The Wheeling Ex-Patriot
Do you call Wheeling, WV home, but currently live somewhere else? If yes, we here at Weelunk.com consider you an “Ex-Pat”. Are you home now, visiting for Thanksgiving Break? If yes, you probably are thinking, “Good to be home again, but I’ll soon be ready to return to the cooler place where I now reside, complete with Thai Restaurants and Dog Parks.”
Not so fast, my friend.
Here is the ultimate guide for Wheeling Ex-Pats on things to do, see and think about these days, that might just maybe , potentially, quite possibly have you start thinking to yourself, “Hey – I could actually live here”.
Click on the images below to find Weelunk articles that will feed your desire to return home for good!
On your way in to town, you are going to need a drink ASAP. Before making it to your parents’ house, have a beer and pick up a growler, at the Wheeling Brewing Company.
Beer is Back in Wheeling
Hungry? Give Avenue Eats a try, you won’t be disappointed. Yes – it’s in a house on Washington Ave. – trust us.
Avenue Eats Celebrates Second Anniversary
Still Hungry? Check out the Vagabond Kitchen.
Matt Welsh: A Stay at Home Vagabond?
Looking for a divey, retro, hipster music venue with legitimate music? Try The Blue Church.
The Blue Church Concert Series Features Nashville Artist
Want to find some local food? Try Grow Ohio Valley
Grow Ohio Valley Offering New CSA program.
How about some gourmet, imported fare? Try Good Mansion Wines.
Holiday Spirits Available at Good Mansion Wines
See our young people supporting one of our oldest institutions: Farm to Fork.
Farm to Fork in Photos
Inspired yet? Want to Invest? These people are investing in Downtown Wheeling.
Developer Cuts Negative Faction No Slack
Remember Stone and Thomas?
Stone Center Residential Soon to be Reality
And finally, a call to action from one of our local community members.
Remaking Wheeling: Are you all in?
Come Home. Stay Home. Do Something.
I am a retired ex-pat. I have become a “Wheelback”, that is former resident who came back to town. I moved so I could be closer to both of my children, Chuck and Wendy Scatterday. It allows me to see them and the 3 grandchildren more often than I did when I lived and worked in Greenville, SC. Since my return I have become aware of other retirees who chose to return for similar reasons. Wheeling is the “Friendly City” as well as the “City of Lights”. I work some part time hours at Oglebay Park so it is giving me an opportunity to let my light shine.
So you’ve slapped some hipster window-dressing on a dying city. It’s very cool that you’ve all got a microbrewery, a few new restaurants, a place to buy heirloom tomatoes and a rehabbed S&T building that WODA will almost certainly turn into Section 8 housing.
But it isn’t a rebirth.
It is the same people who have been living comfortably for decades while the rest of the city has crumbled. It’s a congressman’s family dining out, the Wheeling Symphony crowd at their gala and the people that buy cheese for $30/lb. The only difference now is that the tastes of the Wheeling elite have changed, but that’s all that’s the only thing that’s ‘new’.
I left Wheeling because there was no future there, not because the glut of thai food or organic asparagus bought directly from a farmer. I left because there were no decent jobs in a city which has been horribly mismanaged for the last sixty years. I left because despite the shortage of jobs, housing was outrageously expensive. I left because is seems like half the town is addicted to heroin.
A lot of us moved from Wheeling area because of a change in lifestyle due to one reason or another. Some would love to move back but can’t because of housing costs due to outsider oil business workers, who their selves are being gouged by greedy home owners (mostly by absentee owners), having driven up rentals and homes prices to become unaffordable. It’s not from lack of good paying jobs.