I mentioned earlier that I was going to go back in the Thurmond area to view some additional sights. My neighbor's Sam and Virginia Chapman came up on Wednesday and we carried them to the New River Gorge area for some sight seeing. Don't know if I mentioned earlier or not but the New River has it's beginning at Blowing Rock, North Carolina and is one of the few rivers that run north and goes into the Ohio River which in turn goes into the Mississippi River.
After my first visit to Thurmond I was given a book by the librarian on Thurman and in that book was a picture of McKinley Rock, nothing was recorded about it just a picture, I asked the Librarian but she had never heard of it. I checked it out on the Internet and discovered some interesting information. Which made me determined to find it. No one in the church had ever heard of it, I visited the visitor's center in Thurmond and the ranger had never heard of it. The article on the Internet gave directions so I was going the next chance I had.
I want to share with you what I discovered, when the railroad was putting in the Thurmond to Minden rail line they were blasting rock off the side of the mountain and when the dust cleared one of the men looked up and said, there's the President. There in that formation of rock was the face of President McKinley. The amazing fact is that it was later that evening the President McKinley was assassinated.
As we traveled on that Thursday we stopped in at the New River Gorge visitors center and I inquired about the rock, the lady there was very helpful she showed me a photo of the rock a told me how to get there, It was on the Old Thurmond to Minden trail, I went to the trail and no one would walk with me so I set out on my own after I walked about 25 minutes and came to the spot the lady had mentioned and there it was.
I took some pictures which are below and walked a little further, but you can only see it from one direction. It would have been a better shot if the leaves were off the trees, some day I will get a better shot.
