Tucker County, West Virginia

[5] The county was named after Henry St. George Tucker, Sr., a judge and Congressman from Williamsburg, Virginia.

In 1863, 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.

[8] Tucker County was initially divided into three townships: Black Fork, Hannahsville, and St. George, which became magisterial districts in 1872.

Although nobody was killed in the "war", the situation came to a climax when a mob of armed men from Parsons marched on St. George and took the county records by force.

[10][11][12] Beginning in 1907, the Babcock Lumber Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while operating out of Davis, West Virginia, clear cut the mountain ridges throughout Tucker Country.

This clear cutting, with its residual slashings, converted the landscape into a "tinderbox".

By 1910, fires burned continuously — in some areas for years on end, from spring until the first snows — leaving little other than thin mineral soil and bare rock.

In 1914, with the county virtually denuded of standing trees, the ground burned continually for 6 months.

As a result, top soils that once produced huge timbers on the mountainsides — including the largest tree ever harvested in West Virginia, a white oak some 13 feet in diameter just 10 feet from the ground — washed down into the narrow valleys and bottom lands, which had always been too narrow for harvesting productive crops or livestock.

To this day, Tucker County and surrounding regions bear the scars of this remarkable conflagration.

[20] As of the 2010 United States census, there were 7,141 people, 3,057 households, and 2,052 families living in the county.

Tucker County lies within West Virginia's 2nd congressional district.

The current members of the County Commission are Fred Davis and Tim Knotts (R).

Map of West Virginia highlighting Tucker County