Benwood, WV

Benwood runs along the Ohio River in Marshall County, just south of Wheeling and inside the Wheeling metropolitan area. The city was chartered in 1853 and incorporated in 1895, taking its name from ‘Ben's Woods,’ the land associated with Benjamin McMechen. West Virginia Route 2 and Marshall Street link the city's sections—North Benwood, Center Benwood, South Benwood, and Boggs Run—while the river provides the long eastern edge. Center Benwood has the rectangular street grid, city building, post office, fire and police departments, and Benwood City Park.

Industry and river hazards sit side by side in Benwood's history. The Wheeling Steel Corporation's mine exploded in 1924, killing all 119 men working underground, a tragedy that remains one of the city's defining historical events. Flooding also shaped the city, especially along the riverfront; a flood wall built along Water Street in 1982 protects Center Benwood from later Ohio River floods. Saint John Roman Catholic Church, founded as a parish in 1875, remains a major local institution, and the city's religious, school, and neighborhood ties reflect the immigrant communities that settled here in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Benwood is a compact river city with a hard industrial past and a very specific Wheeling-area geography.