Institute, West Virginia

Institute is an unincorporated community on the Kanawha River in Kanawha County, West Virginia, USA. The community lies off of Interstate 64 and West Virginia Route 25, and has grown to intermingle with nearby Dunbar. Institute is home to West Virginia State University (formerly the West Virginia Colored Institute, the source of the town's toponym) West Virginia State Community and Technical College, and the West Virginia State Police Academy. It was also the site of an August 2008 chemical plant explosion that killed two and injured eight at the Bayer CropScience facility.^[1]

The community is the location of the prehistoric Shawnee Reservation Mound, one of three remaining Adena-era earthwork mounds and enclosures found in an eight-mile stretch along the river. It was also called Fairgrounds Mound and Poorhouse Mound. It is located in Shawnee Regional Park. This mound is about 20’ high and 80’ in basal diameter, but was originally 25’ high and greater than 80’ in diameter. These mounds originally numbered more than 50 and there were ten enclosures when inventoried in the late 19th century by the Bureau of Ethnology. They were likely built approximately 300 BCE to 200 CE.^[2]

Located on the campus of West Virginia State University are East Hall and Canty House, both listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.^[3]

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