WHEELING — The Mountain State’s 155th birthday is being celebrated today at its birthplace — West Virginia Independence Hall — and at other locations in the region.

The hall, located at the corner of 16th and Market streets, was the site of an 1861 convention that led to the formation of the Restored Government of Virginia. Subsequent meetings held in the building, then functioning as the U.S. Custom House, gave birth to the new state of West Virginia. At the midpoint of the Civil War, West Virginia officially became the 35th state in the Union on June 20, 1863.

To mark Statehood Day, West Virginia Independence Hall is scheduled to have a “visit” from Abraham Lincoln at noon today. John W. King, who portrays Lincoln, will read the proclamation that admitted West Virginia into the Union.

After the presentation, visitors will have opportunities to take photographs with King, who won a Lincoln look-alike contest at the Shriver House Museum in Gettysburg in 2013. He has been telling the story of the 16th president for the past 25 years.

Guests also will be treated to birthday cake and lemonade at the hall. Permanent displays in the state-owned museum highlight the state’s history.

Also in celebration of West Virginia Day, visitors to Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex in Moundsville can make vintage-style postcards from 2-4 p.m. today.

Meanwhile, the Wheeling-Ohio County Convention and Visitors Bureau is distributing the new Almost Heaven free stickers that have been produced by the West Virginia Tourism Office. The bureau is located on the ground floor of the Robert C. Byrd Intermodal Transportation Center at 14th and Main streets.

In another observance for the state’s birthday, West Virginia University Libraries and the West Virginia and Regional History Center in Morgantown will hold a reception at 9 a.m. today and a panel discussion on the topic, “Justice for All: Law and Lawyers in West Virginia.” This year’s theme honors Steptoe & Johnson’s recent donation of the papers from the law firm’s co-founder, Louis A. Johnson.

After the talks, the West Virginia and Regional History Center will open an exhibit of photographs, artifacts and documents chronicling the history of law in West Virginia. All of the events are open to the public.

As a prelude to West Virginia Day, Jack Lewis, author of a Civil War-themed novel, “Storm Coming,” and his wife, Carol, spoke Tuesday at the Ohio County Public Library in Wheeling. They presented a Lunch With Books program, “The Birth Pains of a State,” detailing factors and political actions that led to West Virginia’s formation.

Lewis, a Civil War buff, learned that his great-grandfather left his Pennsylvania farm to join the 1st Virginia Cavalry, which was loyal to the Union. That discovery led the Lewises, who live in rural Virginia, to learn about the neighboring state’s origins.

Carol Lewis, who grew up in Virginia, said, “I don’t think I learned anything about the forming of West Virginia (in school).”

Through their research, they concluded that the 35th state had “a bloody birth,” she said, adding, “West Virginia has the most amazing birth story of any state.

“It’s a great story … The legality of West Virginia is fascinating and is still being debated,” she said.

Lewis identified the four main “midwives” of the state’s birth as John Carlile, of Clarksburg; Waitman Willey, of Morgantown; Francis Pierpont, of Fairmont; and Archibald Campbell, of Wheeling.

Campbell was the owner and editor of the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, which was the only newspaper in Virginia to endorse Lincoln. Campbell and his paper opposed slavery and secession from the Union, she said.

“It was a very influential paper and he (Campbell) really was a founding father in West Virginia statehood,” Lewis said.

Pierpont, who has been called the father of West Virginia, was the first, and only, governor of the Restored Government of Virginia. Carlile and Willey served as U.S. senators from the Restored Government.