East Fork Campground is located in Durbin, nestled between the mountains and the historic town. Twenty of the 45 campsites are located along the Greenbrier River. At left, campground operators Tony Kyle and Ilene Graham stand on the porch of the office.
Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
After 25 years of owning and operating East Fork Campground, Mark and Marsha Kane were ready to retire. Luckily, they had a friend who loved the campground as much as they did.
Tony Kyle was drawn to the campground in part because it catered to visitors with horses. In the early 1990s, Kyle was in the “horse business.”
“I had horses at Blackwater State Park,” he said. “I started at Snowshoe in 1990 for Jim Burks. In 1995, my dad thought I had a good thing going in the horse business and he built me a quarter of a million-dollar arena barn in Mill Creek.”
Kyle was based in Mill Creek but traveled to Pocahontas County when he could. He camped at East Fork often and became friends with the Kanes.
“I told Mike, ‘I want to be just like you when I grow up,’” he said, laughing. “He’d sit there on the porch in his shorts and his flip flops.”
Last year, the timing was right and Kyle’s son, Jonathan, bought the campground for him to run.
Kyle and his wife, Ilene Graham, have taken to campground life and expanded to include 20 campsites with electric and water along the Greenbrier River and 25 campsites in the rest of the campground with full hookups.
East Fork Campground has barns and pens to cater to 60 horses on-site. Manager Tony Kyle built onto the existing barn to include 12 additional stalls complete with electric, water spigots and plenty of room for visitors’ horses to relax after a trail ride. Kyle’s horse, Major, is the resident landlord, watching over his guests.
They have also expanded the living quarters for horses to include 60 stalls in barns and pens.
“I’m a horse person as is Ilene – we’ve been riding horses together for fifteen years,” Kyle said. “My big project was that I wanted a nice dry place for the horses to be. I wanted to build a nice barn for the customers.
“One barn was here,” he continued. “Some of the seasonal campers built this for Mark when he was in Florida five or six years ago.”
Kyle added on to the existing barn which had four stalls. The new addition has 12 stalls. Each stall has a wash spigot and light switch, as well as plenty of room for the horses to rest after a day on the trail.
When Kyle and Graham are living on-site, they are joined by their horse Major, who watches over the visiting horses and is very personable.
“He follows you around like a dog,” Kyle said.
In addition to the campsites, there are two bathhouses at the camp- ground. One has separate men’s and women’s stalls, and the new one is “cowboy style” – one big room with a toilet, sink and walk-in shower.
Each campsite comes with hookups, a fire pit and picnic table. There is also a primitive cabin on-site that sits near the river.
The campground attracts a lot of groups who come to the county to enjoy the many trail systems where they can safely ride their horses. Kyle has a horse trailer visitors can rent for trips that are farther away – such as Snowshoe or Marlinton.
East Fork Campground also has a building on Main Street in Durbin with two rental units. One unit has four bedrooms and the other has two bedrooms.
Kyle recently entered into a lease agreement with the town of Durbin for a piece of land adjacent to the campground where he plans to add 12 more campsites with full hookups.
He did this to keep the main field open for community events, including the annual Durbin Days Heritage Festival that takes place in July.
Kyle and Graham are very community-oriented and are always hosting events for campers and locals. Visit the campground’s Facebook page at East Fork Campground-Durbin, WV for upcoming events.
To learn more about East Fork Campground, visit eastforkcampgrounddurbin.com or call 304-456-3101.
