North Raleigh Street funnels traffic from downtown Martinsburg to Route 11. But step onto the semi-paved path near the railroad tracks and you’ll find pops of color peeking through the overgrowth.
For more than a decade, skateboarders have walked this route with their boards to reach local skate spots. The city’s indoor skating venue then closed due to financial concerns in 2013, just four years into operation. The skaters weren’t ready to put down their boards, so they scouted an abandoned lot uptown.
And Martinsburg’s “DIY” skatepark was born.
Local skaters regularly gather on vacant lots of pavement and have come to agreements with landowners to keep the spaces clean and trouble-free. The rails and hand-poured concrete ramp were then built entirely at own expense.
Now, more than a decade later, the DIY park is a sight to behold, with spray-painted murals and all sorts of features. There’s only one thing missing: skaters.
The park is no longer in use due to a recent change in property ownership. But it also reinvigorated countywide demands for something permanent.
There’s a skate scene but no skate park.
Many of Mark Peacemaker’s early skateboarding experiences started with carpools. His companions were loading their gear into the minivan and bumping elbows in the back seat.
Parents took turns driving their children to the skating venue in Frederick, Maryland, about 40 miles east of their hometown. The trip was fun, but today’s trip reminded Peacemaker of how far he had to go to play action sports when he was a preteen in Martinsburg.
“Back then, I grew up in the West Virginia panhandle and there weren’t a lot of amenities around,” he said.
Peacemaker said that in the 2000s, skaters were seen as troublemakers, but that sentiment goes back decades.
In 1991, the city of Martinsburg banned skateboarding on public property. This meant that police could snatch boards from skaters doing tricks in local parks or issue fines for simply cycling down the street.
An old sign outside Martinsburg City Hall threatens police action against skateboarders.
Photo by Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Martinsburg Mayor Kevin Knowles sits in his office.
Photo by Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
“In the end, I ended up with things on the record that were of no use to me, and it put other friends in a bad direction,” he said. “That first shock was skating in public.”
When the city’s skate park closed in 2013, Peacemaker said she and her friends thought it made sense to gather somewhere else. They didn’t necessarily have a big plan in mind.
“Since we were all kids, I think everyone in the scene got together there and organically started making things for skating,” he said.
But as news about the spot spread, a whole community of DIY skaters sprang up, similar to the ones that have sprung up in communities around the world without public skate spots. From dilapidated tennis courts in Maryland to abandoned strip malls in Texas, skaters around the world have turned abandoned urban spaces into grassroots parks.
Martinsburg Mayor Kevin Knowles said local DIY skaters have not caused any problems and the city is not responsible for monitoring them.
“It didn’t affect us in any way because we weren’t responsible,” he said. “That responsibility was placed on the individuals who allowed it to happen.”
The DIY skatepark became well-known in the local community, and park clean-ups and contests called “skate jams” were held regularly. The event was attended by dozens of community members, sometimes even Mayor Knowles.
“If you look at what they’ve done with DIY, they’ve really made great progress,” he said. “But they didn’t own the land.”
For Mr. Knowles, the lack of formal ownership of the skatepark calls into question its long-term viability. The city got its answer when a new owner purchased the property last year.
under new ownership
In November 2023, Harpers Ferry-based online conservative commentator Tim Poole purchased the site for a DIY skatepark.
Poole made national headlines in September when the Justice Department announced that his company had received money from Russian state media to spread propaganda. Poole said he was not aware of any such plans.
Back in West Virginia, Poole’s profile was growing. He and other skate park regulars disagreed about how the spot was used, but several Martinsburg skaters spoke to West Virginia Public Radio and agreed to discuss the situation. There was no one there.
Nevertheless, radioactive fallout once again left Martinsburg residents without a place to skate. Knowles said he doesn’t know where they ended up.
“At this point, we don’t know where anyone is going. We don’t see a lot of people on skateboards running around the city,” he said. “So they’re going somewhere else. They’re not coming to the city of Martinsburg right now.”
A regular event at a DIY skatepark in Martinsburg has drawn dozens of skaters to West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle.
Photo by Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
The DIY park has been largely unused since it was purchased by a new property owner in November 2023.
Photo by Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
But Peacemaker said he knows where they went. He said he returned to out-of-state venues in Maryland and Virginia that he frequented as a child. Skaters in the Eastern Panhandle will once again have to decide whether to drive dozens of miles out of town or simply put away their boards.
“There’s a lot of parks around. Martinsburg is like a center point without a center point,” Peacemaker said.
Peacemaker pointed to Hagerstown Skatepark, a venue in Maryland about 40 miles from downtown Martinsburg, as a vision of what local skaters want for their community. It is a permanent location for skating, funded by the local authority. And their ideas are gaining traction.
seek something permanent
Last month, the Martinsburg City Council repealed its anti-skateboarding ordinance for the first time in 30 years.
Mayor Knowles and Joe Barton, executive director of Martinsburg-Berkeley County Parks and Recreation, said skateboarders have historically been viewed as a nuisance by some members of the community because of their association with the alternative scene. I admitted it.
“Each skateboarder is a unique type of person. They dress differently, they talk differently, and their activities are a little different than everyone else,” Knowles said. “People just identify themselves by what they see, not by what they know. So they see something different, and they don’t like it.”
But Burton said officials in the Eastern Panhandle currently believe recreational activities such as skateboarding can keep children safe.
“With drug use and all the trouble kids are having, it suggests more activities will solve those problems. They won’t make the situation worse,” he said. Said. “So adding safer recreational activities to the community is a good thing.”
Joshua McCormick, another DIY skater from Martinsburg, agrees. He said there is something meditative about the rhythm of the sport.
“You’re always down. You’re down, but don’t give up,” he said. “The little bit of joy you get when you pull off a trick and have your friends cheering loudly makes it all worth it.”
Martinsburg residents Joshua McCormick and Mark Peacemaker stand at the Hagerstown Skate Park with their boards.
Photo by Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
McCormick will perform his tricks at Hagerstown Skatepark, about 40 miles from Martinsburg in western Maryland.
Photo by Jack Walker/West Virginia Public Broadcasting
Knowles and Burton said city and county governments are actively working to secure assets and funding to build public skate parks for local communities. The project builds on years of support from people like Peacemaker, who have talked with local authorities about the benefits of increasing access to recreational opportunities such as skateboarding locally.
Knowles said he has identified a possible site for the skate park “near the downtown corridor on the outskirts of the trail system,” but the location has not yet been determined. He said the project will be publicly funded by both city and county governments.
“It’s the perfect addition and it’s going to be a real thing,” Knowles said. “It’s going to happen. We just need to secure the right land and secure the finances.”
Martinsburg and Berkeley County governments also have not finalized a schedule for park construction, but said they are in talks with Peacemaker and other local skaters about the project.
McCormick said the project could also increase local tourism, as skaters are willing to travel long distances for the skate park.
“Our little DIY attracted people from all over the state, including Baltimore and Frederick,” he said. “It would be great to have another public park in this area.”
While it may be a while before a permanent park actually opens, Peacemaker and McCormick say it’s comforting to know that a permanent park will actually open. They said that while the DIY spot had its appeal, it did not replace the community’s real need for a government-funded public park.
For now, skaters are happy that they don’t have to invest time, money or concrete into a DIY skatepark.
“We’re finally going to have something new, personalized, public and open to everyone, in a really beautiful setting,” Peacemaker said. “It’s a legal, safe place and it’s never going to go away.”
