Qualla: Downtown Huntington Historic District

Downtown Huntington Historic District: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Collis P. Huntington decided to build a new city as the western terminus of his Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1871, he did not pick an existing town. He bought farmland on the south bank of the Ohio River and laid out a brand-new grid for what would become Huntington, West Virginia. The downtown that grew up over the following sixty years - brick commercial blocks, an opera house, churches, a Carnegie library, a movie palace, a city hall - is mostly still standing. The Downtown Huntington Historic District preserves 112 contributing buildings across the original 1986 designation and a 2007 boundary expansion. The grid C. P. Huntington drew is now a National Register district, and most of the city's nineteenth- and early twentieth-century architecture is still doing its original job.

Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Downtown Huntington Historic District: The 1885 Opera House

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Davis Opera House, built around 1885, is the oldest commercial structure in the district. Theaters of its era served as the entertainment centerpiece of small American cities - venues for traveling theatrical companies, opera and musical performances, lecture series, and the ...

Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Downtown Huntington Historic District: The Bigger Anchors

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. Larger anchors followed as the city grew. The Frederick Building dates from 1906, the Huntington City Hall from 1915, the West Virginia Building from around 1924, and the Huntington Arcade from 1925. The Anderson-Newcomb/Stone and Thomas Building - now the Marshall University Vis...

Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Downtown Huntington Historic District: Five Churches

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antony-22, CC BY-SA 4.0. The district includes five historic churches, each a substantial congregation building in its own architectural idiom. Trinity Episcopal dates from 1882, the oldest of the group. First Presbyterian was completed in 1895. Johnson Memorial Church traces its lineage through three bu...

Image: Antony-22 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Downtown Huntington Historic District: Government and Public Buildings

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wv funnyman, CC BY-SA 4.0. Several civic buildings within the district are separately listed on the National Register. The Cabell County Courthouse anchors local government. The U.S. Post Office and Court House represents federal presence in the city. The Carnegie Public Library at Fifth and Ninth, built i...

Image: Wv funnyman | CC BY-SA 4.0

Downtown Huntington Historic District: The Grid from Above

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wv funnyman, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the air, downtown Huntington reads as a tight rectangular grid of blocks pressed against the south bank of the Ohio River. The river runs east-west; the avenue numbering runs from First Avenue near the river up to higher numbers as you move south. The cross streets run from ...

Image: Wv funnyman | CC BY-SA 4.0