Yikes. You had to drive all the way to Charleston from Berkeley Springs, Martinsburg, or Charles Town to get a license plate?
I doubt anyone ever did. We always mailed in the forms, but one of my early memories is going to the Transportation Building at the State Capitol when my father went to get a form from the racks outside the DMV Office. Strangely enough, the first DMV Office outside of Charleston was at the Teays Valley exit and incorrectly listed as my hometown of Scott Depot. It's still there, located in Putnam Village just a few doors down from the Teays post office. That's in the area where Hurricane addresses are along the east side of WV-34, Winfield addresses are on the west side of WV-34, and Scott Depot addresses are on the south side of I-64. The original Teays Depot post office was along the railroad about two miles southwest of there.
As to the DMV, if you go back long enough every type of plate had a month where they all expired. IIRC, cars were July, trucks (then a separate category) were February and so on. That was back when you got a new plate every year, and the DMV charged extra for postage. There is an old photo in the state archive of people lined up as far as the eye can see in front of the DMV building to get plates.
Every town had somebody who was a “tag agent” which was just some guy who knew the ins and outs of the DMV and most boasted “daily trips to Charleston” (no mean feat in those days) who would take care of complex transactions, for a fee.
The state switched to “permanent” plates in the early 70s for cars, and did away with trucks as a different category a few years later; and let the sheriffs in on renewals a few years later. Then it opened DMV branches all over the state in the 1990s, which pretty much killed the tag agents.
The reason the only branch office was the one in Putnam County, for many decades, was that it had parking, while Charleston did not, and it was a local call to Charleston. It is odd that the only branch was just 20 miles from HQ. BTW, it was, and still is, called the “Winfield branch” because Exit 39 used to be labeled “Winfield” before the new US 35 was built. The state built a branch in Martinsburg in the late 80s and then the current system of 24 branches across the state was brought in in the late 90s.
BTW, before the branch system, you got your DL photo at the State Police office, unless you lived in Charleston, where you went to the DMV. The background sheet was yellow, but in Charleston they had a blue one they would pull down and use for the politicians and insiders. Which indicated someone who was immune to the speeding ticket random tax. While they don’t do it anymore “blue back” is still WV cop lingo for a connected person.
As to Hurricane-Scott Depot-Teays Valley-Winfield, the Post Office, the phone company (back when that mattered), school board, and business all have different opinions of which place was where. There are places will all combinations such as a Scott Depot phone number, Hurricane address, etc. The area around Exit 39 has Hurricane addresses, Scott Depot phone numbers, but most business will advertise as being in “Teays Valley” because that is what the exit sign says now. They used to say they were in “Winfield” back when the exit read that.
There is a Post Office for Teays, 25569, which has a population of zero. It is just a set of boxes in an old strip mall, no service area at all. It saves the businesses in the area a trip. It is only staffed a few hours per day. I look for it to close someday.
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Topic: Corridor H (Read 477982 times)