'What is the Mystery Hole?' This is a question that has caused discord all over West Virginia for nearly three decades, a question every motorist asks themselves when driving along Route 60 on the way to Hawk's Nest. What does the strange and enigmatic message on the bumper stickers of vehicles from all over North America mean? Is the Mystery Hole a place filled with gaudy knick-knacks and decorations visited only by people with a penchant for the unknown? Is it some kind of wormhole to another world? Is it a mine shaft into the centre of the Earth? The only thing you can be sure of is that whatever it is, it is a mystery...

The Mystery Hole was first opened in 1972 by Donald Wilson and was a popular tourist attraction in the Mountain State until Mr Wilson's untimely and mysterious death in the late 1990s. The hole was promptly closed, its fate seemingly sealed along with its original proprietor. Then at the turn of the Millennium, a mysterious couple claiming to be from Michigan purchased and upgraded the hole to serve as their sole livelihood. Since then business has increasingly become better since the hole's previous heyday in the 1970s and '80s.

Whatever you want to call it, a shoddy tourist trap, a shining jewel in West Virginia tourism, or just plain weird, there is no denying that the Mystery Hole is hard to resist. Is it some strange force beckoning drivers like some sort of tacky siren? Could Donald Wilson have used this site to summon eldritch beings from another dimension? Is it built on a sacred Indian burial ground? Just who is this couple from Michigan and why would anyone come from 'outside' to open such an obscure tourist attraction?

At an admission price of around $2, the Mystery Hole is something that you can't afford to miss out on. And this admission price, the same price as it was in during the '70s and '80s, just adds to the mystery surrounding this attraction. If this couple claim the hole as their only source of income, just how are they living on such low commission for their business venture? Are darker mysteries afoot? Just what happens to lone travellers said to disappear along this lonely stretch of Route 60?

Whatever the purpose is of the hole, it is open during the tourist season and on weekends until the end of October. For those who don't want to travel to West Virginia to explore the Mystery Hole (and who could blame you?), here is where you will find the Mystery Hole Revealed...