Rainelle, WV

Rainelle sits where U.S. 60, the old James River and Kanawha Turnpike route also called the Midland Trail, meets West Virginia 20 in Greenbrier County. The town lies at the base of Sewell Mountain near Sewell Creek and the Meadow River. The valley’s name predates Rainelle, recalling scout Stephen Sewell, who settled in the area in the 1750s. Modern Rainelle grew around the Meadow River Lumber Company after 1910, and the company operated one of the world’s largest hardwood sawmills before the mill closed in 1975.

That industrial history still appears in Rainelle’s buildings and roads. The Rainelle United Methodist Church was built entirely from American chestnut, and the company’s former use of local hardwood shaped the town’s early houses and offices. The Meadow River continues west through town toward the Gauley River, while U.S. 60 follows the older turnpike across the valley. Rainelle’s present-day identity is therefore easy to place: a road town in Sewell Valley, marked by a river, a historic lumber economy, and a church made from the wood that once defined local work.