Ravenswood, WV

Ravenswood is a Jackson County city on the Ohio River, where Sandy Creek reaches the water and Route 33 crosses into the wider valley. The 2020 census counted 3,865 residents. George Washington once owned the 2,448-acre tract, but the town's later story is more industrial: river commerce, the Ravenswood Glass Novelty Company, rail freight, and the aluminum works that arrived in the 1950s. The name comes from Lord Ravenswood in a Sir Walter Scott novel, which gives the city an unexpectedly literary calling card.

Ravenswood's city map still mixes riverfront industry, schools, older neighborhoods, and working businesses. The Great Bend Museum and Sayre Log Cabin keep the early settlement story close, while the Ohio River makes the regional geography obvious. Jackson County's two main cities, Ravenswood and Ripley, sit on different sides of the county's identity—one river-facing, one courthouse-centered. Ravenswood's local scoop is an Ohio River city with a Washington connection, a glass-and-aluminum past, and a name borrowed from a novel.