Rivesville, West Virginia

Rivesville is a town and former coal town in Marion County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 830 at the 2020 census.[2]

Rivesville, West Virginia
Town
Location of Rivesville in Marion County, West Virginia.
Location of Rivesville in Marion County, West Virginia.
Coordinates: 39°31′49″N 80°7′9″W
CountryUnited States
StateWest Virginia
CountyMarion
Area
[1]
 • Total0.59 sq mi (1.54 km2)
 • Land0.52 sq mi (1.36 km2)
 • Water0.07 sq mi (0.18 km2)
Elevation
866 ft (264 m)
Population
 (2020)[2]
 • Total830
 • Estimate 
(2021)[2]
823
 • Density1,723.28/sq mi (664.98/km2)
Time zoneUTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
 • Summer (DST)UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP code
26588
Area code304
FIPS code54-68908[3]
GNIS feature ID1545784[4]

Geography

Rivesville is located at 39°31′49″N 80°7′9″W (39.530276, -80.119063)[5] in the heart of the Fairmont coal field[6] on the north-west bank of the Monongahela River around its confluence with Paw Paw Creek.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 0.59 square miles (1.53 km2), of which 0.52 square miles (1.35 km2) is land and 0.07 square miles (0.18 km2) is water.[7]

Demographics
Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
186054—
18706316.7%
1880136115.9%
189016521.3%
1900164−0.6%
191019015.9%
19201,061458.4%
19301,70060.2%
19401,552−8.7%
19501,343−13.5%
19601,191−11.3%
19701,108−7.0%
19801,32719.8%
19901,064−19.8%
2000913−14.2%
20109342.3%
2020830−11.1%
2021 (est.)823[2]−0.8%
U.S. Decennial Census[8]

2010 census

As of the census[9] of 2010, there were 934 people, 402 households, and 261 families living in the town. The population density was 1,796.2 inhabitants per square mile (693.5/km2). There were 430 housing units at an average density of 826.9 per square mile (319.3/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 98.7% White, 0.6% African American, 0.5% Native American, and 0.1% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.3% of the population.

There were 402 households, of which 29.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 44.3% were married couples living together, 14.7% had a female householder with no husband present, 6.0% had a male householder with no wife present, and 35.1% were non-families. 29.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.32 and the average family size was 2.83.

The median age in the town was 42.1 years. 21.1% of residents were under the age of 18; 6% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 26.3% were from 25 to 44; 30.1% were from 45 to 64; and 16.6% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the town was 46.6% male and 53.4% female.

2000 census

As of the census[3] of 2000, there were 913 people, 400 households, and 268 families living in the town. The population density was 1,602.5 inhabitants per square mile (618.4/km2). There were 450 housing units at an average density of 789.8 per square mile (304.8/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 98.80% White, 0.11% African American, 0.11% Native American, 0.33% Asian, and 0.66% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.55% of the population.

There were 400 households, out of which 24.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.0% were married couples living together, 11.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.0% were non-families. 30.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 19.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.28 and the average family size was 2.80.

In the town, the population was spread out, with 19.1% under the age of 18, 7.6% from 18 to 24, 25.0% from 25 to 44, 27.8% from 45 to 64, and 20.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 44 years. For every 100 females, there were 87.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 83.8 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $25,700, and the median income for a family was $35,417. Males had a median income of $26,875 versus $19,063 for females. The per capita income for the town was $14,085. About 16.4% of families and 19.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 32.9% of those under age 18 and 12.9% of those age 65 or over.

History

The area was populated by some of the earliest settlers to the area, with the safety of Prickett's Fort sitting directly across the Monongahela River. David Morgan (frontiersman) moved there in 1772. That's also the location where he saved his family from an attack by Indians in 1778, based on a fevered dream he had, while recuperating from an illness at the fort. The house still stands there in Rivesville.[10] Now known as the Morgan-Gold House, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.[11]

Rivesville was platted in 1837, and named after William Cabell Rives.[12]

In 1900, it was a very small town, population 164, growing to 190 in 1910. This was immediately before the development of large-scale coal mining in the area and the subsequent population growth.[13]

