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Parkersburg/Wood County, W.V. CVB

The history of the Greater Wood County/Parkersburg, West Virginia area is as rich and varied as that of any part of the United States. It stretches back to almost 9,000 BC when its first human inhabitants, Indians, are known to have lived, worked and played here. By the late 1600s, French explorers and traders had penetrated the region soon, followed by the English. But white settlement did not come until the 1760s when squatters illegally took possession of the Indians' land.

The United States Army drove them out in 1785, the same year permanent settlers arrived. Today the Greater Parkersburg/Wood County, W.V. area is highly but diversely industrialized. High tech producers including chemicals, plastics and laboratory equipment balance its conventional manufacturers such as glass and ferrous metals.

In a little over two hundred years, the Wood County/Parkersburg, West Virginia area has grown from being an outpost on the edge of civilization to its own prominent role in the heartland of industrialized America.