Jehovah’s Witnesses began in the late 1870s in Pittsburgh and soon came to West Virginia. Around 1882, a church leader named James McClung in Mt. Lookout (Nicholas County) read their booklet and changed his beliefs. Eight families followed him, leading to disagreements in the church. In 1890, they built their own place of worship, the New Light Church, the first building in the state owned by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

By the 1920s and 1930s, they had started many congregations across central and northern West Virginia. At one point, there were over 90 congregations, though that number has dropped by about half in recent years.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted for refusing to salute the flag and for their religious teachings. Many were attacked, and children were expelled from schools. In 1941, they opened special "Kingdom Schools" to teach their children. In 1943, a big court case from West Virginia—West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette—led to a Supreme Court victory that protected their right not to salute the flag.