West Virginia State Coat of Arms

The West Virginia coat of arms shows two working men on either side of a large rock. A farmer with an ax stands on the left, and a miner with a pickax stands on the right. Between them, the boulder is inscribed with the date June 20, 1863. Two rifles cross in front of the boulder with a red Liberty cap on top, while ivy frames the scene on both sides.

The motto Montani Semper Liberi appears on a scroll below the central image. The coat of arms appears on official state documents and buildings throughout West Virginia, and its central image also forms the basis of the state seal.

West Virginia did not exist as a state before the Civil War. When Virginia voted to leave the Union in 1861, the western counties of Virginia refused to follow. They were geographically separated from eastern Virginia by the Appalachian Mountains and economically different from the plantation regions of the east.

The western counties organized their own government, and after a constitutional process, West Virginia was admitted to the Union on June 20, 1863, becoming the thirty-fifth state. It was the only state created by separating from a Confederate state during the Civil War.

Joseph H. Diss Debar, an artist born in Alsace who had settled in what became West Virginia, was asked to design the new state's coat of arms and seal. He created the design adopted with statehood in 1863, incorporating the farmer, the miner, the boulder, the crossed rifles, and the motto to reflect the state's economy, geography, and founding story.

The West Virginia coat of arms groups its symbols around a central boulder. Each figure and object refers to a specific aspect of the state's economy, geography, or founding moment.

The coat of arms makes the state's founding story visible in one image. The boulder with the date June 20, 1863 is the fixed point. The farmer and miner on either side represent what the state was and what it would become. The crossed rifles explain why it was willing to fight to exist. The motto names the quality that made it possible.

West Virginia is one of the few states whose coat of arms was designed specifically to record a dramatic founding moment. It did not inherit a colonial past or a territorial history with centuries of precedent. It was created in the middle of a war, and the design reflects that directly.

The West Virginia coat of arms has been in use since statehood in 1863. No earlier coat of arms preceded it, because the state itself did not exist before that date. The design created by Joseph H. Diss Debar in 1863 is the only official coat of arms West Virginia has used.