Matheny, WV

Matheny is a Wyoming County census-designated place along Laurel Fork, where the 2020 census counted 446 residents, down from 531 in 2010. The creek is the community's main geographic line and part of the Clear Fork Guyandotte drainage. Coon Branch joins Laurel Fork near the Matheny water plant, and an early Stewart homestead stood on a rise overlooking that junction. After Oceana became the county seat in 1850, travelers moving along the fork used the Stewart home as a stopping point on the way to town.

Matheny remains one of the small settlements threaded through the Laurel Fork valley. Roads follow the water toward Jesse upstream and Oceana downstream, while the wider county belongs to southern West Virginia's coal and natural-gas region. Wyoming County Schools serves local students, tying Matheny to the county system even though the CDP has no dense municipal center. The place is shaped by the fork itself: a narrow valley, a water plant, old travel routes, and the homes gathered along Laurel Fork.