The Town of Jenningston, WV

On November 29, 1899, for an investment of $11,000 the Jennings brothers Cortez Hicks and Bishop Worth, acquired a piece of property in WV that included a sawmill, dam, machinery, and a railroad that ran from the Dry Fork Railroad to the mill from the Middle Mountain Boom and Lumber Company.  

 

The town of Jenningston was founded in 1905.  By the end of August, the company store was opened.  The house that would become Laurel River Club Bed and Breakfast was being built for the company superintendent. BW Jennings and his wife Ella. Thirty-five men and a team of horses arrived from Pennsylvania. In November the post office was opened in Jenningston. B.W. Jennings was the first postmaster but was succeeded by Frank Rice.  

 

On July 1, 1909, the Jennings sold all of the property in and around Jenningston, to A. G. and E. G. Allen of Maryland who owned the newly formed Laurel River Lumber Company. This included 18 miles of railroad, 400 million feet of uncut timber, the mill, store, all houses, and animals. The selling price was $1,400,000. It also included the newly built hotel, the Laurel Inn, that had just opened.   After selling out, the Jennings family bought farmlands in Towanda, PA, where they operated The Jennings Farm for many years.

 

By 1919 the mill employed 300 men with a monthly payroll of $25,000 to $30,000, but it was short-lived.  Because logging was the only industry in Jenningston, when the trees were all cut there was nothing left to sustain the people.  The mill was closed in August 1921 and its equipment sold off. It sold its lands on January 22, 1922, along with the company store. In February it sold its houses, which were torn down for the lumber and used in neighboring towns. With no work, the population slowly drifted away. The post office closed on October 13, 1922, but reopened at the train station and remained open till June 5, 1939. 

 

The official end of the Laurel River Lumber Company occurred on January 18, 1923. The last company house was destroyed in the flood of 1985. The only two houses left are the Fred A. Perley house and the Superintendent’s house, which is now the Laurel River Club Bed and Breakfast.

 

Sources:

History of Tucker County West Virginia by Homer Floyd Fansler

Nancy Hawke Bomboy a great-grandaughter of Cortez Hicks Jennings

Michelle Elizabeth Knight  a great great granddaughter of Cortez Hicks Jennings

A Brief History of Jenningston by Keith Allen

A Pictorial History of Dry Fork Railroad WV and Surrounding Areas by Chris Kidwell

 

If you would like to know more, come and visit and experience the history first hand.