Hinton, WV

Hinton is Summers County’s seat at the meeting of the New and Greenbrier rivers, with Bluestone River joining the picture just upstream. The C&O Railway bought land here in 1871, laid out the town in 1874, and turned a handful of families into a railroad center. By 1892, its roundhouse had 17 engine stalls and a 40-car shop employing 540 men. Hotels, boarding houses, stores, an opera house, and brick streets followed the railroad money.

The steam-to-diesel shift and the decline of nearby coal work changed Hinton, but the railroad-era buildings remain one of the city’s strongest signatures. The downtown historic district holds about 200 buildings, including the Summers County Courthouse, Hotel McCreery, C&O passenger station, and Campbell-Flannagan-Murrell House. The Hinton Railroad Museum, Veterans Memorial Museum, and annual Railroad Days keep that history in circulation, while Batteau Beach at Hinton Landing and nearby Bluestone Lake, New River Gorge, and river access give the city a present-day outdoor life. Hinton is a mountain county seat that still reads like a railroad town.