Wikipedia:Today's featured list/December 22, 2014
Plantations that operated within the present-day boundaries of West Virginia initially carried over the practice of slavery from other plantations of the Piedmont and Tidewater regions of Virginia. Harewood (pictured), which was designed by John Ariss for George Washington's brother Samuel Washington, is an early instance of a plantation in present-day West Virginia that had a grand home. The West Virginia Legislature passed an act abolishing slavery in West Virginia on February 3, 1865, thus ending the institution of the plantation in West Virginia. Since the 1960s, many of West Virginia's plantation houses have acquired places on the National Register of Historic Places, the United States government's official list of sites, buildings, and structures deemed worthy of preservation. The house at Traveller's Rest is West Virginia's sole plantation house designated as a National Historic Landmark for its national-level historical significance. (Full list...)