Huntington
City
Downtown Huntington Ritter Park Cabell County Courthouse Huntington Arcade Marshall University
Flag Seal Logo
Nickname(s):  The Jewel City, The River City, The River & Rail City, Train City
Interactive map of Huntington
Huntington Show map of West Virginia Huntington Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 38°25′15″N 82°25′25″W / 38.42083°N 82.42361°W / 38.42083; -82.42361
Country	United States
State	West Virginia
Counties	Cabell, Wayne
Settled	1775
Incorporated	1799 (Guyandotte)
-	February 27, 1871 (Huntington)
Founded by	Collis P. Huntington, Delos W. Emmons
Government
• Type	Mayor-Council
• Mayor	Steve Williams (D)
• City Council	Councilmembers Tyler Bowen Todd Sweeney Tia Rumbaugh Sarah Walling (Vice Chair) Teresa Johnson Holly Smith Mouth (Chair) Mike Shockley Patrick D. Jones Ally Layman DuRon Jackson Bob Bailey
Area [1]
• City	18.46 sq mi (47.82 km2)
• Land	16.22 sq mi (42.01 km2)
• Water	2.24 sq mi (5.81 km2)
Elevation	564 ft (172 m)
Population  (2020)[3]
• City	46,842
• Density	2,888.1/sq mi (1,115.1/km2)
• Urban	200,157 (US: 193rd)[2]
• Urban density	1,553.1/sq mi (599.7/km2)
• Metro	376,155 (US: 150th)
• Demonym	Huntingtonian
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern Standard Time)
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (Eastern Daylight Time)
ZIP Codes	25701–25729, 25755, 25770–25779, 25704
Area code	304 & 681
FIPS code	54-39460
GNIS feature ID	1540605[4]
Website	cityofhuntington.com

Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia.^[5] The county seat of Cabell County, the city is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Guyandotte rivers. Huntington is the second-most populous city in West Virginia, with a population of 46,842 as of the 2020 census. Its metro area, the Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area, is the largest in West Virginia, spanning seven counties across three states and having a population of 376,155 at the 2020 census.^[6]

Surrounded by extensive natural resources, the area was first settled in 1775 as Holderby's Landing. Its location was selected as ideal for the western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, which founded Huntington as one of the nation's first planned communities to facilitate transportation industries. The city quickly developed after the railroad's completion in 1871 and is eponymously named for the railroad company's founder, Collis Potter Huntington. The city became a hub for manufacturing, transportation, and industrialization, with an industrial sector based in coal, oil, chemicals and steel. After World War II, due to the shutdown of these industries, the city lost nearly 46% of its population, from a peak of 86,353 in 1950 to 54,844 in 1990.^[7]

Huntington is a vital rail-to-river transfer point for the marine transportation industry. It is home to the Port of Huntington Tri-State, the second-busiest inland port in the United States.^[8] Also, it is considered a scenic locale in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The city is the home of Marshall University as well as the Huntington Museum of Art, Mountain Health Arena, Camden Park, one of the world's oldest amusement parks; and the headquarters of the CSX Transportation-Huntington Division.^[9]

Location and nomenclature

Huntington was founded on lightly populated lands near Guyandotte as a C&O Railroad hub, on the southern bank of the Ohio River, at the confluence with the Guyandotte River. The site is at the southwestern corner of West Virginia on the border with the state of Ohio and near the border of both states with Kentucky. Discounting the period of French ownership, the land that was part of Guyandotte and later Huntington was originally part of the 28,628-acre (115.85 km²) French and Indian War veteran's Savage Grant.

The area of greater Huntington, although situated in a Southern state, was long considered a western city in what was then the Colony of Virginia since the first permanent settlements were founded in 1775^[10] in defiance of British injunctions against settlements west of the Alleghenies in the vicinity of Holderby's Landing.^[10]

Historically, the old Federal Era town of Guyandotte (now a neighborhood absorbed into Huntington proper) was first built upon in 1799 by French settlers of the Ohio Valley and has homes dating back to 1820 and a graveyard containing 18th-century French and colonial-era settlers, including surnames such as LeTulle, Holderby, and Buffington. A farmer James Holderby (1782–1855) purchased the lands in 1821 upon which much of Huntington now stands which is why the area was known as Holderby's Landing prior to 1870-71 when it was incorporated and renamed;^[10] Holderby's estate included the lands gifted in 1837 to found what is now Marshall University. The C&O purchased the area in 1870, and by 1873 when the railroad connected Richmond to Ohio, it had undergone a transition from a sleepy agricultural region with the nearby subscription Academy into a growing rail center poised to act as a springboard for a railroad to penetrate and connect the midwest with the eastern seaboard. The town of Guyandotte was officially absorbed in 1891.

