Explore by place
Every community has its own path through time.
Choose a community to follow its people, industries, institutions, turning points, and surviving research leads together.
Community histories
Begin with a developed hub
Each page combines a brief overview with every timeline entry currently connected to that community.
Showing 28 of 28 community histories · 5 of 5 additional timeline places
Albright
Albright grew at an important Cheat River crossing and later became a town shaped by transportation, industry, floods, and the recovery of the Cheat River. Its timeline includes the earlier ferry, Civil War bridge damage, incorporation, the former Morgantown & Kingwood Railroad corridor, and the 1985 flood.
- Timeline entries
- 7
- Years represented
- 1856–2003
- Postal records
- Postmasters
- Photos
Amblersburg
Amblersburg was a small railroad community in northwestern Union District. Oren F. Morton described it as a railroad hamlet in his 1914 county history, placing it along the grade between Terra Alta and the Cheat River. Federal postal records preserve the spellings Amblersburg and Amblersburgh and document its postmasters, railroad connections, and surroundings.
- Timeline entries
- 0
- Years represented
- Research in progress
- Postal records
- Postmasters
Amboy
Amboy, formerly Painter’s Mills in Morton’s county history, was a small hamlet near Aurora. Its postal records connect the earlier name Painters Mill with Amboy and preserve maps, roads, waterways, and changes in the office’s location.
- Timeline entries
- 0
- Years represented
- Research in progress
- Postal records
Arthurdale
Arthurdale’s timeline follows the New Deal homestead community from federal land acquisition through construction, education, home ownership, and historic preservation. It also keeps the project’s racial exclusion visible within that history.
- Timeline entries
- 9
- Years represented
- 1933–1995
- Postal records
- Postmasters
- Photos
- Videos
Aurora
Aurora’s history includes early settlement, Wolf Creek, turnpike travel, hotels and resorts, and the landscape that now includes Cathedral State Park and the Brookside Historic District. The timeline follows those stories from eighteenth-century settlement through preservation and twentieth-century local life.
- Timeline entries
- 19
- Years represented
- 1761–2013
- Postal records
Brandonville
Brandonville’s history follows its laying out and incorporation, the roads that connected it to neighboring communities and regional markets, and later civic, industrial, and frontier-history threads. Its timeline preserves both early town history and the limits of the evidence behind several traditions.
- Timeline entries
- 19
- Years represented
- 1774–1886
- Postal records
Bretz
Bretz developed along Deckers Creek through railroad, coal, and coke history. Its timeline includes the Morgantown & Kingwood Railroad’s arrival, the Elkins Coal & Coke Company’s beehive ovens, Oak Park, and the later end of rail service along the corridor.
- Timeline entries
- 6
- Years represented
- 1903–1990
- Postal records
- Photos
Brookside
Brookside grew as a mountain resort along the former Northwestern Turnpike near Aurora. Its timeline follows Wilmer P. Vale’s resort development, Branson Haas’s preservation of Brookside Woods, the creation of Cathedral State Park, and the later recognition of the Brookside Historic District.
- Timeline entries
- 5
- Years represented
- 1882–2013
- Postal records
Bruceton Mills
Bruceton Mills connects an older travel route through the Sandy Creek crossing with mills, industry, banking, schools, railroads, and local civic life. Its timeline ranges from George Washington’s 1784 diary through the town’s incorporation and later institutional history.
- Timeline entries
- 11
- Years represented
- 1784–2005
- Postal records
- Photos
Bull Run
Bull Run’s history includes a rural store, plans for a school, and the surrounding creek and transportation landscape. The connected timeline also includes Bull Run boundary proposals and the Bull Run (Jenkinsburg) Bridge over the Cheat River; those references concern the broader area and do not establish that every event occurred at the postal site.
- Timeline entries
- 4
- Years represented
- 1805–2025
- Postal records
Cascade
Cascade’s surviving records connect the community with Deckers Creek, the Morgantown & Kingwood Railroad, and local commerce. Postal papers from 1908, 1913, and 1942 describe its office and surroundings; a 1912 newspaper notice places Preston County Supply Company at Cascade and describes its preparations to store ice for summer.
- Timeline entries
- 1
- Years represented
- 1910–1910
- Postal records
- Photos
Clifton Mills
Clifton Mills’ existing timeline connects the community with nineteenth-century public health and proposed railroad routes through the Big Sandy Creek country. The entries preserve a smallpox outbreak with conflicting reported dates and later railroad-incorporation plans that named Clifton Mills among their intended stops.
- Timeline entries
- 3
- Years represented
- 1875–1889
- Postal records
Cool Springs Park
Along U.S. Route 50 near Rowlesburg, Cool Springs Park grew from Harlan Castle’s small roadside business into a stopping place for travelers and local families. Castle began operating in a rented log cabin in early 1949, selling food, soft drinks, and gasoline. The store, restaurant, collections, and grounds developed over the years that followed.
- Timeline entries
- 2
- Years represented
- 1949–1981
Cuzzart
Cuzzart’s postal records trace a proposed office, later site changes, and connections with neighboring communities. Its existing timeline follows the office proposal and the earliest postmaster appointment currently located. Research into the wider community history continues.
