How did West Virginia’s Gauley River get its unusual name?

How did West Virginia’s Gauley River get its unusual name?

SUMMERSVILLE, W.Va. — Every autumn, thousands of paddlers descend into West Virginia’s mountains to run the Gauley River, one of the world’s celebrated whitewater runs. They come for rapids named Pillow Rock, Lost Paddle, and Sweet’s Falls, as scheduled releases from Summersville Dam send enormous volumes of water through the river’s rugged gorge. But the ...