*** REORDER BASED ON LOGICAL WALKING PATH ***
A. Begin: Pre-industrial Sunnyside
Seneca Center parking lot
In February 1886, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened a branch between Morgantown and Fairmont, with connections as far as New York City and St. Louis. Morgantown’s river highway, the Monongahela, carried a line of first-class steamboats arriving and departing each day. Prominent Morgantown citizens harnessed the potential of these new systems and sought to advance the city’s growth, including the newly formed Morgantown Building and Investment Company (MBIC) in January 1892, which sought to expand the railroad and encourage industrial and residential development. The MBIC purchased swaths of briar fields below Falling Run. Within the year, the company constructed Beechurst Avenue, extended the railroad, and actively pursued industrial entrepreneurs and residents to settle in the Sunnyside neighborhood.
B. Seneca Center and Former Glass Factory
Seneca Center, 709 Beechurst Avenue
Glass was the industry that made Morgantown a great manufacturing center. The first glass company to arrive in Morgantown, the Seneca Glass Company, established its plant in Morgantown in 1896. The company’s original plant was in Ohio, but the abundant resources attracted Seneca’s owners to Morgantown. Natural gas came directly from the Mount Morris oil fields and sand came by the Morgantown and Kingwood Railroad from nearby Preston County. The factory soon employed a larger number of people and the town grew rapidly. This in turn stimulated development eastward through Sunnyside. By the early 1900s, nine other glass plants relocated or were founded in and around Morgantown.
Stop in to view authentic glass making tools and murals of the glass making process on display.
C. Craftsman bungalow house
240 McLane Avenue
240 McLane Avenue is a craftsman style house, typical of the Modern architectural movement characterized by structural simplicity. The Craftsman style dominated homes built from 1905 through the early 1920s, originating in California but spreading across the nation through pattern books and popular magazines. The house at 240 McLane Avenue is a two-story structure built with a low-pitched, side gabled roof and characteristically features a large front porch. The durable synthetic siding and back porch signal modifications to the home, however it characterizes the typical architectural style of functional homes in the early 20th century. The house was primarily occupied by renters from the 1920s up to the present day, which is characteristic of the neighborhood.
D. Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)
Tracks above parallel the rail trail in Sunnyside
Nearest stop: Beechurst PRT Station at Beechurst near Hough Street
The PRT is an automated people mover system that first offered passenger service in 1975 as an easy way for students, faculty, and staff to commute between sections of the WVU campus, reflecting the university’s pervasiveness through Morgantown neighborhoods such as Sunnyside. The system handles approximately 15,000 passengers per day and receives capital funding assistance from the Federal Transit Administration. Due to its age and lack of available replacement parts, administrators contracted a PRT Master Plan in 2012 that identified major modernization needs essential to continue operations. Necessary upgrades combine refurbishment of some systems and replacement of others.
E. Power Plant / Former Morgantown Glass Works
555 Beechurst Avenue
The Power Plant sits on the site of the former Morgantown Glass factory which opened in 1900 and expanded rapidly alongside Morgantown’s industrial growth in the first half of the twentieth century. The company went through several leadership changes, reincorporating as Economy Tumbler Company and Economy Glass, closing and reopening as Morgantown Glassware Guild, a worker’s collective, before being purchased by the larger Fostoria glass in 1965 which eventually ceased operations at the factory in 1971. The spirit of “Old Morgantown Glass” lives on through the Morgantown Glassware Collector’s Guild, which holds annual conventions and has documented much of the company’s history. After sitting vacant for nearly two decades, the power plant was constructed in 1989-1990 on the site as a partnership between Morgantown Energy Associations and West Virginia University to meet the university’s heating and steam needs. Its construction was met with public protest contesting the pollution and nuisance the plant would bring.
F. Mutt’s / University Place
2129 University Avenue
This site changed hands many times over the years since the former building’s construction in 1901, featuring families of glass workers as well as industrial and student renters. Mottie “Mutt” Pavone, the son of Italian immigrants, and his wife Rose Poropatt Pavone, a Yugoslavian immigrant, initially opened Mutt’s Sunnyside Place Pub in 1935 in a different location on Beechurst Avenue, however after a fire destroyed the property it relocated to the University Avenue location in 1979. Around this time, Sunnyside became known as a place for university students to party and drink, and Mutt’s offering of drinks and an “all-you-can-eat” spaghetti lunch on Saturdays solidified its importance as an institution for students. Much to the chagrin of students and nostalgic alumni, Mutt’s was demolished in 2013 along with 39 surrounding properties to pave the way for University Place, a complex of high-rise apartments developed through the partnership of the Sunnyside Up organization, West Virginia University, and private developers.
G. Caperton Trail (Rail Trail)
Riverfront trail
In the 1880s, Morgantown’s industrial capacity grew with the arrival of the railroad. The ability to ship goods farther than the Monongalia and Ohio River Valleys brought new industries needing the area’s raw materials. Most of these industries were from out-of-state interests. The abandoned rail corridor that is now the Mon River / Caperton / Deckers Creek Trail System was purchased from CSX Railroad and is now held in a lease with the WV State Rail Authority. It is financially supported through Transportation Enhancement and Recreational Trail funds and by business and community donations. Today, the rail trails is a multi-purpose public path that offers opportunities for bicycling, walking, running, and other activities, and also serves as a wildlife conservation corridor, linking isolated parks and creating greenways through developed areas, stimulating tourism and local business.
H. Beech View Place
331 Beechurst Avenue
This mixed-use building offers off-campus apartment-style living to students within walking distance to WVU’s downtown campus. The ground level includes commercial space that houses a convenience store and restaurants, and has parking for 355 residents. Built by a and managed by a private developer, construction completed in 2013. The building reflects the increasing density and new development within the Sunnyside neighborhood that has steadily replaced the older early twentieth century homes once populated by immigrants working at the nearby glass factories, solidifying Sunnyside’s position as a student-centric, university-controlled neighborhood.
Sunnyside Walking Tour 