Wayne County's largest community, with a 2000 population of 3,485, derives its somewhat convoluted name from the three states whose borders converge here: Kentucky, Ohio, and West Va. It lies at the extreme southwestern tip of West Virginia, across the Big Sandy River from Kentucky and across the Ohio River from Ohio. Philadelphia entrepreneurs established Kenova in 1889, and it was incorporated in 1894. It served first as a shipping port for timber floated down the Big Sandy from the mountainous hinterlands to the south, then as a lumber manufacturing center. Beech Street extends alongside the 1939 floodwall-levee that protects the city from Ohio River floods. A number of frame houses, some Italianate, some Queen Anne in style, line its southern side and provide a glimpse of what residential Kenova was like in earlier times.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.