Preston County
| Preston County, West Virginia | |
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Preston County Courthouse
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 Location in the U.S. state of West Virginia |
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 West Virginia's location in the U.S. |
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| Founded | January 19, 1818 |
| Named for | James Patton Preston |
| Seat | Kingwood |
| Largest city | Kingwood |
| Area | |
| • Total | 651 sq mi (1,686 km2) |
| • Land | 649 sq mi (1,681 km2) |
| • Water | 2.6 sq mi (7 km2), 0.4% |
| Population (est.) | |
| • (2015) | 33,940 |
| • Density | 52/sq mi (20/km²) |
| Congressional district | 1st |
| Time zone | Eastern: UTC-5/-4 |
| Website | www |
Preston County is a county located in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2010 census, the population was 33,520. Its county seat is Kingwood. The county was formed from Monongalia County in 1818 and named for Virginia Governor James Patton Preston.
Preston County is part of the Morgantown, WV Metropolitan Statistical Area, and is the southernmost county of the Pittsburgh media market. It is the home of The Buckwheat Festival, a county fair known for making buckwheat cakes.
Native Americans lived in and traveled through what became Preston county as they crossed from the Ohio River watershed (which drains into the Mississippi River), into the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Although white traders and explorers also lived in the county after 1736, and one boundary stone (the Fairfax Stone marking the limits of the North Branch of the River) was laid in 1746, white settlers began arriving in 1766. Traveling by foot or horseback, settlers established log cabins after the American Revolutionary War. Further development ensued after 1818, when the National Road was built slightly to the north. When the earliest railroads came in 1851, all land passed into private ownership, population increased 70% in a decade, and industrialization began.
During the American Civil War, more Preston County men enlisted in Union service than with the Confederacy. In part this was explained by the few slaves in the county, almost none outside a half-hour walk from the Clarksburg, West Virginia to Wincester, Virginia road that dated back to the late colonial era. The most slaves in Preston County occurred in 1830, with 125 slaves and 27 free colored persons.
The U.S. Census Bureau determined the county has a total area of 651 square miles (1,690 km2), of which 649 square miles (1,680 km2) is land and 2.6 square miles (6.7 km2) (0.4%) is water.
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Wikipedia