Activities -- Read this sentence aloud - if you're brave -- 'The Monongahela River flows through Monongalia County.'

Read this sentence aloud – if you’re brave. -- “The Monongahela River flows through Monongalia County.”

Stumble a bit? You’re not alone.

The Anglicized version of a Native American phrase, “Monongahela” (muh non guh HE la) translates loosely as “river with slippery banks” or “river whose banks fall in.” The word wandered further from its indigenous roots when the Virginia Assembly chartered its vast northwestern territory as “Monongalia” (mon un GAIL ya) County in 1785.

Sound like a native Monongalian in no time by adopting the verbal shorthand of referring to both as the “Mon” River and “Mon” County.

Both Mon (or Monongalia) and Preston Counties offer history buffs ample opportunities to explore the Greater Morgantown Area’s rich and diverse architectural, commercial and social heritage.

Pick up copies of self-guided walking tours of several historic Morgantown districts including downtown Morgantown with its landmark Metropolitan Theatre and the Monongalia Arts Center on High Street; the restored Garlow/Lewin House on Spruce Street; and the county’s oldest standing stone building, (appropriately named the Old Stone House – circa 1795) on Chestnut Street.

Other walking tour guides direct you through South Park’s streets lined with grand homes of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries and residential Old Suncrest, a Morgantown suburb developed in the 1920s and now adjacent to West Virginia University’s Evansdale Campus.

The Seneca Glass Company played a significant role in Greater Morgantown’s industrial and economic development in the early 20th Century. Located in downtown Morgantown between Beechurst Avenue and the Caperton Trail, the former glass factory is now an upscale shopping destination and houses the Riverfront Museum with displays devoted to the area’s glass and crystal industry.

Aficionados of the glassmakers’ art also include the Morgantown Glass Museum on Mileground Road on their must-see lists. The privately-owned museum houses over 2,000 pieces produced locally by the Morgantown, Gentile and Seneca glass factories between 1892 and 1980.

Venture beyond Morgantown’s city limits to visit other historic Mon County sites of interest including Dent’s Run Covered Bridge (Mon County’s sole surviving covered bridge) located off US 19 South; the circa-1870 Easton Roller Mill (WV 119/17); and the Scott’s Run Museum and Coal Camp Gift Shop on Main Street in Osage).

Historians and genealogists alike recognize the West Virginia & Regional History Collection on the sixth floor of the Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library on WVU’s downtown campus as an invaluable resource. Containing the largest collection of West Virginia materials in existence, the library-within-a-library includes rare manuscripts, ephemera, photos, maps, oral histories and sound recordings relating to West Virginia, the central Appalachian region and the University itself.

But Mon County doesn’t have a lock on history in the Greater Morgantown Area.

From Arthurdale to Aurora and Hazelton to Tunnelton, Preston County boasts plenty of history, too.

Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt created Arthurdale, the country’s first and largest New Deal community, in Preston County in 1933. Organized to help area workers displaced by the economic ravages of the Great Depression, Arthurdale grew to a settlement of 165 homes within just four years and included workshops, a clinic, school and community center, many of which are still intact. Located 15 miles east of Morgantown (WV 7 E and WV 92 S), the Arthurdale Historic District provides a “living history” snapshot of Depression-era life in a restored homestead complete with homesteaders and livestock during the summer months.

Although Arthurdale may be Preston County’s best-known historic site, other municipalities throughout the county claim their fair share of heritage-related destinations. The Preston County Historical Society operates History House Museum on State Street in Terra Alta (WV 7 E) - thirteen rooms of antiques, artifacts, relics and miscellaneous papers housed on three floors of a former bank building.

The hand-dug railroad tunnels from which the Preston County community of Tunnelton (WV 26 S) took its name were the longest in the world in the mid-1900s. Construction began on the 4,100 foot-long excavation in 1850 and the resulting route proved of critical strategic importance to Union supply lines during the Civil War.

The Preston County seat of Kingwood (WV 7 E) is home to several noteworthy historic structures including the circa-1841 McGrew House, the Art Deco Preston County Courthouse and the Preston Academy (circa 1841), a work-in-progress currently undergoing extensive restoration. The privately-owned Westbrook’s Esso in downtown Kingwood provides reminders of the not-too-distant past of “motoring.” The former gas station is equipped with automotive accoutrements and memorabilia dating from 1927-1935.