[2] The county was named in honor of General Francis Marion (ca.

The region which includes the land now known as Marion County was sparsely occupied by Native Americans, if at all, in the late 18th century.

Only a few abortive attempts to start European settlements upon the Monongahela River or its branches (such as that which gave its name to Dunkard Creek) are known prior to the French and Indian War.

It was named after General Francis Marion, of American Revolutionary War fame, known to history as "The Swamp Fox".

[4] 1852 was an eventful time in Marion County's history, starting with the great flood on Monday, April 5.

Heavy rains the day before caused the Monongahela and West Fork Rivers to rise at rate of 5 feet per hour until Tuesday afternoon, when the water reached 43 feet above its normal level.

The greatest damage was sustained on the West Fork, where over 40 houses and buildings were swept away and floated past Fairmont.

The railroad required the building of a bridge to cross the Monongahela River about 1 mile west of Fairmont.

The bridge was built under the direction of James L. Randolph, assistant engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, at a cost of about thirty thousand dollars.

In the months that followed, West Virginia's counties were divided into civil townships, with the intention of encouraging local government.

This proved impractical in the heavily rural state, and in 1872 the townships were converted into magisterial districts.

From 1932 to 2008, the county only voted Republican in a presidential election once: for Richard Nixon in 1972 amidst a national landslide.

However, like the rest of West Virginia, Marion County has trended heavily Republican in the 21st century, albeit at a somewhat slower pace than most of the state.

In the 1632 series of science fiction novels, the fictional town of Grantville (closely modelled after real-life Mannington) and its environs were part of Marion County until the alien-caused space-time anomaly which sent it to 17th-century Thuringia.

The power plant is about 15 miles away, in a town called Granttown, so I just sorta moved it over.