It’s fun to think about what life may have been like if we’d lived in another era, and follow clues from the past. We have the remarkable fortune to be able to see well-preserved photographs from West Virginia in the 1800s. Life in West Virginia was very different in past centuries, but looking at these images, it’s easy to feel the common thread of humanity that binds together generations across time. These are some of the earliest photographs we have that were created in our state.

1. Wheeling Suspension Bridge and flooding Ohio River, 1852
WikiMedia Commons/W.C. Brown Collection.
2. West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and the Blind faculty and staff, 1884
WikiMedia Commons/ West Virginia Division of Culture and History
3. Green Palm Restaurant, Romney
WikiMedia Commons
The date on this photo is unknown, but the restaurant was built by 1853.
4. Hanging Rocks viewed from across the river, 1890s
WikiMedia Commons/William Henry Jackson
5. The Old Wheeling Court House
Ohio County Public Library/W.C. Brown
The date on this photograph is unknown, but the court house was built in 1839 and razed in 1900 to make room for a new building.

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6. Image of G.A.R. Society of the Army of West Virginia 11th Annual Re-Union on Market Street, Wheeling, WV, 1887
Ohio County Public Library/Thomas M. Darrah
7. Fishing at Downey's Bend, Big Wheeling Creek, Marshall County, 1890
Ohio County Public Library/Thomas M. Darrah
8. Cattle rest on a hot summer day, near Big Wheeling Creek, Ohio County, 1893
Ohio County Public Library/ Thomas M. Darrah
9. The Gambrinus Club camping on Miller's Island, Big Wheeling Creek, Marshall County,1885
Ohio County Public Library/Thomas M. Darrah
10. View of clay monument at Elm Grove, Ohio County, 1888
Ohio County Public Library/Thomas M. Darrah
The old Cruger mansion can be seen in the background.

Does your family have any old photographs from the 1800s? We’d love to see them!

For more historical photos in West Virginia, check out these pictures from West Virginia’s mining history in the 1930s.

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