Fayette County, West Virginia

Fayette County is a county in West Virginia, United States, along the New River Gorge roughly midway between Charleston and Beckley. It had a population of 40,488 at the 2020 census, an estimated 38,165 by 2025, and covers 668 square miles (1,730 km2) centred near 38°02′N 81°05′W.

Fayetteville is the county seat; its ZIP code is 25840. The county holds 4 cities, 6 incorporated towns and 20 census-designated places across its three magisterial districts — New Haven, Plateau and Valley — and it runs on Eastern Time.

Towns & Villages in Fayette County

Thirty named places have their own 2020 census count inside the county. Ten are incorporated: the cities of Oak Hill, Montgomery, Mount Hope and Smithers, and the towns of Fayetteville, Ansted, Gauley Bridge, Meadow Bridge, Pax and Thurmond. The other twenty are census-designated places (CDPs) — settlements the Census Bureau counts separately but that have no town council of their own. Beyond these thirty, dozens more named unincorporated communities sit on the map with no separate population count; a dash in the Pop. column means no 2020 figure exists for that place, and it is omitted from the table rather than guessed at.

A few names on the map cause confusion. Fayetteville is the county seat; a separate, smaller unincorporated place simply called Fayette sits elsewhere in the county and is not the same settlement. Dixie straddles the Fayette–Nicholas county line: of its 227 residents, 74 live on the Fayette County side. Hilltop was once its own incorporated town; it is a CDP today, with the change unrelated to any merger with a neighbour. Thurmond, with 5 residents, is the least-populous incorporated municipality in West Virginia — almost all of the townsite itself is owned by the National Park Service as part of New River Gorge National Park and Preserve.

ZIP Codes

Twenty-one ZIP codes serve addresses in Fayette County, one shared between the county seat and a neighbouring CDP.

• 25040 — Charlton Heights
• 25057 — Deep Water
• 25059 — Dixie
• 25085 — Gauley Bridge
• 25118 — Kimberly
• 25119 — Kincaid
• 25136 — Montgomery
• 25139 — Mount Carbon
• 25186 — Smithers
• 25812 — Ansted
• 25830 — Cunard
• 25840 — Fayetteville (also serves Garten)
• 25854 — Hico
• 25855 — Hilltop
• 25880 — Mount Hope
• 25901 — Oak Hill
• 25904 — Pax
• 25907 — Prince
• 25917 — Scarbro
• 25936 — Thurmond
• 25976 — Meadow Bridge

Beards Fork, Boomer, Falls View, Gatewood, Glen Ferris, Glen Jean, Page and Powellton have no ZIP code confirmed in current postal data; Beards Fork’s mail is handled through the nearby community of Robson.

Geography

Fayette County sits on the Appalachian Plateau, cut deeply by the New River as it carves the New River Gorge through the county’s eastern half. Of the county’s 668 square miles, 662 are land and 6.8 are water, about 1.0 percent. Plum Orchard Lake, a reservoir southwest of Oak Hill, is West Virginia’s second-largest lake. The New and Gauley rivers meet at Gauley Bridge to form the Kanawha River, which then runs the length of the county’s northwestern edge past Montgomery, Smithers and Kanawha Falls.

Five counties border Fayette County: Nicholas to the north, Greenbrier to the east, Summers to the southeast, Raleigh to the south and Kanawha to the west.

Demographics

The 2020 census counted 40,488 residents, and the Census Bureau’s latest estimate puts the county at 38,165 in 2025, a decline of about 6 percent. Oak Hill, with 8,179 people, is the largest community; Fayetteville, the county seat, is second among incorporated places at 2,887. Median household income is $53,194 (American Community Survey 5-year estimate), below the West Virginia figure of $55,948. Population density works out to about 61.2 people per square mile of land.

Economy & Local Life

Health care and social assistance is the largest employment sector, with about 2,783 county residents working in it, ahead of retail trade (2,384) and construction (1,299) out of roughly 14,700 people employed overall. Coal mining, long the county’s dominant industry, still provides work, and Alloy’s metal-alloys plant and a Georgia-Pacific lumber operation remain active employers. The Mount Olive Correctional Complex, West Virginia’s only maximum-security state prison, is a major employer near Mount Olive.

Tourism has grown fastest. New River Gorge National Park and Preserve, headquartered at Glen Jean, draws whitewater rafters, rock climbers and hikers to the gorge and drew over 1.5 million visitors in 2022. Glen Jean is also home to the Summit Bechtel Reserve, the Boy Scouts of America’s national high-adventure base, which hosted the 2019 World Scout Jamboree. The county’s biggest annual event is Bridge Day, held on the third Saturday of October at the New River Gorge Bridge in Fayetteville, when BASE jumpers and rappellers take over the span for one day a year.

History

The Virginia General Assembly authorised Fayette County on 28 February 1831, carved from parts of Greenbrier, Kanawha, Nicholas and Logan counties, more than three decades before West Virginia became a separate state in 1863. It was named for the Marquis de Lafayette, the French officer who served in the American Revolutionary War.

Coal shaped the county through the following century, and it also brought disaster. A mine explosion at Red Ash in March 1900 killed 46 miners. On 30 November 1915, an explosion at Boomer’s Number 2 Mine killed 23 men, though 27 others sheltered in fresh air and survived. In the early 1930s, workers digging the Hawks Nest Tunnel near Gauley Bridge and Glen Ferris were exposed to high levels of silica dust; many developed silicosis, and the episode remains one of the worst industrial disasters in US history. The county’s hardest history is not glossed over here because it shaped the towns that still stand.

Getting There

Interstate 64 crosses the county’s northwestern corner near the Kanawha River. US Route 19 runs north–south through Oak Hill and Fayetteville and crosses the New River Gorge Bridge. US Route 60, the historic Midland Trail, follows the Kanawha River past Gauley Bridge, Glen Ferris and Ansted.

• Charleston — about 35 miles northwest
• Beckley — about 19 miles south-southwest
• Lewisburg — about 40 miles east-southeast
• Huntington — about 77 miles west-northwest

The nearest commercial airport is West Virginia International Yeager Airport (CRW) in Charleston, about 35 miles northwest of Fayetteville. The county has two Amtrak stops of its own on the Cardinal route — Prince and Thurmond — though Thurmond’s is unstaffed and among the least-used stations on the whole network.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is Fayette County located?
Fayette County is in southern West Virginia, along the New River Gorge roughly midway between Charleston and Beckley.

What is the population of Fayette County?
40,488 at the 2020 census, estimated at 38,165 in 2025.

How big is Fayette County?
668 square miles in total (1,730 km2) — 662 square miles of land and 6.8 square miles of water.

What is the county seat of Fayette County?
Fayetteville, population 2,887.

How many towns are in Fayette County?
Ten incorporated places: the cities of Oak Hill, Montgomery, Mount Hope and Smithers, and the towns of Fayetteville, Ansted, Gauley Bridge, Meadow Bridge, Pax and Thurmond. A further 20 census-designated places are listed above.

What is the Fayetteville ZIP code?
25840, which also covers the nearby community of Garten.

Does Fayette County have an Amtrak station?
Yes, two: Prince and Thurmond, both unstaffed stops on the Cardinal route between Chicago and New York.

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