In the early 20th century, Rivesville was at the junction between the Pawpaw branch of the B&O Railroad and the Buckhannon & Northern Railroad, a branch of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie a predecessor that was incorporated into the Monongahela Railway formed in 1915.[14]

Rivesville was also served by the Fairmont-Clarksburg Division of the Monongahela-West Pen Railways, originally the Monongahela Power and Railway Company. This electric interurban line ran from Fairmont through Rivesville to the Rivesville Power Station, just north of town.[15]

Institutions

Schools

The Rivesville Elementary/Middle school, formerly Rivesville High School, is administered by the Marion County Schools.[16] It has 37 teachers and has been affiliated with the West Virginia University Benedum Collaborative as a Professional Development School since 1997. Tyson Furgason is currently principal. Based on 2007 test scores, the school ranked close to average for the state of West Virginia. In 2007, the school enrolled 338 students between kindergarten and grade 8.

Power plant

The Rivesville Power Plant was built by Monongahela Power and Railway Company in 1919 and is currently operated by Allegheny Energy.[17] Unit 5, installed in 1944 had a power output of 48 megawatts; Unit 6, installed in 1951, was 94 megawatts.[18][19][20] The plant used open loop cooling, drawing up to 69.8 million gallons per day of cooling water from the Monongahela River.[21] The coal stockpile at the plant had a capacity of 50,000 tons, and coal was delivered by barge.[22] Earlier, coal was delivered by rail.[23] The plant was connected to the grid by 138Kv transmission lines.[24] In the mid 1970s, this was the first commercial power plant to use fluidized bed combustion to fire its boilers.[25] As of 2007, this power plant employed 33 people.[26] New environmental regulations forced the company to shut down the plant in 2012, along with two others elsewhere in the state.[27]

Coal mining

About the only area around Rivesville where the coal has not been mined out is directly under the older portion of the town and under the riverbed. Consolidation Coal Company Mine No. 97 was in the Pittsburgh coal seam around 100 feet below the level of the riverbed. This mine operated between 1922 and 1954, with a peak production of 670408 tons per year.[28] The coal seam itself is 6 to 8 feet thick. The number 97 Hoist Shaft was directly west of the westernmost corner of the Power Plant, with the hoisting engines to the north across the tracks. Consol. Mine No. 24 was directly across the river, with its shaft in the company town of Montana Mines, and in 1943, plans were filed to connect these mines with an under-river crossing.[29] In 1934, Consol. No. 97 employed 412 men, all of whom were UMWA members. The daily wage ranged from $6.37 for loaders to $9.29 for cutters.[30]

The Parker Run Coal & Coke Co. Mine at Rivesville, circa 1913.

Other mines in the area exploited the shallower Sewickley Coal Seam, largely above the river level to the north and east. Between 1901 and 1913,[31][32] for example, the Parker Run Coal and Coke Company operated a mine just east of Rivesville, shipping coal by rail and barge. In 1910, this mine employed 60 miners.[33] In 1913, it employed 10 laborers and 25 miners to take 500 tons of coal a day. The coal in this seam was over 6 feet thick, but higher in sulfur than the Pittsburgh seam. Mines in the Sewickley seam were opened earlier and mined out earlier than the mines in the Pittsburgh Seam.[34]

In 1913, the Monongahela Valley Traction Company had a mine in the even shallower Waynesburg coal seam about a mile southwest of Rivesville near Dakota. This coal seam was about 5 feet thick, including an intermediate shale bed one foot thick.[35] By 1921, Monongahela Traction had opened a second mine in the area near Baxter, about a mile up Paw Paw creek.[36] As of 1921, other mines listed as being in Rivesville included the Rivesville Coal Company's Hood Mine, the Winfield Coal Company's River Side Mine, and the Virginia & Pittsburgh Coal & Coke Co.'s Morgan mine.

