Rivesville, WV

Rivesville is a Marion County town on the northwest bank of the Monongahela River, where the 2020 census counted 830 residents. Paw Paw Creek meets the river at town, and Prickett's Fort stands across the water in a landscape settled early by frontier families. Rivesville was platted in 1837 and named for William Cabell Rives.

Coal and railroads changed its scale in the early twentieth century. Rivesville sat in the Fairmont coal field at the junction of the Paw Paw branch of the B&O Railroad and the Buckhannon and Northern, later part of the Monongahela Railway. A power station followed in 1919, and barges carried coal along the river. Rivesville Elementary/Middle School now serves local students, while the riverfront, old rail corridors, and the road toward Fairmont keep the town tied to Marion County's industrial geography. The Morgan-Gold House, built in the settlement's frontier era, adds an older layer to a former coal town shaped by water, rail, and power.