Midland Trail
Babcock State Park, WV

At Babcock State Park, you'll find a wide variety of activities. Visit the 19-acre Boley Lake and experience the joy of floating the waters on a paddleboat, a rowboat, or even a canoe. You can also fish on the lake or in a nearby stream, but only with a valid West Virginia fishing license. If you want to swim, then head away from the lake and go to the pool.

If moving around on land is more interesting to you, horseshoe pits, tennis, and volleyball and basketball courts are provided. And if the kids want to enjoy the park on four feet instead of their own two, horse and pony rides are available for children throughout the summer. This is also the perfect chance to hike on any one of the 20 miles of trails, leading you to perfect scenic backdrops.

The most photographed building at Babcock State Park, however, is the Glade Creek Grist Mill, a re-creation of one that ground grain in Glade Creek before Babcock became a state park. It was previously known as Cooper’s Mill. To create the new Glade Creek Mill, parts from three different mills across the state were combined. The basic structure came from Stoney Creek Grist Mill; the water wheel was donated from the Spring Run Grist Mill near Petersburg; and other parts of the mill came from Onego Grist Mill near Seneca Rocks.

It is a living monument to the over 500 mills, which thrived in West Virginia during the turn-of-the-century and still provides freshly ground cornmeal and buckwheat, which may be purchased so you have a souvenir of your visit.