When the city of Huntington was only two years old, an observer noted that it had eight churches, a fact made even more impressive by his second observation: that it had more railroad cars than houses. Over the years, Huntington has continued its tradition of church building, and from the beginning 5th Avenue has been the ecclesiastical venue of choice. No other West Virginia city can match the remarkable cluster of churches along both sides of the avenue, two of which ( HU2and HU8) have been included in the discussion of downtown. The neighborhood, a short walk east of downtown, was also a desirable residential area, and a few important houses also survive. Unfortunately, many have been demolished in recent years to provide parking lots for the churches or sacrificed to Marshall University, whose ever-expanding campus begins east of Hal Greer Boulevard (16th Street).
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