Madison, WV

Madison is Boone County's seat, a West Virginia city of 2,911 residents in the 2020 census at the meeting of Spruce Fork and Pond Fork, where the Little Coal River begins. It started as Boone Court House, was burned during the Civil War, and incorporated in 1906 under the name of Colonel William Madison Peyton, a pioneer coal operator. The river valley and courthouse role keep the city tied to the county's coalfield geography. Madison's present-day map is county government, courthouse business, the river, and the roads that gather around the seat.

County offices, courthouse business, and the river valley all occupy the same compact setting, so government and geography are hard to separate here. Its older coal-town identity sits beside the administrative work of Boone County, while the Little Coal is the physical feature that makes the place distinct from a generic courthouse town. Madison is a small county seat at a river's beginning, with the coalfields visible in its history and the forks of the Little Coal visible in its geography.