Oceana, WV

Oceana is a town in Wyoming County, West Virginia, in the Clear Fork valley of the Guyandotte River. John Cooke settled near the forks of Laurel Creek and Clear Fork in the late eighteenth century, and the community's story reaches back to 1797. The town was laid out in 1850 when Wyoming County was formed, with a store, courthouse, jail, post office, and other early buildings creating a county seat in the mountain valley. The Clear Fork and Laurel Fork still provide the simplest way to place Oceana on the map.

Oceana served as Wyoming County's seat until 1907, when the county government moved to Pineville after a series of disputed elections. The town's older role remains visible in its courthouse history and in the Wyoming County Historical Museum, which preserves artifacts and records from the surrounding area. Farming, timber, and coal all shaped the wider Oceana District, and the valley's level ground helped support settlement in a county of ridges and hollows. Oceana is now a small West Virginia town, but its early families, county-seat years, forks of the river, and mountain landscape give it a deep local outline.