- Timeline entries
- 2
- Years represented
- 1884–1886
- Postal records
Eglon
Eglon’s timeline brings together local institutions, roadside landmarks, and a remembered 1951 aircraft tragedy. It includes the Maple Grove Child Rescue Home, Our Lady of the Pines near Silver Lake, and the B-26 crash near Eglon, while distinguishing the nearby places connected with those stories.
- Timeline entries
- 4
- Years represented
- 1921–1958
- Postal records
- Photos
Etam
Etam’s currently indexed timeline centers on its 1969 Earth Satellite Station, one of four then operating in the country for international telephone transmission. Its postal application supplies an earlier snapshot of the surrounding community and travel routes; wider community research continues.
- Timeline entries
- 1
- Years represented
- 1969–1969
- Postal records
Fellowsville
Fellowsville’s timeline follows its incorporation, early mining and manufacturing ambitions, cannel-coal oil production, Civil War-era disruption in the surrounding region, and the organization of a local institute and library association. Together, those entries suggest a community with civic and industrial aspirations whose fuller history remains open for research.
- Timeline entries
- 5
- Years represented
- 1852–1877
- Postal records
Hopemont
Hopemont’s existing timeline centers on the state tuberculosis sanitarium authorized in 1911, its first three patient cottages in 1913, and the institution’s 1965 transition to Hopemont State Hospital. The postal papers add a separate record of the community’s changing postal location and connections; research into the broader settlement continues.
- Timeline entries
- 3
- Years represented
- 1911–1965
- Postal records
- Photos
Independence
Independence’s current timeline records its 1860 incorporation and Civil War-era disruption to the nearby Baltimore & Ohio Railroad during the Jones–Imboden Raid. The postal records provide additional snapshots of the community’s location and regional connections across several decades.
- Timeline entries
- 2
- Years represented
- 1860–1863
- Postal records
Kingwood
Kingwood’s timeline begins with the laying out of its town site in 1797 and follows its development as Preston County’s county seat. The entries connect county government, roads, courts, schools, newspapers, libraries, banking, and civic life.
- Timeline entries
- 72
- Years represented
- 1754–1991
- Postal records
- Photos
Manheim
Manheim’s timeline follows the Buckhorn Portland Cement Company’s operations beginning in 1903 and the later acquisition of the plant by Alpha Portland Cement. The community page keeps that industrial story alongside its postal documents, which record the office and its surrounding landscape at several points in time.
- Timeline entries
- 2
- Years represented
- 1903–1909
- Postal records
- Photos
Masontown
Masontown’s entries begin with the town’s 1856 layout and follow its roads, churches, stores, railroad connections, recreation, and civic development. Together they show a community shaped by both local institutions and regional transportation.
- Timeline entries
- 18
- Years represented
- 1856–1998
- Postal records
- Photos
Newburg
Newburg’s timeline is closely tied to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the growth of commercial coal mining. Its entries also preserve the development of newspapers, businesses, civic organizations, and the risks faced by mining communities.
- Timeline entries
- 13
- Years represented
- 1852–1888
Reedsville
Reedsville’s timeline includes its 1906 incorporation, Civil War-era events in the surrounding region, and the twentieth-century end of rail service along the corridor that became the Deckers Creek Trail. The postal records preserve earlier location descriptions and connections with the railroad landscape. Reedsville’s visual history, including material in the James Brown collection, will be added separately as it is reviewed and prepared.
- Timeline entries
- 10
- Years represented
- 1861–1998
- Postal records
- Postmasters
- Photos
Rohr
Rohr’s surviving history brings together Mt. Zion Church and nineteenth-century postal records in Valley District. The church timeline entry connects local building traditions with a recorded land conveyance, while the postal papers describe connections with Masontown, Dellslow, Reedsville, and Herring.
- Timeline entries
- 1
- Years represented
- 1883–1883
- Postal records
Rowlesburg
Rowlesburg’s entries follow a Cheat River community transformed by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The timeline brings together railroad engineering, lumber, Civil War defense, civic organizations, destructive floods, and preservation.
- Timeline entries
- 34
- Years represented
- 1851–2003
- Postal records
- Photos
- Videos
Terra Alta
Terra Alta’s timeline follows a railroad settlement known successively as Cranberry Summit, Portland, Cranberry, and Terra Alta. Its entries connect transportation, commerce, banking, education, health care, and changing community identity.
- Timeline entries
- 22
- Years represented
- 1853–2005
- Postal records
- Photos
Tunnelton
Tunnelton’s entries follow a community defined by difficult terrain and the railroad tunnels driven through it. The timeline connects railroad engineering with coal, coke, labor, local development, and the eventual end of passenger service.
- Timeline entries
- 14
- Years represented
- 1849–1968
- Postal records
- Photos
More places in the timeline
Keep exploring Preston County
These links open the timeline filtered to that place. Full community introductions can be added as research grows.
Research in progress
A short list does not mean a short history.
Some communities appear only a few times because their history has not yet been researched deeply enough for this timeline. Their smaller entry counts should not be mistaken for lesser historical importance.