Union, WV

Union is the county seat of Monroe County, West Virginia, a town set in rolling limestone farm country where U.S. 219 meets State Route 3. The 2020 census counted 427 people, but the town's role is older and larger than that number suggests: Union was established as Monroe County's seat by the Virginia legislature in 1800. James Alexander had settled the area in 1774 and later donated land for the town and Green Hill Cemetery. The name is said to come from the place where local militia united for drills during the Indian wars.

Today Union's courthouse, historic houses, and preserved streetscape carry that county-seat history. The Union Historic District was placed on the National Register in 1990, and the town remains tied to Monroe County's farms and the limestone country around it. The local scoop is that Union is not just a courthouse town with an old name: it is a place whose identity comes from the county government, frontier settlement, Civil War-era loyalties, and the old roads that still meet at its center.