Town of the Week

St. Albans, West Virginia
November 18, 2000

Head over to St. Albans, West Virginia; just listen in.

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George Washington once owned the land where this week's town is located in southwestern West Virginia. Its twelve miles from this spot, where the Kanawha and Coal Rivers meet, to the state capitol of Charleston. St. Albans was the name given this town by the state legislature in 1871, when the town was incorporated. Its previous names included Phillipi and Coalsmouth.

It's thought the first travelers here were soldiers of the Big Sandy expedition, fighting against the Shawnee Indians. The increased use of the old state road, also known as the Midland Trail, brought several families into the area by the time the first post office opened in 1817. St. Albans' first major industry was harvesting timber with flat bottomed boats shipping lumber on the two rivers.

St. Albans, a town of 12 thousand people, has long been known as the city of churches, with several original structures still standing and dating back to the 1800's. The first institution of higher learning was Shelton College, founded in 1871.

In addition to people living here but employed in Charleston, several major industrial complexes are located nearby, including Rhone-Poulenc, Union Carbide, Monsanto, FMC, Olin, and Dupont. The city park system, it is said, is not to be equaled anywhere for a city its size.

Yearly events here include Riverfest, a weekend event nearest the Fourth of July; and the town's Christmas parade scheduled this year for December 9th. The town's official flower is the marigold in our town of the week, St. Albans, West Virginia.