Modern day Huntington is commonly divided into four main sections. The north–south divider is the CSX railroad tracks, while the east/west divider is First Street. A portion of the city, mainly the neighborhood of Westmoreland, is in Wayne County. Most of the city is in Cabell County, of which it is the county seat.^[11] Huntington is influenced by Appalachian Culture, Southern culture, Midwestern culture, and Mid-Atlantic culture. It is often referred to as one of the northernmost cities in the South or one of the southernmost cities in the North.

The Huntington–Ashland metropolitan area is sometimes called KYOWVA, an acronym that refers to the three states that make up the region, (Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia).^{[citation needed]} As of the 2010 census, the Huntington Metro Area is the largest in West Virginia with a population of 365,419. Huntington is combined with Charleston, the state capital, as the Huntington-Charleston TV market, the 64th-largest in the nation.^[12][13]

History

The first permanent settlement in modern-day Huntington was founded in 1775 as "Holderby's Landing." The modern City of Huntington was founded by Collis P. Huntington and Delos W. Emmons as the western terminus for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) on a tract of land west of the mouth of the Guyandotte River, between the Ohio River and Twelve Pole Creek. Collis P. Huntington was one of the "Big Four" of western railroading who built the Central Pacific Railroad as part of the first U.S. transcontinental railroad (along with Leland Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker).

Huntington was created as a hub for the C&O, which, once completed in 1873, fulfilled a long-held dream of the Virginias to have a rail link from the James River at Richmond, Virginia to the Ohio River Valley. The new railroad facilities adjacent to the Ohio River resulted in expansion of the former small town of Guyandotte into part of a large new city called Huntington. The C&O Railroad expanded east to Newport News (and coal piers), and west to eventually reach Cincinnati and Chicago in later years. After merging with several other railroads, C&O is now known as CSX Transportation.

The city was incorporated in 1871 just west of the earlier city of Guyandotte. Guyandotte, which became a neighborhood of Huntington in 1891, was founded in 1799 on land that was originally part of the 28,628-acre (115.85 km²) French and Indian War veteran's Savage Grant.^[14] Meriwether Lewis passed the Guyandotte and Big Sandy River peninsula on or about September 20, 1803, on his way down the Ohio River before meeting up with William Clark in Clarksville, Ind.

An election was held on December 31, 1871 where P.C. Buffington was elected the first mayor of Huntington. A police force was created almost immediately after the election of a marshal, however before the city was six months old the marshal was authorized to appoint a special police force to handle a large crowd that was attending a circus in the city. In the fall of 1872, the city faced a smallpox outbreak.

The Huntington Bank was robbed on September 6, 1875 by a band of horseman who escaped out of Wayne County. The city pursued the robbers and captured Thomas J. Webb. He was convicted of the robbery on December 4, 1875 and sentenced to 14 years in prison, where he died. Local legend has held that these robbers were members of the Jesse James Gang, but both Frank and Jesse James were nowhere near Huntington at this point in time, so the story of their involvement is not factual.^[15]

Huntington was the second American city to feature electric streetcars in the early years (after San Francisco), until they were gradually replaced with gasoline-powered buses. Some of the old trolley tracks can still be seen. Camden Park, which at 110 years old is one of the world's oldest amusement parks, was built in 1903 to encourage ridership on the trolleys (then owned by the Camden Interstate Railway Company).

Huntington's "boom" period occurred from the founding in 1871 until the Great Flood of 1937, which claimed 5 lives, caused millions of dollars in damage, left tens of thousands homeless, and led to the creation of Huntington's flood walls in 1938. Of the 40,000 people living in the flooded areas of Huntington, 25,000 were made refugees as fresh water and fuel was scarce. 11,000 people applied for Red Cross aid during the flood and the relief period.

World War II brought another economic boom, but that was short-lived and ended along with the war in the 1940s. Huntington's population began to drop after 1950 because of urban sprawl and the decline of the steel and manufacturing industries. In the 1970s, federal urban renewal programs destroyed several parts of downtown. The industrial base continued to expand through the 1970s, but beginning in the early 1980s the steel and manufacturing industry in the region imploded, with massive layoffs and mill and plant closures.

