Petersburg Races: Remembering 16 Years of CCA History

By Alf Cooley

Beginnings

Having started with a race before it was a club, the early Canoe Cruisers Association had an outsized emphasis on racing. What is extraordinary was that in just the ninth year of running our classic Potomac Downriver Race, the club started another set of races out in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle, then over five hours' drive from Washington. At CCA's September 1963 meeting, river-guide author and renowned gage painter Randy Carter reported the Petersburg Chamber of Commerce had written seeking to run a white-water canoeing festival with slalom, exhibits, and downriver to take place the very next year. The Smokehole on the South Branch and the Cheat were proposed as venues, though by January a far more practical one up the North Fork was chosen. Starting in April 1964, the town of Petersburg became the center of paddling activity. The CCA started the race weekend as an invitation-only event, but quickly opened up registration to all, ultimately with paddlers from 32 clubs attending. Within several years, the Petersburg Races surpassed the CCA's Potomac Downriver Race (which had only one event) in number of contestants.

The club founders who ran these races are almost all gone, but several of the paddlers who competed as teenagers are in the club and paddling yet. Hugh Hilliard spoke of driving all night up from Georgia with his Explorer post and camping out in the valley. "It was a big deal" to meet some of the legends in the nascent sport, he said. "It was like paddling in the Big Leagues," watching the good paddlers from around the country, and hoping to emulate their style and moves.

All this activity attracted coverage by local TV and a wholly different viewership from the downriver and slalom races. A CCA Cruiser of the time reported that the Petersburg Races had "burgeoned beyond belief and now [drew] thousands of spectators and so many contestants that they have to be started in several groups." 

The Weather

The Petersburg Races were unusual in being on a natural flow river, so the volume was always unknown until the racers arrived. One year, 1966, the water was so low that the race had to be run downstream of Petersburg. But the prime meteorological issue was the cold—these races were run up in a mountain valley starting in late March and early April, so snow flurries and sub-freezing weather were common. And winds? One year the organizers were unable for several hours to run the slalom because the blasts across the river made the slalom poles swing way wide in the rapids. Drysuits had not yet been invented, although over the 15 years, paddlers came to more fully adopt wetsuits/farmer-johns.

CCA and Local Organizers

In those days before I-66 and West Virginia's Corridor H "Highway to Nowhere," given the long drive from Washington, any visit entailed staying overnight. Setting up the course, particularly stringing the slalom poles across the river, meant coming up into the valley early. While lodging in the few local hostelries sold out quickly, contestants camped out at Mouth of Seneca and other campgrounds near and far.

Ancillary Events

While CCA performed all the technical and certifying aspects of the races, through their civic organizations the people of Petersburg and up the valley ran a myriad of events. There were the Petersburg Fire Department, the Circleville High School way up the valley, the Arts Council with the fiddle contest, the Potomac Highland Craft Show, and a bake sale by the Grant County Hospital. A major event was the fire station Sunday breakfast for contestants and other paying customers. Other activities included canoeing movies, barbeque, smorgasbord, a hootenanny, a square dance at the high school, and an exhibition of boats and boat molds with hot new designs along with camping gear, muzzle-loading rifle matches, and smorgasbord at the fire station.

That year, West Virginia's governor came to hand out the prizes. But finally growing to 500 contestants in four races, two of which were run concurrently, the effort to organize and run the competition became an increasing strain on those dedicated club members who volunteered year after year. With many thousands of friends and spectators crowding into Petersburg and the North Fork Valley, local people's hospitality was strained by the traffic, partying undergraduates, occasional trespassers knocking over fences, and the sheer mass of visitors exhausting groceries and gas supplies in local stores and filling stations.

Final Years of the Race

Anyone who has participated in the CCA's Downriver Race Committee's work or observed their enormous vigor at the put-in and takeout can only imagine the challenge of running multiple races, including a slalom event, 160 miles from home. The organizers had to be 22 miles upstream of Petersburg before the race to string the gates across Seneca Creek, or along Route 28 below Hopeville Canyon, leaving precious little time during the events to focus on community relations. And contestants, timers, and gate-layers, being focused on the river itself, did not experience the traffic jams in the way the locals did. But by 1971, the Cruiser reported "mob scenes," "CCAers lost in the crowd," and crowds destroying a section of fence of a benefactor who had loaned his property for the downriver takeout. The Cruiser detailed spectators lined up four or five deep along the course—"almost too much of a good thing, given the capacity of the Valley"—and acknowledged, "We descended like a swarm of locusts in numbers no one could have anticipated."

By the tenth anniversary, Petersburg was "bursting at the seams trying to accommodate the crowds." By 1976, with the film "Deliverance" driving the popularity of whitewater activities among an uninformed public, the Cruiser estimated 35,000 people came to the North Fork Valley—close to the combined populations of our Grant and Pendleton County hosts. "Fiasco," "brinksmanship," and "courting of disaster" were the CCA's own assessment of the scene in the valley in the final years. At the same time CCA's 10 stalwart volunteer race officials were unable to attract either replacements or cooperation from other West Virginia outdoor organizations to help run the races—sometimes having to recruit contestants to assist at the finish.

In the weeks after the 1978 races, the Grant County Press was reporting 1500 "college kids" camping on private land, "motorcycle gangs," and trash left by thousands for others to pick up. In this fray a local citizen circulated a petition among several hundred valley landowners to end the races and brought it to Petersburg's Grant County Commission for action. Before the CCA in Washington became aware, the Commission had resolved to discontinue the Petersburg Race weekends, "Land Owners Vote Death to Whitewater Weekend" ran the headline, and 15 years of competitive paddlers coming en masse into the valley came to an end.

Sources – CCA Archives: This article about 16 years of CCA history occurring 60 years ago is based in part on materials available to every CCA member: issues of the Cruiser extending back to 1962 and available online in the Members Only/Documents/Newsletters section of the CCA website. Another part is from the extensive CCA archives: boxes of letters, financial records, racing programs, minutes of CCA board meetings extending into the 1950s, and album after album of photographs. For many years Barb Brown has been the keeper of the many boxes where these records are stored. Therein lie many possibilities for future Cruiser articles such as other club races, wild-ass creeking adventures, early boat-building undertakings, river accidents, and many more activities. Antiquarians, chroniclers, and historians desirous of researching the early history of the club should take a look at the online Cruisers and contact Barb to take a look at the archives.

More Photos! See the CCA Photo Album.