The Noah Jarrell Monarch Waystation, located on Sunset Drive, is a perennial and annual flower garden planted with species that host and nourish butterflies. It is named for Noah Jarrell, a student who played a key role in petitioning the City of Charleston to establish the waystation. The project began at Spring Hill in 2022.

The surrounding area is informally known as “Conservation Corner.” This lightly managed meadow includes additional shrubs and trees that serve as butterfly host plants. A short, mulched nature trail winds through the area.

Spring Hill has a deep and historic connection to butterflies.

The Celtic Cross on Middleton Drive is dedicated to the memory of William Henry Edwards (1822–1909), one of America’s foremost nineteenth-century lepidopterists and the author of the three-volume Butterflies of North America, a work still consulted today. Originally from New York, Edwards moved to West Virginia after inheriting land and lived at his home, Bellefleur, in Coalburg near East Bank. There, he ran a coal business while introducing innovative mining practices—yet always found time for his first love: exploring wild places.

Edwards’s pocket journal from a journey to the Amazon River at age fifteen inspired generations of later travelers. Although he is buried in his family cemetery in New York, several family members are interred in this Spring Hill plot.

The monarch butterfly was adopted as West Virginia’s official state butterfly in 1995. The legislative resolution described the monarch as “one of the most beautiful butterflies in the region” and noted that it “exists in abundance in West Virginia.”

In 2004, award-winning butterfly educator Heather Tokas, owner of Butterflies from Heather, founded West Virginia Monarch Butterfly Day through legislation (HCR28), sponsored by five senators and seven delegates. Observed annually on September 12, the celebration features butterfly releases and educational programming for both children and adults. We are honored that Heather has joined us for the past two years and will return again in 2026.