Notable person

References
  1. "2019 U.S. Gazetteer Files". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved August 7, 2020.
  2. Bureau, US Census. "City and Town Population Totals: 2020-2021". Census.gov. US Census Bureau. Retrieved July 3, 2022.
  3. "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  4. "US Board on Geographic Names". United States Geological Survey. October 25, 2007. Retrieved January 31, 2008.
  5. "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. February 12, 2011. Retrieved April 23, 2011.
  6. Coalfields of the Appalachian Mountains
  7. "US Gazetteer files 2010". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on January 25, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  8. "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  9. "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  10. Ruth, Frances D., National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Morgan-Gold House. State of West Virginia, West Virginia Division of Culture and History, Historic Preservation.
  11. National Register Information System, National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, March 13, 2009
  12. Kenny, Hamill (1945). West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning, Including the Nomenclature of the Streams and Mountains. Piedmont, WV: The Place Name Press. p. 533.
  13. Ray V. Hennen, David B. Berger, I.C. White, West Virginia Geological Survey, Marion, Monongalia and Taylor Counties, Wheeling News Litho. Co., Wheeling, 1913, page 35.
  14. "The History of the Monongahela Coalfields - 1900 to the Present". Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved October 17, 2008.
  15. Monongahela - West Pen part of Bill's Trolley Pages
  16. List of schools from the Marion County Schools web page
  17. Huilan Li, Economic Evaluation of Air Pollution Reduction of Phase I Power Plants in West Virginia: An Output Distance Function Approach, PhD thesis, West Virginia University, 2006. See Appendix D.
  18. "Allegheny Generating Company, Form 10-K405, Filing Date Mar 30, 2001". secdatabase.com. Retrieved May 14, 2018.
  19. Allegheny Energy, Form 8-K SEC filing, Oct 31, 2000.
  20. Monongahela Power Co., Form POS AMC SEC filing, Apr. 4, 1994.
  21. Water Use Benchmarks for Thermoelectric Power Generation Archived 2010-06-12 at the Wayback Machine, Department of Geography and Environmental Resources, Southern Ill. U., Aug. 15, 2006
  22. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Port Series No. 60, Pittsburgh, PA, and Ports on the Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny Rivers Archived 2009-01-09 at the Wayback Machine, 2004 Survey
  23. Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, Monongahela Valley Traction Company Car #3000 Archived 2008-11-21 at the Wayback Machine, Oct 17, 2005.
  24. Electric Industry Restructuring Group,Electric Industry Restructuring: Opportunities and Risks for West Virginia, Interim Report No. 5: Transmission Enhancement and Expansion Archived 2008-09-08 at the Wayback Machine, West Virginia University, January 1998. Section 5.2.
  25. Fluidized Bed Technology -- An R&D Success Story, U.S. Department of Energy, Oct. 24, 2006.
  26. Allegheny Energy's Harrison and Rivesville Power Stations Recertified as VPP Star Worksites Allegheny Energy press release, Nov. 15, 2007.
  27. FirstEnergy, Citing Impact of Environmental Regulations, Will Retire Three Coal-Fired Power Plants in West Virginia Archived 2014-02-22 at the Wayback Machine, FirstEnergy press release, Feb. 8, 2012.
  28. "Mine Data Tonnage Reports for Consolidation No. 97". West Virginia Office of Miners' Health Safety & Training. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved June 16, 2009.
  29. Document No. 904913 West Virginia Coal Bed Mapping Project
  30. letter from Henry W. Francis to the Federal Emergency Relief Administration Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine dated Nov. 25, 1934.
  31. Samuel B. Brown, Bulletin No. 1, West Virginia Geologic Survey, Acme Publishing Co., Morgantown, 1901, page 343
  32. "Mine Data Tonnage Reports for Parker Run Coal & Coke". West Virginia Office of Miners' Health Safety & Training. Archived from the original on September 27, 2011. Retrieved June 16, 2009.
  33. Annual Report of the Department of Mines for the Year Ending June 30, 1910, West Virginia Department of Mines, The News Mail Co., Charleston, 1911, page 18
  34. Ray V. Hennen, David B. Berger, I.C. White, West Virginia Geological Survey, Marion, Monongalia and Taylor Counties, Wheeling News Litho. Co., Wheeling, 1913, pages 660-661.
  35. Ray V. Hennen, David B. Berger, I.C. White, West Virginia Geological Survey, Marion, Monongalia and Taylor Counties, Wheeling News Litho. Co., Wheeling, 1913, page 242.
  36. List of Coal Mines in West Virginia, July 1, 1921, West Virginia Geological Survey, page 14.
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