How Old Woman's Run Got Its Name

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2017 is the year I really started getting acquainted with the spooky little town of Sutton, West Virginia. One such trip led me to the end of the downtown district to check out the Elk Hotel, then known as Cafe Cimino. The beautiful historic home (which I’ll be posting about in a different blog post!) sits at the confluence of the Elk River and a small creek and accompanying road named Old Woman’s Run. 

At the time, I was intrigued with the odd name and even remarked to my partner that I bet there was a cool story behind it. And there was. It would just take me quite a while to find it and even longer to write about it.

The answer was waiting within the pages of The History of Braxton County and Central West Virginia, by John Sutton, grandson of the town founder. (You can read it for free at Internet Archive) It was published in 1919 and on page 40, tells exactly how Old Woman’s Run came to be. 

During the early days of white settlement in the area, the area between Old Woman’s Run and Granny Creek was filled with laurels, rocky cliffs, and dens. A large female bear roamed this area for years, giving birth to several litters of cubs. The she-bear wasn’t seen for several years, but hunters in the area knew she was around by the extremely large tracks she would leave behind. It was these hunters who named the bear “Old Woman” and the creek near her stomping grounds, Old Woman’s Run. 

The book goes on to mention that Old Woman was finally killed by hunters in the area where Moman Rhea lived. Although the book doesn’t specify where exactly Rhea lived, it does give a little blurb about him later on. Rhea was one of the very few people of color in the entire county at the time the book was written. He was a former enslaved person, who, after his bondage had acquired quite a bit of land and become a progressive farmer known for his acts of kindness. 

To be honest, I’m kind of sad that the Old Woman of this story is simply a bear and not related to some ghostly apparition of an elderly woman haunting the hillside. However, this bear was described as being quite large and leaving behind large tracks. The book even notes that people of the area had always had issues raising pigs and lambs. What else leaves big tracks and steals livestock? Some may say Bigfoot. Interestingly enough, there are tales of just such a creature!

Reports of a possible Bigfoot have lasted up through modern day in the area of Sutton Lake….right near this confluence of the Elk River and Old Woman’s Run Creek. These reports date back to at least 1919 when an interesting newspaper article about a wild man was published in the Evening Telegram out of Lakeland, Florida. The article reads:

Evening Telegram (Lakeland Florida) 08 March 1919