The Friends of the 500^th, Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge’s Friends organization, has submitted a historic resource overview of the refuge.  The refuge, in Tucker County West Virginia, is located in a high elevation valley in the Appalachian Mountains, and has a unique fauna and flora conditioned by its unusually cold climate for the latitude. The Valley was first settled by Euro-Americans after the Civil War.  The Friends of the 500^th initiated the Tucker County Highlands History and Education Project in 2004,  conducting research and collecting oral histories that will chronicle the cultural and natural history of the area. They published the "Chronicles of the Tucker County Highlands History and Education Project" in the Friends newsletter, Timberdoodle.  

In 2006, regional planner Bill Zinni was unable to fully fund a contract for a cultural resource overview of the refuge. Regional archaeologist Shelley Hight and refuge manager Stan Skutek approached the Friends about providing the historic period section of the overview, enabling Zinni to contract with a professional archaeology firm for only the prehistoric section of the overview. The Friends agreed and worked with Hight and visitor services professional Jackie Burns to define a useful report. The Friends completed the project independently, with virtually no direct assistance from staff. Their report contains a narrative history of Canaan Valley and 76 historic archaeological site and structure inventory forms for the refuge, each with a map, GPS location, and many with photographs.

The quality of the information is high, and the report will be used in the developing the refuge's Comprehensive Conservation Plan. In addition, site forms will add to the Service's archaeological site inventory, used to ensure that archaeological sites are not destroyed during Service projects. The Friends enabled the Service to save scarce funds and made their long term interest in the area’s history useful for protecting historic sites and structures.