The West Virginia ON TRAC program was created by the West Virginia Community Development Office in 2008 to assist in downtown revitalization and community development through evaluation, education and networking resources. ON TRAC utilizes the trademarked Main Street 4-point approach - Organization, Promotion, Design and Economic Restructuring- that was created by the National Historic Trust. The City of Elkins was designated by Governor Joe Manchin, III as an ON TRAC community in January 2009.

In its first year of ON TRAC, Elkins sent two representatives to the National Main Street Conference in Chicago, volunteers viewed the Main Street 4-point approach webinars that were shown at two locations locally and they planned, organized and carried out a successful visit by the WV ON TRAC Assessment team. In addition, after receiving the written assessment report from the team, volunteers organized into the four necessary committees (organization, economic restructuring, design and promotion) and volunteers attended a day-long work plan session with the WV ON TRAC team.

Since then, the organization committee has completed and sent in an application for Elkins to be designated as a "Preserve America" community. The economic restructuring committee is working on a survey for downtown businesses and building owners that should assist all of us in better understanding their needs, the design committee has put forth plans for initial projects, and the promotion committee has added an ON TRAC page to the City of Elkins website. The design committee is working with Michael Gioulis, design contractor for WV Main Street, on downtown improvement designs. His preliminary narrative and sketch of the project has been received and committees are working with the plan.

ON TRAC is a volunteer driven program. If you are interested in working with a committee, please contact the ON TRAC LIAISON, Karen Carper at email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .