Continuing north, the highway approaches the turnpike's Bluestone Service Plaza, accessible from the northbound lanes only.

I-77 then crosses the Bluestone River in Eads Mill, and the southbound roadway has a rest area and weigh station.

Continuing northwest, the road comes to interchanges serving the 35th Street Bridge and WV 114, the latter of which provides access to the West Virginia State Capitol.

[5] However, many of the internal transportation improvements were destroyed during that conflict, leaving bonded debt still to be paid, even as additional progress had ended.

[citation needed] With the completion of the earliest portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940, the desire for such a superhighway in West Virginia took hold.

[citation needed] The challenge of terrain in West Virginia mirrored that of Pennsylvania in some ways but with several important distinctions.

The most important of these was that the first portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike had largely followed and utilized a costly earlier rail project which had never been completed.

[2] Originally serviced by railroads and then two-lane highways, by the mid-20th century, the cities of southern and central West Virginia grew to the point where the roadways between these regions were becoming woefully inadequate.

Both of these plans, however, were shelved in a 1951 study, citing the extreme costs of building a modern highway through very unforgiving terrain as the primary reason.

The route was 22 miles (35 km) shorter than the original road mileage between Charleston and Princeton but would save motorists over two hours of driving between those two points.

[2] Triangular turnpike shields, with the words "West Virginia" at the top and an interlocking "T" and "P" in the center,[10] were installed along the highway.

At each interchange, bridges and underpasses for the mainline had an extra set of graded lanes, indicating that the turnpike was expected to be widened in the future.

[citation needed] In August 1969, construction began on the section between the turnpike's relocated southern terminus and the Virginia state line.

Like with the West Virginia Turnpike, challenges were faced during the latter's construction, such as boring a vehicular tunnel, as well as avoiding caves, mud, springs and hard to break tuscarora sandstone.

On top of this, the roadway had also lacked any measures to protect oncoming traffic from crossing directions, which resulted in many head on collisions, and an increased amount of fatalities.

When the project had not started in 1975, articles in local newspapers attacked the state workers for their "laziness" in pursuing the upgrade of the highway.

Originally, Tommy Graley of Standard and his two daughters were picked to be in the last vehicle to pass through the tunnel, but his pickup truck was followed by a car carrying Turnpike officials and the state trooper.

Ten million cubic yards (7.6×10^6 m3) of earth were removed and used as fill with drainage tiles for Paint Creek.

The Memorial Tunnel was used for storage until the mid-1990s, when it became a testing center for tunnel-fire suppression for Boston's Big Dig project.

[11] It was also one of the few Interstates that received 90-percent federal funding and permission to charge a toll, due to extremely high construction costs.

[citation needed] The turnpike displays many cuts through mountains as well as lanes that are separated from each other by substantial difference in elevation.

[citation needed] In 1991, the Morton and Bluestone Glass Houses were replaced with larger, more modern travel centers.

[8] In May 1996, exit 45 was opened to serve the Beckley travel plaza, Dry Hill Road, and the newly constructed Tamarack Marketplace arts and crafts outlet.

[21] In 2004, a concession stand and new restroom facilities were constructed at the rest area at milepost 69, serving southbound travelers.

[21] In 2013, the West Virginia House of Delegates voted in support of a resolution to remove tolls on the turnpike by 2020, making the entire road free of charge.

Despite this, in November 2018, the West Virginia Turnpike Authority awarded Saint Albans contractor Triton Construction and the project began immediately.

[27] WVDOT plans to rebuild the 7.3-mile free section of roadway between Tuppers Creek Road and the Jackson County Line.

[30][32] The Parkways Authority briefly raised toll rates on January 1, 2006,[8] but a state judge found the hike to be illegal, rescinding it a few days later.

The commission predicted that when I-64 was completed from Beckley to Sam Black Church in 1988, 6,500 more vehicles would travel the turnpike daily.

[citation needed] Tamarack Marketplace, located at the Beckley service area, is an arts and crafts outlet that draws over 500,000 visitors a year.