by Trish Rudder

Jack Waugh, age 74, was born and raised on North Wilkes Street. He said members of the Waugh family have lived on the street since 1946.  The road was paved recently by the state Division of Highways (DOH). Waugh said he didn’t think it was ever paved before in his 74 years.

His daughter in law, Melissa Waugh has lived with her family on North Wilkes Street for the past 22 years.

“How excited we are,” she said of the newly paved road. “Happy is an understatement,” Melissa Waugh said.

Jack Waugh said he remembers about five small grocery stores that people walked to. Most people walked to the stores, since if the family had a car, it was being used for work, he said.

One grocery store was in the current Town of Bath Municipal Building on the corner of North Wilkes Street. Waugh said the grocery store was in the bottom of the building and the upstairs was an apartment where the owners lived.

Across the street, the current Mountain Springs Apartments, formerly the Berkeley Springs Motel, was Rice’s Motel when Jack Waugh was a kid in the 40s and 50s, he said.

“Old Man Rice didn’t like kids,” Waugh said.

He said once the town had a big snow storm and deep snow covered the area. Back then only shovels were used to clear snow.

Waugh said Mr. Rice told him and his friends that he would pay them if they cleared the Rice Motel parking lot. He said about eight boys from 12 years old down to eight years old worked all day shoveling snow off Rice’s lot.

He said when they were finished, Rice gave the older boys a quarter and the younger ones like Waugh got a nickel.

“A nickel?” Waugh’s father said. “You worked all day shoveling snow off that lot,” he said.

Waugh said back then when Wilkes Street was the old U.S. 522, even though no cars parked next to the road, when big trucks met, one had to pull over to the side of the road to allow room for the other to get by.

When asked if the residents on the street were bothered by noisy trucks on the road, he said, “You got used to it.”

The road to Hancock

It’s hard to imagine getting to Hancock, Md. on any other roadway than the current U.S. 522 the runs through the Town of Bath on South and North Washington streets.

But before the highway was completed in the Town of Bath in 1963, the old U.S. 522 route was on Wilkes Street.

If traveling north from Winchester, Va., the route to Hancock required a left turn from South Washington street onto West Fairfax Street, then a right on South Wilkes, crossing Route 9 West, (also known as Cacapon Crossing) and continuing north on North Wilkes. That connected to Hancock Road, and to the entrance to the bridge to cross the Potomac into Maryland.

Before the current 522 became the new highway, Waugh said the road was “all concrete” and he rode his go-cart on it.

“It had a gasoline engine!” he said.

He remembers there were two cut-off roads – Jimstown and Sand Mine roads — that connected to the old U.S. 522. After 1963, these roads were no longer available for public use and were blocked with metal fences.

Town Recorder Susan Webster said the state abandoned Wilkes Street on January 25, 1963 and gave it to the “City of Berkeley Springs” (which does not exist), and the Town of Bath had to maintain the street.

“The expense of repairing and replacing Wilkes Street was a burden that town councils over the years could not afford,” Webster said.

Webster was Mayor in 2000 when the state notified the town that the West Fairfax Street bridge had to be repaired. There was a great deal of deterioration and the bridge over Warm Springs Run was thought to be unsafe, especially with heavy water trucks running across it and the street being wet much of the time, she said.

“I contacted Charles Trump who was our State Delegate at the time and pled our case, asking him to assist us in convincing the state to not only take over the maintenance of the Fairfax bridge, but also all of Wilkes Street,” Webster said.

“Delegate Trump was able to persuade Gov. Cecil Underwood and the State DOH to take over the maintenance of both of these financial and safety burdens for us!”

Senator Trump said last week that in the early 1930s, the state took over the county roads and put the state in charge of the roads because no one was maintaining them.

He said that former Governor Underwood’s “Orphaned Road Program”  — proposed during his second term in the late 1990s and eventually embraced by the legislature — helped Sen. Trump get the approval that the DOH would maintain Wilkes Street.

South Wilkes gets improvements

When then-U.S. Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito helped to secure a $200,000 federal grant to the town for the first Streetscape improvements program, parts of the southern end of Wilkes Street were chosen for sidewalk improvements, Webster said.

“We were able to convince the WV DOH that paving the southern end of Wilkes was in the best interest of the state because this street was a main entrance to the Berkeley Springs State Park property. It was an embarrassment to leave it as it was. They agreed to pave it,” she said.

