West Virginia's Abandoned Castle Is Now A Graffiti-Covered Gem With A Historic Cemetery And Ohio River Views

A castle in West Virginia? Not as unfathomable as it sounds. Thanks to one eccentric doctor with grandiose ambitions, there's what appears to be a castle — now completely swathed in graffiti — perched on a hill overlooking Wheeling, West Virginia. This castle, called the Mount Wood Overlook, was never actually completed. Its construction was halted when the enterprising doctor was arrested for some under-the-table medication trafficking, and the castle-to-be was subsequently abandoned. But, for the curious visitor, it remains a local oddity with a stellar vantage over the city of Wheeling.

Visitors to the Mount Wood Overlook get treated to another haunting relic of Wheeling history just across the road from the castle: the Mt. Wood Cemetery. Sharing its hilltop promontory with the abandoned structure, it's Wheeling's oldest surviving cemetery, according to Wheeling Heritage. It was created in the mid-1800s, during a time when cemeteries were designed to incorporate beautiful, natural settings into their grounds. As such, the Mt. Wood Cemetery is a scenic destination as much as it is a historic one, with views over the Ohio River and valley.

The Mount Wood Overlook is a site bathed in local lore, the subject of rumors and mystery. The local history community, Archiving Wheeling, has attempted to clear up what's true and untrue in the castle's history using archival documents from the public library, though some details in its timeline remain foggy. What's known, per Archiving Wheeling, is that the castle was built by Dr. Andrew Jackson Harness in the 1920s, possibly as a residential clinic. Dr. Harness was arrested in 1925 for selling morphine and cocaine to patients — the crime, at the time, was not the possession of the drugs in themselves, but rather selling them off the books and skirting taxes. After his imprisonment, the castle that was underway was abandoned, the City of Wheeling took over the property, and the Harness family moved elsewhere.

Today, visitors can find the unfinished castle on a hilltop in Wheeling, West Virginia's panhandle city with mountain charm. It sits off Mt. Wood Road, and there's free parking at the top of the hill. The site doesn't exactly transport you to a medieval fantasy — every surface of the castle is covered in layers of graffiti. But you can walk on its elevated terrace for a great view over the Ohio River and its bridges and go down a spiral staircase into a turret.

Cross Mt. Wood Road from the Overlook, and you'll find the entrance to the Mt. Wood Cemetery. The cemetery has no relation to the castle, other than its adjacent location, but it's another site worth stopping at for its history and lookouts. According to Wheeling Heritage, it was created in 1848 and contains the graves of notable early Wheeling residents — close to 2,000 graves in total, plus 10 mausoleums. The cemetery was deliberately designed to reflect its bucolic setting, with the Ohio River in view and hills in the distance — one Reddit user even noted spotting deer at the site.

To get to Wheeling, it's about an hour by car from Pittsburgh. Wheeling and Pittsburgh are also connected by a Greyhound bus line, which takes just over an hour — make sure to read up on the unwritten rules to know before getting on a Greyhound. Another site you could tack onto an itinerary of abandoned sites in West Virginia's panhandle is the once-notorious West Virginia Penitentiary, roughly a 20-minute drive south of Wheeling.