| Back to e-WV The West Virginia Encyclopedia

Logan County

Logan County was settled between 1792 and 1824 by pioneer families from Washington and Montgomery counties, Virginia, and Pike County, Kentucky. Through the 19th century the population lived mostly on family farms, though many men cut timber in the winter months to float to Catlettsburg and Guyandotte, on the Ohio River at the mouths of the Big Sandy and Guyandotte rivers, respectively.

Mapped Points

• Logan

  Logan, the county seat of Logan County, was first known by explorers of the 1780s as ‘‘Islands of the Guyandot.’’ Hatfield (or Midelburg) Island lies in the Guyandotte River in the city of Logan.

• Chief Logan State Park

  Chief Logan State Park features a campground, outdoor amphitheater, wildlife center, and a museum.
  

  

• Blair Mountain

  Blair Mountain was the site of the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. It was the culminating event in the West Virginia Mine Wars.

• Guyandotte River

  The Guyandotte River is formed by the junction of Winding Gulf and Stonecoal creeks in Raleigh County and flows in a northwesterly direction to its confluence with the Ohio River at Huntington.

• Chapmanville

  Earl Ray Tomblin, the 35th governor of West Virginia, grew up in Chapmanville, where his parents owned a restaurant.

• Buffalo Creek Flood

  One of the country’s worst mining-related disasters occurred February 26, 1972, on Buffalo Creek when a coal waste dam collapsed, releasing 132 million gallons of water, coal refuse, and silt into the narrow mountain valley. In the end, 125 people, including entire families, were killed.

• Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College

  Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College has a campus in Fort Gay, near Logan. The college serves Boone, Lincoln, Logan, McDowell, Mingo, and Wyoming counties in West Virginia, and Martin and Pike counties in Kentucky.