Evening star., 1933-12-22
PLANS HOMESTEAD
NEAR ELK|NS, v. VA.
lcNeS to Establish SubSist-
! ence Community in Tygart
River Valley.

Plans for establishment Of sub
sistence homestead community in the
Tygart River Valley, near Elkins, w.
Va. under direction of the Subsistence
HomeSteads Division OF the Interior
Department were announced today by
Interior Secretary Ickes.
The project will be carried on with
a loan of S250,000 from the Subsistence
Homestead Corporation to a local
corporation which will be organized
In few days.
Aid For Coal Miners.
The project will be conducted in
Randolph County, in which II per cent
of the population has recently been
on relief rolls, and the occupants will
be chosen from among stranded coal
miners, stranded lumber workers and
farmers who have been trying to scrape
an existence from Submarginal lands
along the mountain ridges.
1t is planned that the occupants find
employment beyond their own plots of
ground, in the Monongahela National
Forest, which now includes more than
100000 acres of land.
1t is the second West Virginia sub
sistence homestead project. The first
is nearing completion near Reedsville,
w Va
Under the plan, each homestead will
cost approximately $4,000 and the oc-
cupants will acquire them under pur-
chase contracts with loans to be repaid
over a period of 20 years. They are
10 produce food for their own use, from
the rich land that lies near the post
Office of Valley Bend, about 10 miles
from Elkins. The Homesteads Division
has an option on $3.50 acres of land,
Of which 1000 will be used as home
stead tracts and pasture. An area will
be set aside for a wood lot, and there
will be a community pasture along the
lines followed in most small cities and
towns 20 years ago.
Negotiations are underway to pro-
vide employment, exclusive Of work in
the nearby national forest. with private
concerns in several industries and de-
velopment of handcraft will be en-
couraged.
Soil Erosion Victims.
The farmers who will occupy the
project are among the most tragic VIC
tins in this country of soil erosion.
Their forebears farmed the rising lands
near the valley, but as the forest above
became denuded through numbering op-
erations, erosion set in on the lands
above the valleys. and they were
forced ever to move upward to seek
more fertile land, with the result that
they became more isolated as they
moved higher, and the standards OF
living dropped ever lower as they lost
the benefits of community life, includ-
ing schools and other contacts.
The project has been worked out
under direction of NJ. L. Wilson, d.
rector of the Subsistence Homestead
Division, and Clarence E. Pickett, chief
of the divisions section for stranded
population groups.
Randolph County, Picket says, now
becomes one of the most interesting eX-
amples of the possibilities of Subsist-
ence farming In another community
of the county, Helvetia, a group of
people from Switzerland settled more
than 100 years ago. There are now SIS
people in that community, none OF
which has been on relief rolls and all
of which are able to produce most of
their own food and pad out their
budgets with a small handcraft indus
try. The community, says Pickett, EN-
phasizes production for use, which is
the goal Of the Tygart Valley conlmu-
nifty.