[2] Putnam County is part of the Huntington–Ashland, WV-KY-OH metropolitan statistical area, across the Kanawha River from Charleston, West Virginia.

Winfield, the county seat, had been founded in 1818, but was incorporated on February 21, 1868, and named to honor General Winfield Scott, a general during the Mexican American War and the early stage of the Civil War.

[4] No one from Putnam County attended the Wheeling Convention, which ultimately led to the creation of the state of West Virginia in 1863.

On July 17, 1861, Confederate soldiers defeated a Union force at the Battle of Scary Creek, before withdrawing to Charleston.

The Confederates included a cavalry troop raised by Colonel Albert Gallatin Jenkins, who until Virginia's secession from the Union, had represented the area in Congress.

Jenkins was commissioned a brigadier general in 1862, but died of wounds received at the Battle of Cloyd's Mountain in May 1864.

[5] Putnam County's Civil War soldiers were about evenly split between Union and Confederate, with about four hundred on each side.

Later that year, its 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.

[7] Putnam County was initially divided into six townships: Buffalo, Curry, Grant, Hutton, Scott, and Union.

These became magisterial districts in 1872, and the following year, two were renamed, with Grant becoming Teays Valley, while Hutton became Pocatalico.

[9] The terrain slopes to the north, with the highest point near its southwest corner at 1,129 ft (344 m) above mean sea level.