One-Stop Heritage Adventure: West Virginia’s Tamarack

Take HandMade in America of North Carolina, turn it inside out and you get the innovative tourism effort called Tamarack in West Virginia. Where HandMade created a system of trails and a guidebook to take tourists to remote artisans, Tamarack gathers the best of West Virginia’s original products and places them in a central location.

Tamarack is the nation’s first statewide collection of handmade crafts, arts, and cuisine available in one location. It is 59,000 square feet of juried crafts, working art studios, a 178-seat theater, art gallery, and West Virginia foods. It represents the work of more than 1,900 artists and craftspeople, creating an inventory of more than 30,000 products. Tamarack products range from hand-made soap bars and honey-mustard sauces to hand-forged tables and one-of-a-kind furniture—all produced by the people of West Virginia. Even the facility itself is West Virginia designed and built with native materials, down to the artisan-rendered wall sconces, stained-glass windows, and decorative counter tiles.

The idea for such a facility was conceived in 1989 by former Governor Gaston Caperton who looked for ways to create more jobs in his state. He particularly wanted to expand the state’s tourism industry and take advantage of state-made crafts, art, and food products. Enter the West Virginia Parkways Economic Development and Tourism Authority, which started off by transforming highway rest stops into “travel plazas” offering tourist information and West Virginia-made crafts and food products. The instant success of state-made product sales spurred Governor Caperton to encourage travel plazas, state parks, and specialty shops to promote the products throughout the state, thus ushering in the Tamarack distribution system in March 1991. As sales rocketed over the next few years, it became clear that the state needed a central junction to coordinate its widespread talent. The result is the $14 million Tamarack facility in Beckley, strategically located near the convergence of Interstates 64 and 77, key travel routes for tourists.

The collaboration required to maintain such an operation starts at the grass-roots level with artisans and agricultural producers and expands to include businesses, industries, and local and state government agencies. Tamarack represents a significant economic opportunity for West Virginians, offering not only expanded markets for the state’s heritage and cultural resources, but also in providing jobs and tax revenues. In its first year of operation, Tamarack hosted 550,000 visitors and produced in excess of $5 million in sales. After five years of operation, Tamarack has hosted over 2.2 million visitors who have left behind over $23.5 million in sales and over $1.2 million in sales tax for the state.

“Tamarack has a great multiplier effect,” explains former Governor Caperton. “It expands an existing crafts market, promotes West Virginia-made products, and increases job opportunities. Best of all, the money made through Tamarack stays within the state. Everyone benefits.”

For more information, contact Tamarack at 1-88TAMARACK or www.tamarackwv.com.