Qualla: Burning Springs, West Virginia

Burning Springs, West Virginia: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In 1861, ten thousand people moved to a riverbank in Wirt County, Virginia, that had been an obscure salt-drilling settlement two years earlier. The boomtown they built stretched more than a mile along the Little Kanawha. It was, briefly, larger than Elizabeth, the county seat, and larger than Parkersburg, the regional hub at the mouth of the river. Barrels of crude oil rolled down to the river and floated downstream to Ohio refineries. The hotels filled with speculators and drillers and the inevitable supporting cast. Two years later, on May 9, 1863, every well, every storage tank, and most of the town were burning. Today Burning Springs has a few houses, a historical marker, and a small museum. It is a reminder of how fast a boomtown can rise, and how completely it can vanish.

Burning Springs, West Virginia: Salt First

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The story begins with a different commodity. In the early 1800s, settlers drilled the springs at Burning Springs for brine, which they evaporated in iron kettles to produce salt - one of the few processed goods that justified the labor of an Appalachian frontier economy. The salt...

Burning Springs, West Virginia: The Rathbones

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

William P. Rathbone purchased land at Burning Springs around 1840 and, over the following decade, drilled a new well that produced more oil than salt. By 1859, that well was producing seven 40-gallon barrels of crude per day. Father and son - William P. Rathbone and John C. Rathb...

Burning Springs, West Virginia: The Surrender at Spencer

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Civil War complicates the Rathbone story. Cass Rathbone helped recruit the 11th West Virginia Infantry and took command. On September 2, 1862, he surrendered approximately 200 of his men to Confederate raiders at Spencer in Roane County. The surrender was suspicious. Some obs...

Burning Springs, West Virginia: May 9, 1863

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Jones-Imboden Raid was a Confederate cavalry operation aimed partly at preventing West Virginia's imminent statehood - which would take effect on June 20, 1863, six weeks after the raid. William E. Jones's brigade reached Burning Springs on May 9. The destruction was thorough...

Burning Springs, West Virginia: After the Boom

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Rathbones and their neighbors rebuilt as best they could. Several family members died during the war years. The patriarch William P. Rathbone died in 1865. The remaining family sold their interest for $400,000 and moved west - a fortune in 19th-century money, but a fraction o...