Mason, WV

Mason, also called Mason City, is a Mason County town on the Ohio River in West Virginia's northern river country. The place began as Waggener's Bottom and was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1856. Its name follows Mason County, which was named for the Virginia Mason family. The river brought farming, boatbuilding, salt brine, and later industrial work to the town. In 1868, a bromine factory opened at Mason and became one of the world's largest producers.

The Gold Houses and Shumaker-Lewis House keep pieces of the nineteenth-century town visible, while the Ohio River remains the western edge of daily geography. Mason's history also reaches into the county's glass-making story through native son Michael Owens, whose bottle-making machine changed that industry. Town government and local roads now connect Mason with Point Pleasant, the county seat, and the farms and river communities around it. The result is a small Ohio River town with a deep industrial past and a map still organized by water, work, and the county road network.