Athens, WV

Athens sits on a bluff above Laurel Creek in Mercer County, with Concord University occupying the eastern end of town. That campus is the reason the town’s name has an academic twist: the settlement began as Concord Church, then became Athens in 1896 when another West Virginia post office already carried the Concord name. Concord itself kept the old name, tracing back to the state normal school founded in 1872. The result is a town where local history and campus history overlap in a very literal way. The setting adds another layer, with Laurel Creek running toward the Bluestone River and the Bluefield–Princeton landscape close at hand.