Buffalo, WV

Buffalo sits on the Kanawha River in Putnam County, where Appalachian foothills drop toward fertile bottomland. Benjamin Craig laid out the town and incorporated it in 1837, but people were living in the valley long before that; the Buffalo archaeological site records Indigenous settlement on the riverbank. The name may come from Buffalo Creek or an older post office at the creek mouth, a bit of local uncertainty that fits a town built from river crossings, farms, and stories.

Today the big employer is Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia, a nearly two-million-square-foot plant that makes engines, transmissions, and hybrid transaxles. The Lower Buffalo Bridge changed how the plant and the surrounding land connect to U.S. 35 and I-64, but the older town still faces the Kanawha and keeps its small commercial center. Buffalo's local rhythm is manufacturing shifts, river weather, school and church calendars, and the quick change from industrial-scale roads to Appalachian hills. The river has always been the town's orientation point, whether the work arrived by boat, bridge, or highway.