Reedsville, WV

Reedsville is a Preston County town in western West Virginia, along the Kingwood Pike southeast of Morgantown. James Reed moved into the area in 1827 and owned much of the land where the town later formed. The first house was built in 1855, the community took the name Reedsville in 1856, and the town incorporated in 1906. Its streets sit in the rolling Upper Deckers Creek country, with farms, wooded hills, and the larger Preston County towns close by. The town's 2020 census population was 530.

Reedsville's working history reaches beyond its small municipal boundary. The Phillips-Jones Electric Vacuum Cleaner plant operated here during the early twentieth century, giving the town a manufacturing chapter alongside farming and local commerce. Today, the nearby West Virginia University Ruby Research Farm and Hazel Ruby McQuain Equine Education Center bring horse and beef research, forage work, shows, and agricultural study into the surrounding landscape. A 56-acre wildlife management area outside town protects shallow wetlands used for fishing and waterfowl. Reedsville is a place where a family name, a former factory, a country road, and working land all meet in the same short stretch of Preston County.