were combined during construction. I don't think that is the case in Deep Hollow although there is likely considerable storm water infiltration into the sanitary sewers. Other than the visible section at the end of Baird Street, I do not know exactly where the storm sewer line runs in Deep Hollow or how old it is. The Morgantown Utility Board declined to answer my questions about the age and location of sewer lines in Deep Hollow other than to inform me that since shortly after September 11, 2001 the location of sewer lines was protected information. The Sanborn fire insurance maps are not consistent in how they portray streams. The 1911 Sanborn map, for example, shows a stream in Deep Hollow while the 1904 map does not. It doesn't make sense that a stream would appear in 1911 where there wasn't one in 1904. Accurately showing surface water features, however, was not really part of the purpose of the Sanborn maps. The US Geological Survey maps, however, are intended to accurately show surface water features. Since the 1902 USGS map shows a blue-line stream in Deep Hollow and none is shown on the 1925 USGS map we can be almost certain that the stream disappeared from the surface sometime during that time period. I think that it would have been sometime between 1920 and 1925.
Back to Main Text
[4]
Notice in the photo that the former Mr. Bill's Place is boarded up. It was one of 22 houses, mostly along Snider Street and Richwood Avenue that are targeted for redevelopment. I wasn't aware that there was a project of this type in the works until recently. I talked to some guys who were working in the neighborhood on one of the days I was there and they told me that one of Morgantown's long-time landlords, who had bought up dozens of houses years ago, had decided to retire and had sold the houses to another well-known Morgantown landlord. The new owners were trying to partner with the city and the university to "rehabilitate" the neighborhood and were planning to replace the boarded up buildings with newer houses that would appeal to "professors and young professionals." They told me that there was also talk of reconfiguring the streets in the neighborhood. In particular they said that Snider Street was potentially going to be upgraded to be the main route from near Arnold Hall to Town Hill. This would create a more direct route and eliminate some of the sharp bends on Willey Street (which exist because Willey Street was originally laid out to skirt Deep Hollow).
The by-passed section of Willey Street would then become a back street. I have no idea whether that is accurate. If so, this seemed like it would be trading one problem for another. While it would eliminate some sharp curves for big trucks it would replace them with a much steeper grade. It also seemed dubious whether existing residents, and the new professors and young professionals would be enthusiastic about having a truck route through their newly rehabbed neighborhood. The lead organization for the project is the Morgantown Area Partnership. Although the Morgantown Area Partnership has a tab on their website for "Neighborhood Revitalization," there is no information about this project on their website at this time---only projects that have been completed.
I emailed the contact person for the project to get some clarification of the scope of the project but never received a response.
A view of three house boarded up along Richwood Avenue as of December 2021. I have heard that no decision has yet been made about which houses will be removed and that they are boarded up for now mainly to keep homeless people from squatting in them. Most of the boarded houses are along the lower part of Snider Street and Richwood Avenue from the loop to about Monongahela Avenue. There are a few boarded houses on Weaver Street and Allen Street. There are other houses that aren't boarded but appear to be uninhabited so it is hard to tell how many houses are actually part of the project.
Back to Main Text
Sources
Core, Earl L. The Monongalia Story: A Bicentennial History, Vol. II, The Pioneers. McClain Printing. 1977.
Fowler, T. M, and James B Moyer. Morgantown, West Virginia. [Morrisville, Pa., T. M. Fowler & James B. Moyer, 1897] Map.
Source: Library of CongressGibson, Scott. Weaver Street and Richwood Avenue, Morgantown, W.Va. West Virginia History OnView, WVU Libraries. 1938-1939. Photograph.
Source: WV History On View.orgLathrop, J.M., Penny, H.C., and Proctor, W.P. Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia. D.L Lake & Company, 1886. Map.
Source: David Rumsey Map CollectionSanborn Fire Insurance Map from Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia. Sanborn Map Company, Mar, 1899. Map.
Source: Library of Congress.Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia. Sanborn Map Company, May, 1904. Map.
Source: Library of Congress.Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia. Sanborn Map Company, Oct, 1906. Map.
Source: Library of Congress.Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia. Sanborn Map Company, Nov, 1911. Map.
Source: Library of Congress.United States Geological Survey. Morgantown, WV. USGS, 1902. Map.
Source:Source: USGS Topo ViewUnited States Geological Survey. Morgantown, WV. USGS, 1925. Map.
Source: USGS Topo ViewUnited States Geological Survey. Morgantown North, WV. USGS, 1957. Map.
Source: USGS Topo ViewWest Virginia History OnView. View of Morgantown, W.Va. West Virginia History OnView, WVU Libraries. 1902-1907. Photograph.
Source: WV History On View.org