The Rio Turtle or Turtle Rock is a turtle-shaped rock located in the North River along Augusta-Ford Hill Road (West Virginia Secondary Route 53) approximately 2.5 miles west of the community of Rio. While this stretch of the North River forms the border between Hampshire and Hardy Counties, the Rio Turtle is located on the Hampshire side.
Over the past few decades, the rock has been continually maintained and repainted by both local professional artists and graffiti artists and has become a popular tourist attraction and picnic rock in the North River Valley. After the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Rio Turtle's shell took a more patriotic and politically charged motif, including American flags, Christian crosses, and peace symbols. As of early Autumn 2006, the rock has been repainted and restored to its original tortoiseshell motif.
Famous quotes containing the words rio and/or turtle:
“I hear ... foreigners, who would boycott an employer if he hired a colored workman, complain of wrong and oppression, of low wages and long hours, clamoring for eight-hour systems ... ah, come with me, I feel like saying, I can show you workingmen’s wrong and workingmen’s toil which, could it speak, would send up a wail that might be heard from the Potomac to the Rio Grande; and should it unite and act, would shake this country from Carolina to California.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“I think of the nestling fallen into the deep grass,
The turtle gasping in the dusty rubble of the highway,
The paralytic stunned in the tub, and the water rising,—
All things innocent, hapless, forsaken.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)