Unfortunate events that changed Tucker County

Throughout the entire history of Tucker County unforeseen and often tragic events have shaped the area we now know and love.

We all now know Parsons as the county seat, but this is a title that may not have come to pass had it not been for a devastating fire that in December of 1888 claimed a large portion of the then prosperous town and county seat of St. George. The St. George fire wiped out a major portion of the infrastructure that allowed the town to thrive resulting in its eventual loss of both the county seat and the possibility of a rail line that could have potentially stemmed the decline. This fire forever changed the landscape of Tucker County, if not for this tragedy we would all probably still be paying our taxes, filing our marriage licenses, and taking shopping trips into the county seat of St. George rather than Parsons.

Another major event that still burns bright in the memory of many local residents is again one of utter destruction, an event of such devastation that the effects are still being felt today some 32 years later. The 1985 flood an event that resulted in an immediate financial and economic downturn for the area when flood waters destroyed houses, infrastructure, and washed away entire sections of the then growing city of Parsons.

How bad was the 85 flood in our area? According to census records between 1980 and 1990 Parsons lost a full quarter of it's population this is a trend one could easily attribute to a mass exodus caused by the devastation of the flooding, this trend repeats in both the county wide census where a decline of 10.9% is shown between 1980-1990 and in the statewide census where the steepest decline in the history of West Virginia took place some 8% during the same period.

So where would Tucker County be had the flood not happened? It would no doubt be a much more populated area as prior to the flood the city was growing and on track to possibly pass it's historical high of 2,077 residents set in 1940. The truth is we'll never know just what may have been had either of these key historical events not happened but the county we now know was undeniably shaped by them.


Location: Tucker County, WV, USA

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