The Trading Post, along with the Meeting House, is one of two large, reconstructed buildings inside Pricketts Fort. This building allows Pricketts Fort to interpret the history of trade, hunting, trapping, and wildlife on the Virginia frontier in the late 18th century. Visitors can explore this history through a wide variety of furs on display. Contemporary recreations of historical items are also available for visitors to purchase in the Trading Post.

In the late 18th century, West Virginia was considered the western frontier of the Colony of Virginia. When the Pricketts settled here in 1772, they encountered old growth forests with towering chestnuts, oaks, hemlocks, and pines aging hundreds of years. Additional tree species found in the Appalachians included dogwoods, hickories, beeches, ashes, gums, walnuts, cherries, maples, poplars, birches, pawpaws, spruces, and cedars. Trees provided many resources for Indigenous people and settlers, including wood and bark for homes, nuts and berries for food, tannins for dye, and various parts for medicinal purposes. 

West Virginia’s old growth forests were rich and expansive enough to support a variety of wildlife. Large predatory mammals such as gray wolves, mountain lions, and Black bears established large territories to hunt. Herds of elk, white-tailed deer, and bison also roamed through the forests. Smaller mammals such as raccoons and skunks found food and shelter in the forest understory, while beavers and otters enjoyed the region’s clean rivers and streams. The region’s diverse wildlife also provided food, clothing, and a source of income or trade for indigenous people and settlers. 

West Virginia lost much of its old growth forests due to industrial logging and industry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A combination of overhunting and habitat loss caused large mammals such as wolves and bison to become extirpated, or locally extinct. The last bison documented in West Virginia was killed in 1825 in the Tygart Valley River. Furthermore, commercial trapping caused beaver and otter populations to dwindle. When West Virginia became a state in 1863, it adopted 1849 game and fish laws from Virginia. The West Virginia legislature passed its first law protecting wildlife in 1869, which prohibited hunting between February 14 and September 15, and prohibited the killing of certain species of birds. In the early 20th century, the establishment of state and national forests, state parks, and wildlife refuges helped conserve and manage natural landscapes and wildlife populations. 

Indigenous people had been using the forest’s natural resources for thousands of years. By moving frequently according to the seasons, they sustainably hunted and cleared land for home construction and agriculture. European settlers left countries such as England, Ireland, and Germany where available land was scarce or expensive and many natural resources had been exhausted. They arrived in the American colonies eager to take advantage of what they saw as open, untouched wilderness. In the 18th century, both new arrivals to the Colonies and established residents were drawn to the opportunity to have land further west. Some illegally settled as squatters or purchased land legally through colonial governments. Either way, colonial forces pushing further west fueled conflict between white settlers and Indigenous people and contributed to violent wars in the 18th century.

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