East of Elk Creek, Main Street ascends to an eminence that became Clarksburg's choice residential neighborhood. Most development occurred here from c. 1890 to c. 1920, although earlier houses helped establish the area's caliber. According to the form nominating the...
Burgeoning Bridgeport, mostly east of Interstate 79 and north of U.S. 50, has become the center of chaotic commercial development usually associated with major highway interchanges. Future generations may decipher the architectural significance of places such as Eastpointe I,...
Established in 1790 by Seventh Day Baptists from New Jersey, who built a stockaded fort and called the settlement New Salem, the town became a stop on both the Northwestern Turnpike and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the nineteenth century. At the turn of the twentieth century...
Although settled earlier as Boothe's Ferry, Philippi was not officially established until 1844, a year after Barbour County was created. It is said to have been named, like the county, for Philip Pendleton Barbour, but the name may refer to the Philippi of the New Testament. The...
As a recent state-sponsored publication noted, this part of West Virginia “is short on bright lights and big-city thrills.” One reason is that no city in the five-county region has a population exceeding 6,000. Buckhannon, the Upshur County seat, comes closest, with a 2000...
The Virginia General Assembly established Upshur County in 1851, appropriating land from adjoining Randolph, Barbour, and Lewis counties. Abel Parker Upshur, President John Tyler's secretary of state, provided the name. Nine years later, the 1860 U.S. Census counted a population...
Buckhannon and its river were named for a Delaware chieftain who lived in the vicinity. Joseph Martin wrote in his 1835 gazetteer that Buckhannon, then in Lewis County, “cannot be called a village, but rather a small settlement, having about 330 scattered dwelling houses...
Lewis County, named for Colonel Charles Lewis, a western Virginia pioneer killed at the Battle of Point Pleasant, was established in 1816 from territory formerly in Harrison County. A good idea of pioneer life is gleaned from a letter, postmarked Lewis County, Virginia, that...
Weston was established in 1818 as the seat of justice for Lewis County. Colonel Edward Jackson, “Stonewall's” grandfather, platted the townsite. Construction of the StauntonParkersburg Turnpike brought a number of Irish laborers in the 1830s and 1840s, and the town became a major...
Gilmer County was formed in 1845 and named for Thomas Walker Gilmer, a governor of Virginia. Farming and lumbering were the economic mainstays until oil and gas were discovered in the 1890s. Coal production became important in the early twentieth century, but is now of little...
Braxton County was formed in 1836 and named for Carter Braxton, a Virginia signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1848 Virginia chartered the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike Company, largely at the instigation of Kanawha Valley salt producers who sought a convenient...
Sutton was named for John D. Sutton, who arrived in 1809 as one of the area's first settlers. When the town was established and named several decades later, Sutton donated the town square. When the Weston and Gauley Bridge Turnpike came through, the village began to grow. A...
Gassaway, a quintessential railroad town, was established on an 1,100-acre site in 1904 to house shops for the just-completed Coal and Coke Railroad. Henry Gassaway Davis commissioned engineer James A. Paterson to plat Gassaway, which is sited on a broad, sloping peninsula of the...
Webster, the last county Virginia created before West Virginia became a state, dates from 1860 and honors Daniel Webster. According to the census taken that year, the county had a population of 1,555. The 2000 census counted 9,719, a significant decline from the 1940 peak of 18,...
The official name of Webster's county seat is Addison, after Addison McLaughlin, who owned the townsite. At one time Addison, nestled in a deep valley, had aspirations of becoming a mineral spa, and the name of the post office, but not the town itself, was changed to...
Even in a state known as the Mountain State, the Potomac Highlands have more than their share. This eight-county region contains the highest peaks in West Virginia, and the Potomac is only one of many rivers that starts its journey to the sea here. Four of the eight counties were...
Established in 1821, the county was named for the Indian princess credited with aiding the earliest Virginia colonists at Jamestown. Thomas Mann Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's son-in-law, governor of Virginia, and descendant of Pocahontas, selected the name. Its 942 square...
Marlinton, occupying the site previously known as Marlin's Bottom, wrested the honor of becoming the county seat from Huntersville in 1891, just as the timber boom was beginning. The Pocahontas Development Company, incorporated for the express purpose of boosting Marlinton,...
Pendleton County, a rough parallelogram bordered by Virginia on two sides, was created in 1788 and named for Edmund Pendleton, president of the 1775 Virginia Convention and member of the first U.S. Congress. The extremely rugged terrain embraces West Virginia's highest peak,...
Soon after the county was established, the first courthouse was built on land owned by Francis Evick, who soon platted forty-six and one-half acres as a town. The settlement was first called Frankford, but in December 1794, it was established as Franklin to honor Benjamin...
Between Franklin and Upper Tract, U.S. 220 traverses a pleasant rural landscape where prosperous farmsteads with numerous barns of various types and dates give evidence of fertile soil and traditional agricultural pursuits. Upper Tract was the site of one of the forts...
Established in 1787 and named for Edmund Randolph, then governor of Virginia, this 1,040-square-mile jurisdiction is West Virginia's largest county. Since prehistoric times settlement has centered in the area that early white settlers named Tygart (or Tygart's) Valley, for...
Elkins had a propitious—and preposterous—beginning. In the summer of 1888, two buckboards carried former U.S. Senator and Mrs. Henry Gassaway Davis, along with their son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Benton Elkins, several children, and two coachmen to the site of the...
Beverly, Tygart Valley's oldest settlement, dates from 1787, when officials of the newly established Randolph County authorized James Westfall to plat a town. The town was first named Edmundton to further honor Edmund Randolph, for whom the county was named. In December 1790, the...
This small, isolated mountain village represents a singular chapter in the settlement of West Virginia's rugged hinterlands. Soon after the state was created, officials appointed Swiss native J. H. Diss Debar commissioner of immigration to attract European homesteaders. Among...
Tucker County, created in 1856 from northern Randolph County, was named to honor Virginia jurist Henry St. George Tucker. The first county seat, St. George, bears his middle name. The 1860 census counted a population of only 1,428, the smallest in any of the counties that would...
Built on a low plain near the point where the Shavers Fork and Black Fork rivers converge to form Cheat River, Parsons has been subjected to floods throughout its history. Those that ravaged West Virginia in the autumn of 1985 were particularly devastating, damaging or destroying...
Named for Thomas Beall Davis, brother of Henry Gassaway, this community once boasted “more than one thousand [coke] ovens … constantly emitting smoke and flame.” A disastrous fire in 1901 destroyed much of the mostly wood-frame commercial area, but it was quickly rebuilt in...
The highest incorporated town in West Virginia was founded in 1883 on the route of the West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railroad, then under construction. Henry Gassaway Davis, town founder, sited it near the confluence of Beaver Creek and the Blackwater River, both capable...
Grant County, created in 1866 from Hardy County to the east and named for Ulysses S. Grant, is one of five counties formed after West Virginia became a state. The 1870 census counted a population of 4,467. With increases and an occasional decrease in intervening decades, the...
