Raleigh County, West Virginia

Raleigh County is a county in West Virginia, United States, about 60 miles south of Charleston. It had a population of 74,591 at the 2020 census, an estimated 71,775 more recently, and covers 609 square miles (1,580 km2) centred near 37°47′N 81°16′W.

Beckley is the county seat and the county’s only city; its postal code is 25801. The county holds 1 city, 3 incorporated towns and 18 census-designated places, has no active civil townships, and runs on Eastern Time. Its FIPS code is 54081.

Towns & Villages in Raleigh County

Raleigh County has 22 places recognized by the Census Bureau: 1 city, 3 incorporated towns and 18 census-designated places (CDPs) with no local government of their own. CDP stands for census designated place — a populated community the Census Bureau maps and counts but that has never incorporated as a town or city.

Beyond these 22 census-recognized places, Raleigh County carries dozens more named coal camps and crossroads that never grew large enough for CDP status. Cool Ridge, Naoma, Midway, Arnett, Glen Daniel, Fairdale, Clear Creek, Rhodell, Rock Creek, Surveyor, Artie, Harper, Skelton, Lanark, White Oak, Slab Fork, Odd, Dry Creek, Saxon, Princewick and Josephine each keep an active post office and ZIP code of their own. Beyond that tier, GNIS and older postal listings name well over a hundred smaller hamlets — Abney, Amigo, Battleship, Besoco, Birchton, Blue Jay, Cirtsville, Edwight, Fitzpatrick, Jarrolds Valley, Montcoal, Sundial, Tams and Winding Gulf among them — with no CDP boundary, no population count of their own and mail delivered through the nearest post office town.

ZIP Codes

Beckley alone carries three ZIP codes — 25801, 25802 and 25926 — reflecting its size relative to the rest of the county. The three incorporated towns and 18 CDPs each hold the single ZIP listed in the table above. The county’s unincorporated coal-camp communities add a further layer of codes:

• 25825 — Cool Ridge
• 25140 — Naoma
• 25878 — Midway
• 25007 — Arnett
• 25844 — Glen Daniel
• 25839 — Fairdale
• 25044 — Clear Creek
• 25915 — Rhodell
• 25174 — Rock Creek
• 25932 — Surveyor
• 25008 — Artie
• 25851 — Harper
• 25919 — Skelton
• 25860 — Lanark
• 25989 — White Oak
• 25920 — Slab Fork
• 25902 — Odd
• 25062 — Dry Creek
• 25180 — Saxon
• 25908 — Princewick
• 25857 — Josephine

Smaller hamlets such as Abney, Amigo, Battleship and Besoco have no ZIP code of their own; older coal-camp post offices in these places closed decades ago, and mail there is delivered under a neighbouring town’s code.

Geography

Raleigh County sits in the Allegheny Plateau of southern West Virginia, a landscape of wooded hills cut by narrow drainages rather than one dominant river valley. Of its 609 square miles, 605 are land and 4.0 are water, about 0.7 percent — the county has no large natural lake, and its surface water is mostly small creeks feeding toward the New River. The New River runs northwestward along the county’s east border, cutting the deep gorge that continues into neighboring Fayette County. Terrain slopes generally north and west, with the highest point at 3,524 feet (1,074 meters) in the southwest corner near the Wyoming County line.

Kanawha County lies to the north, Fayette County to the northeast, Summers County to the east, Mercer County to the southeast, Wyoming County to the southwest, and Boone County to the northwest. Kanawha County, Fayette County, Summers County, Mercer County, Wyoming County and Boone County all border Raleigh directly.

Demographics

Raleigh County had a population of 74,591 at the 2020 census, and the latest estimate puts the county near 71,775 residents, part of the population decline common across southern West Virginia’s coalfield counties. Beckley and Shady Spring are the two largest communities, with Beckley alone holding roughly a quarter of the county’s population. Median household income runs $52,150, well below West Virginia’s statewide figure of $55,948. Population density works out to about 123 people per square mile of land, concentrated heavily around Beckley and the towns strung along US 19 and the West Virginia Turnpike.

Economy & Local Life

Health care and social assistance employs the most workers in the county, about 5,692 people, followed by retail trade at 3,705 and educational services at 2,516. Beckley functions as the regional hub for southern West Virginia, and Raleigh General Hospital anchors much of that health care employment alongside smaller clinics across the county. West Virginia University Institute of Technology, which relocated its campus to Beckley in 2017, enrolled about 1,622 students as of 2019 and gives the city a college-town layer atop its older coal-industry economy. Tamarack Marketplace, a showcase for Appalachian arts and crafts built in 1996, and the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine, a preserved underground mine open for tours, remain the county’s best-known cultural draws. Mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction pay the highest average wages of any sector in the county, a legacy of the coal seams that built towns like Stanaford, Coal City and MacArthur.

History

The Virginia General Assembly formed Raleigh County on 23 January 1850, carving it out of Fayette County. It was named for Sir Walter Raleigh, the English courtier who sponsored England’s earliest attempts to colonize the Virginia coast. Beckley was laid out as the county seat and grew through the late 1800s as coal railroads reached the area.

Coal mining shaped the county’s twentieth century, for better and worse. On 19 April 1914, two explosions at the Eccles mine killed 181 miners, one of the deadliest coal disasters in American history. Nearly a century later, on 5 April 2010, an explosion at the Upper Big Branch Mine near Montcoal killed 29 miners, the worst US coal mining disaster since 1970. Both events remain part of how the county remembers its coal-camp communities.

Getting There

Interstate 64 and Interstate 77 run concurrently through the county as the West Virginia Turnpike, passing directly through Beckley. US Route 19 crosses the county on a separate north–south alignment, along with state routes 3, 16, 41, 54, 61, 97, 99, 121, 210 and 307.

• Charleston — about 60 miles north
• Bluefield — about 45 miles south
• Princeton — about 35 miles south
• Fayetteville — about 20 miles northeast

Raleigh County Memorial Airport, on Beckley’s south side, offers commercial service on Contour Airlines to Charlotte and Parkersburg. Amtrak’s Cardinal train, running between Chicago and Washington, D.C., stops at Prince Station in neighboring Fayette County, the closest rail connection to the county.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Raleigh County located?
It sits in the Allegheny Plateau of southern West Virginia, about 60 miles south of Charleston, bordered by Kanawha, Fayette, Summers, Mercer, Wyoming and Boone counties.

What is the population of Raleigh County?
74,591 at the 2020 census, with a more recent estimate near 71,775.

How big is Raleigh County?
609 square miles (1,580 km2), of which 605 square miles are land.

What is the county seat of Raleigh County?
Beckley, the county’s only city, founded as the seat when the county was organized in 1850.

How many towns and villages are in Raleigh County?
Beckley plus three incorporated towns — Mabscott, Sophia and Lester — and 18 census-designated places, from Shady Spring down to Colcord, along with dozens of smaller unincorporated coal camps.

What ZIP codes does Raleigh County use?
25801, 25802 and 25926 for Beckley; separate codes for each incorporated town and CDP, plus more than twenty additional codes for outlying communities such as Cool Ridge, Naoma and Rhodell.

What is Raleigh County known for?
Coal mining history, including the 1914 Eccles mine disaster and the 2010 Upper Big Branch disaster, plus West Virginia University Institute of Technology and the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine.

More counties in this state: Towns and villages in West Virginia.