The Shack Neighborhood House

The Shack Neighborhood House serves the people of the once-thriving Appalachian coal mining community of Scotts Run, northwest of Morgantown, West Virginia.

Founded by Mary E. Behner in the tradition of the settlement house movement, "The Shack" continues to serve their social, educational, recreational, economic, and health needs.

During the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt visited "The Shack" and the especially hard hit Scotts Run area.

Mary Behner, a 1928 College of Wooster graduate, was first given an abandoned schoolhouse in Stumptown and started a Sunday School and recreation there in November 1928.

In 2006, The Shack received an outreach grant from the Mollohan Foundation for the Appalachian Rags to Rugs Program.

The Shack Community Center in the 1930s
The Shack in 1937 photograph by Lewis Hine
The Shack in 1937 photograph by Lewis Hine
Coal cars by The Shack Community Center in the 1930s