No Cell Phones, Wi-Fi Allowed In Small W.Va. Town

GREEN BANK, W.Va. (KDKA) — Would you believe there’s a place where no one can use a cell phone? Where Wi-Fi is not allowed? Where even finding a radio station can be a difficult task?

There’s a town in West Virginia a few hours to south of Pittsburgh where all that is true.

Green Bank is a place where you can hear nature. Where you can hear yourself think. And that’s because some very important listening is going on.

You see, Green Bank is home to the largest moveable radio telescope in the world.

“For people in the immediate area of the telescope, we really need the quiet,” said Jay Lockman from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.

They’re trying to pick up very faint signals from outer space, so people in this small town can’t have some of today’s modern conveniences.

“I guess in some sense, you can say they can’t have 2016,” said Lockman. “They’re living in 1990.”

For starters, cell phones do not work here. But people here, including Sherry Chestnut at Trent’s General Store, they don’t miss them.

“Absolutely not cause I’ve never had one!” said Chestnut. “So I don’t have anything to miss.”

“Emergency-wise it would be nice to have one,” said Debbie Birely, who also works at Trent’s. “But for peacefulness, we don’t need ’em.”

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