Boaz, WV

Boaz is one of those Wood County places that makes more sense once you look at the river map. This 2020 census-designated place of about 1,300 people sits along the Ohio River, just south of Williamstown on WV Route 14, and shares the Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna orbit. The town label is small, but the setting ties it to a much bigger working landscape: river crossings, industrial yards, bridges, and the roads that connect both sides of the valley. Wood County grew around the Ohio, Little Kanawha, and Hughes rivers, and Boaz belongs to that same water-and-transport story.

Day to day, Boaz is a residential outpost with the Ohio River as its clearest landmark. Parkersburg is the practical service center, while Marietta and Williamstown make the river feel like a shared regional front door. The place is small enough that Route 14 and the river do most of the orientation work, yet it is close to the jobs, schools, and medical services spread through the metro. If you are trying to picture Boaz, think of a compact West Virginia community tucked into a broader Ohio Valley network: water on one side, a state route through the other, and the larger towns doing the heavy lifting for commerce and errands.