North Wilkes was left undone

Over the years, the town was told of an upcoming paving project for North Wilkes that never materialized.  When the town was told North Wilkes was going to be paved this summer, Mayor Scott Merki was skeptical it would really happen.

Mayor Merki lives on North Wilkes, so he experienced the rough, pot-holed road firsthand.

Like his neighbors, Merki said last week he was happy the street was finally paved “after 37 years” of living on an unpaved North Wilkes Street.

“I’m sure the paving of North Wilkes Street is a great benefit to the people that live on the street because it had been in bad shape for a long time,” Sen. Trump said.

Since North Wilkes has been paved, a celebration is being discussed for the improvement to the north end of the Town of Bath.

The Morgan Messenger is looking for old photos of Wilkes Street. Please submit any pictures to the Messenger at 16 N. Mercer Street, Berkeley Springs, WV 25411 or by email at news@morganmessenger.com.

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Prep work on North Wilkes Street was being done last week to get ready for the street paving on Friday, May 19.

The area to be paved from curb to curb on Wilkes is from Union to Legion streets. Paving will be done by the DOH contractor, P&W Excavating.

Earlier discussions indicated paving would end at St. George Street, one block from Legion Street, but Legion Street was to be paved all along.

Town of Bath Councilman Rick Weber said on Friday there was a work order mix up that caused the miscommunication. A second work order from the DOH included Legion Street but was delayed in getting the corrected information out.

A letter to North Wilkes Street residents from Berkeley Springs Police Chief William Carper explained that the DOH will determine where on North Wilkes Street the paving will begin.

“Due to this, all vehicles should start being moved the evening/night of Thursday, May 18. Any vehicles remaining after 6 a.m. on the day of the project will be subject to removal at the owner’s expense. Placement of vehicles will be the responsibility of the owners during this project,” Chief Carper wrote.

Chief Carper also reminded the residents that Town of Bath ordinances prohibit some vehicles from parking on the street, such as:

–vehicles that are unregistered, sitting for sale

–vehicles sitting idle or being stored for more than 30 days

–vehicles being parked in the opposition direction of traffic flow or more than 18 inches out from the curb.

Town ordinances say violations of town rules about the above will result in fines: “Privately owned vehicles in violation of this section are subject to daily fines up to $75.00.”

The post Wilkes Street gets prepped for paving appeared first on Morgan Messenger.

Paving North Wilkes Street is on the West Virginia Division of Highways (DOH) to-do list for 2023. That’s what town and DOH officials are saying.

Bath Town Recorder Susan Webster said she submitted a personal complaint to the DOH office in Charleston and was contacted by Todd Hutchinson, Morgan County DOH Supervisor last week.

Mayor Scott Merki said he was told by the DOH 10 years ago that Wilkes Street would be paved within two years, so he is skeptical but hopeful the battered pot-holed street will get the facelift it so badly needs.

Wilkes Street is a state-maintained road that runs parallel to U.S. 522 and right in front of the Bath Municipal Center.

Hutchinson said last Tuesday that paving will be put out for bid to contractors.

He said the job would take only one to two days. His concern was making sure the parked cars are moved when they get ready to pave it, “sometime this summer,” Hutchinson said.

The 2023 scheduled paving jobs will continue into November.

Hutchinson said Commissioner Samuel Beverage on November 22, 2000 said in his written instructions regarding Wilkes Street that only paving “curb to curb” is to be done.

Mr. Beverage served as Commissioner of Highways and Secretary of Transportation under Gov. Cecil Underwood. Mr. Beverage passed away in 2018.

Webster said last Friday that she was the town mayor in 2000.  She said after U.S.522 became the main thoroughfare in town, the state gave Wilkes Street to the “City of Berkeley Springs.”

Webster said there is no city of Berkeley Springs and Wilkes Street was given back to the state. That’s when Mr. Beverage’s instructions were written that the DOH will only pave Wilkes Street “curb to curb.”

Councilman Rick Weber said in the council meeting that no unregistered vehicles will be allowed on the street once it’s paved.

Installing speed bumps should be included as part of the project, Weber said. “…as a safety issue,” Merki added.

“As long as we get it paved,” Merki said.

Webster said she wants this street to be a future Streetscape project as part of the “revitalization of the North End.”

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