During Pennsylvanian time, rivers and shifting lowland environments deposited sand and mud across the region. Burial and cementation turned these materials into sandstone and shale. These layers became part of the bedrock of the future county. Much later, erosion exposed resistant sandstone at places such as Coopers Rock, leaving cliffs and rock masses that visitors can see today.
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National Park Service: Appalachian Plateaus Province — sedimentary uplands and stream erosion
As the present-day African part of Gondwana collided with ancestral North America, compression helped build the Appalachians and assembled smaller continents into the supercontinent Pangaea, a vast landmass joining continents that are now separated. Sedimentary layers were bent into upward arches called anticlines and downward troughs called synclines. In the Preston County region, structures such as the Ligonier Syncline and Preston Anticline preserve this folded arrangement. Later erosion reshaped the surface, so folds in the bedrock do not always match the hills and valleys above them. Chestnut Ridge is a familiar exception: the ridge corresponds to the anticline of the same name.
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National Park Service: Collisional Mountain Ranges — continental collision and Pangaea
Long after the region’s rock layers formed and folded, rivers and streams have continued to erode them. The Cheat River, Preston County’s largest river, has carved a deep canyon and exposed soluble rocks, including limestone of the Greenbrier Formation. Groundwater has developed caves in these rocks, and sediments deposited within the caves preserve evidence that helps geologists reconstruct the river’s downward cutting. This period represents one chapter in an ongoing process, rather than a precise starting date for the canyon. The landscape visible today is one stage in a continuing history of change.
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National Park Service: Appalachian Plateaus Province — sedimentary uplands and stream erosion
Fighting between British regulars and colonial militia at Lexington and Concord opened the American Revolutionary War. Although the best-known early battles occurred far from western Virginia, the conflict shaped militia service and frontier defense in the region that included the land later formed into Preston County.
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National Park Service, Minute Man National Historical Park, “April 19, 1775”
By 1818, the National Road connected Cumberland, Maryland, with Wheeling, Virginia, through southwestern Pennsylvania. Although it passed north of Preston County, its traffic created nearby markets for the county’s farmers and merchants. Oren F. Morton later described the road’s taverns as buyers of local farm produce and associated its busy years with Brandonville’s growth. Connections to this neighboring transportation corridor helped shape the economy of northern Preston.
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National Park Service, National Road
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National Park Service — completion in 1818 and regional transportation markets
After Eleanor Roosevelt visited depression-stricken coal communities in northern West Virginia, the federal government acquired Richard Arthur's farm near Reedsville on October 4, 1933, for its first experimental subsistence-homestead community. The Preston County Journal reported the following day that the purchased farm comprised 1,017 acres and that the price was understood to have been $35,000. These figures refer to the Arthur farm purchase, rather than the larger project tract assembled through additional acquisitions. Initially called the Reedsville Experimental Community, the settlement was subsequently named Arthurdale for the former landowner.
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Citation / research lead
National Park Service, “Arthurdale: A New Deal Community Experiment,” p. 14
The first 50 homesteader families began moving into Arthurdale in June 1934. About half were miners, one-quarter were sawmill workers, and one-quarter were farmers. Although Eleanor Roosevelt wanted the community to reflect the racial and immigrant diversity of Scotts Run, opposition from the selection committee and prospective white residents prevented integration, and the first families selected were white.
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National Park Service, “Arthurdale: A New Deal Community Experiment,” pp. 14–15
Arthurdale's first homesteaders were selected without African American families. When Eleanor Roosevelt tried to support an integrated colony, local resistance blocked the effort. The episode exposed racial inequity inside the New Deal and helped move Roosevelt toward a more public civil-rights role, including a January 1934 White House meeting with Black leaders.
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National Park Service, Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt National Historic Site, “Walter White” and “Black Civil Rights Leaders and the Roosevelts”
A Civilian Conservation Corps camp began on Preston County Country Club property at Caddell, near present-day Camp Dawson. First known as Camp Fairfax and later as Camp Preston, it was fully operating by September. Its planned work included roads on Caddell Mountain, forest cleanup, and a telegraph line; the camp became the predecessor of Camp Rhododendron.
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National Park Service, New Deal Resources in West Virginia, Section E, pp. 6–7
A new school was constructed at Arthurdale in 1935 under educator Elsie Ripley Clapp. Its progressive curriculum emphasized hands-on learning, handicrafts, manual arts, agriculture, and practical community life alongside academic study.
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National Park Service, “Arthurdale: A New Deal Community Experiment”
During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration constructed concrete sidewalks along several Kingwood streets. Work began on Beverly Street in 1935, continued on Price Street and Brown Avenue in 1937, and reached High Street in 1940. Surviving examples are reminders of the federal work-relief program’s lasting influence on the town’s streetscape.
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National Park Service, Kingwood Historic District National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Section 8, pp. 4–5
Following the state’s purchase of the forest land in March, 45 Civilian Conservation Corps men established a tent camp at the old Keefover Homestead while another 90 men traveled daily from Camp Preston. By June they had opened a rough but passable route from West Virginia Route 73. Camp Rhododendron crews went on to build roads, trails, picnic shelters, staff buildings, stonework, and the overlook and walkway during the CCC era.
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Citation / research lead
National Park Service, New Deal Resources in West Virginia, Section E, pp. 6–9
The federal government began selling Arthurdale property in 1941. By 1947, all of the community's homes had been sold, most to the homesteader families occupying them. Public land, community buildings, and businesses were sold or transferred separately to private owners and institutions, ending Arthurdale's federal-project phase while the settlement itself continued.
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Citation / research lead
National Park Service, “Arthurdale: A New Deal Community Experiment,” p. 17
Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall designated Cranesville Swamp Nature Sanctuary a National Natural Landmark. Straddling Preston County, West Virginia, and Garrett County, Maryland, Cranesville was one of nine sites included in the program’s first group of designations and protects a rare boreal wetland ecosystem.
Cathedral State Park was designated a National Natural Landmark in recognition of its old-growth hemlock forest. The Preston County park preserves West Virginia’s only remaining stand of virgin hemlock forest.
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Citation / research lead
National Park Service, “1964–1966 NNL Designations”