A shift to the city's economic base began in the late 1980s to focus more on education, tourism, and services, based mainly on healthcare/medicine and biotechnology. Although Huntington successfully shifted the focus of its economy, the population has never rebounded to its industrial-era highs. While 86,353 people lived in the city proper in 1950, a combination of suburbanization and economic turbulence caused a sharp decrease in population to just 51,475 in 2000.

21st century

Huntington has seen a major revival since the opening of the Pullman Square Town Center on the vacant lot formerly known as the "Superblock" in 2005, the filming of the Warner Bros. motion picture We Are Marshall in 2006, and the filming of ABC's Food Revolution in 2010. The modern Huntington Metro Area spans 7 counties across 3 states and is the largest in West Virginia with a population of more than 360,000. The largest employers are Marshall University, Cabell Huntington Hospital, St. Mary's Medical Center, Amazon, DirecTV, and the City of Huntington.^[9]

Shortly after Pullman Square was constructed, the city began work on upgrading the streetscape on Fourth Avenue and Ninth Street. Ninth Street was formerly known as the Ninth Street Plaza and was closed to vehicle traffic for many years. Once anchored by Pullman Square on the north end, the old plaza was removed in 2006 and Ninth Street has once again become attractive to businesses. Fourth Avenue, known as the "Old Main Corridor", has been upgraded with new lighting, artistic and pedestrian-friendly design concepts, and bicycle lanes.^{[citation needed]}

Efforts to redevelop Huntington started with the construction of the $10.5 million Huntington Civic Arena, which was the largest arena in the state when it opened in 1977. The 25-year delay in construction of what became Pullman Square caused the building to become a money losing effort for the city and is now managed privately by SMG. After renovation in 1997, and 2010, the arena has now been included in Billboard's "New or Renovated Venues to Watch" list for 2013.^[16] Huntington's arena landed at No. 14 in a list of 17 venues across the globe. The exterior was also renovated in 2020–2021.

The Huntington Mall, the largest mall in the state, opened a few years after the Arena in 1981.^[17] When the mall was built, the only other businesses around it were two bars and a gas station. Since the mall's opening, several retailers have built around the mall, including four hotels and several restaurants, as well as a Walmart Supercenter, the first Best Buy in West Virginia, and the first Sheetz gas station/convenience store in southern West Virginia.^[18] The Huntington Mall has a yearly economic impact of close to $400 million.

The Shops at Heritage Station are in the old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Depot, originally constructed in 1887. The complex includes an original steam engine with a "Pullman" train car, and a building that used to house one of Huntington's first banks—which was the easternmost bank robbed by the James-Younger Gang. That structure is currently occupied by a specialty beer and cheese shop. Heritage Station was turned into a shopping center called "Heritage Village" during the dark days of Urban Renewal in the 1970s. For decades, the station sat hidden and virtually unused just two blocks from the city center, until Create Huntington got involved in 2006. Today, Heritage Station is an artisan retail complex, with locally owned shops, and home to public events like the annual Diamond Teeth Mary Blues Festival, named for the blues singer born in the town.^{[citation needed]}

In 2017, Huntington joined a host of other municipalities and local governments in the area suing eight pharmaceutical companies, claiming their products harmed Huntington's welfare, leading to a drug crisis in the city and surrounding county.^[19] Included in the lawsuits are companies like McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen Drug Corp, among others.^[20]

Geography

Huntington is in the southwestern corner of West Virginia, on the border with Ohio, on the southern bank of the Ohio River, at the confluence with the Guyandotte River. The city lies within the ecoregion of the Western Allegheny Plateau.^[21] Most of the city is in Cabell County, for which it is the county seat.^[11] A portion of the city, mainly the neighborhood of Westmoreland, is in Wayne County. Huntington is commonly divided into four main sections. The north–south divider is the CSX railroad tracks, while the east/west divider is First Street. Residents of Huntington are called "Huntingtonians."

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 18.46 square miles (47.81 km²), of which 16.22 square miles (42.01 km²) is land and 2.24 square miles (5.80 km²) is water.^[22] The Guyandotte River joins the Ohio River about 5 miles (8.0 km) east of downtown. Huntington fills the roughly three-mile wide flood plain of the south bank of the Ohio River for eighty square blocks and portions of the hills to the immediate south and southeast.

Climate