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city in West Virginia, United States
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Clarksburg is a city in Harrison County, West Virginia, United States, and its county seat. The population was 16,061 at the 2020 census, making it the tenth-most populous city in West Virginia. It is the principal city of the Clarksburg micropolitan area in North Central West Virginia, which had a population of 90,434 in 2020.
Two prehistoric burial mounds known as the Oak Mounds are located south of Clarksburg. In 1764, trapper John Simpson became the first European known to claim land in the area. European settlement began in the early 1770s, and about 1773 Daniel Davisson acquired 400 acres (160 ha) where Clarksburg now stands.
When Harrison County was created in 1784, Clarksburg became the county seat. The town was named for Revolutionary War officer George Rogers Clark and was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1785. Construction of the first Harrison County courthouse began in 1787. That year, the Virginia General Assembly also established Randolph Academy in Clarksburg, the first such educational institution west of the Allegheny Mountains.
In 1819, Virginia was divided into two federal judicial districts, with the Western District of Virginia headquartered in Clarksburg. Clarksburg also hosted an 1841 convention that called for free public schools in Virginia. Poor transportation limited the town's early growth until the Northwestern Turnpike reached Clarksburg in the 1830s. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad reached the city in the mid-1850s, providing improved access to regional and national markets.
Following the Virginia secession convention's April 1861 vote to submit an ordinance of secession to voters, Unionists led by John S. Carlile held a convention in Clarksburg on April 22, 1861. The meeting called for representatives from northwestern Virginia counties to assemble in Wheeling the following month. The resulting First Wheeling Convention became part of the political process that led to the creation of West Virginia.
During the American Civil War, Clarksburg's location on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad made it an important Union supply base, and Federal troops occupied the city. Confederate forces operated in the surrounding region, including during the Jones–Imboden Raid of 1863, but did not capture Clarksburg.
Clarksburg grew as a commercial and industrial center after the Civil War as railroad access and nearby supplies of coal, oil, and natural gas attracted manufacturing. In 1877, Clarksburg was one of three cities on the ballot in a statewide referendum to choose a permanent state capital, along with Charleston and Martinsburg. Charleston won the referendum and became the permanent capital in 1885.
The city's population increased from 4,050 in 1900 to 27,869 in 1920. Part of this growth resulted from the 1917 annexation of Adamston, Stealey, North View and Broad Oaks, which had previously been separate municipalities. Industrial growth brought immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Greece, France, Belgium and Spain. Black migrants from the South also arrived during the Great Migration.
Glassmaking became an important local industry. The Hazel-Atlas Glass Company operated a Clarksburg plant from 1902 to 1987 that became the world's largest tumbler factory and employed about 1,200 people by 1920. The Akro Agate Company relocated from Akron, Ohio, to Clarksburg in 1914 and became a major producer of glass marbles and pressed glass before ceasing production in 1951.
Kelly Miller High School opened in 1903 as a segregated regional school for African American students. It served students from Harrison County and several neighboring counties and became a center of Clarksburg's Black community. The school closed in 1956 following the desegregation of public schools after Brown v. Board of Education.
The Great Depression brought business failures, industrial decline and population loss. During World War II, Clarksburg again served as an important railroad center. Construction of Interstate 79 and the four-lane U.S. Route 50 corridor in the 1970s improved highway access, while industrial plant closures in the 1980s weakened the city's manufacturing base.
In January 1991, the Federal Bureau of Investigation purchased a 986 acres (399 ha) site in Clarksburg for the headquarters of its Criminal Justice Information Services Division. Construction began in October 1991, the division was established in February 1992, and the complex was completed in July 1995.
In November 1805, Abel Clemmons murdered his wife and eight children at the family's home about half a mile from Clarksburg, which was then part of Virginia. His wife was pregnant at the time. Clemmons was later convicted and executed in 1806.
During the early 20th century, the Black Hand operated in northern West Virginia, using threats and extortion against members of Italian immigrant communities. On February 11, 1923, eight members of the Black Hand were arrested in Harrison County. Their prosecution in Clarksburg followed a three-year period of murders described as alleged gangland vendettas and became one of the city's best-known criminal trials.
In 1931, Harry Powers, who operated a grocery store in Clarksburg's Broad Oaks neighborhood, was charged with killing two women and three children whose bodies were found at his property in Quiet Dell, near Clarksburg. Public interest in the case was large enough that his trial was held at the Moore Opera House in Clarksburg. Powers was convicted of the murder of Dorothy Lemke and was executed in 1932.
In October 1996, seven members of the Mountaineer Militia were arrested in connection with a plot to bomb the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Criminal Justice Information Services Division facility in Clarksburg. Militia leader Floyd Raymond Looker was arrested after receiving $50,000 for blueprints of the facility from an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative of a terrorist organization.
In 2009, Clarksburg resident James Childers sent police written and recorded statements in which he admitted killing two women and claimed responsibility for at least three additional murders and four arsons. Information in the statements led authorities to the bodies of Carrie Lynn Baker and Carolyn Sauerwein. Childers died by suicide as police moved to arrest him. FBI behavioral specialists later classified him as a serial murderer and identified him as the prime suspect in a 2004 death that Clarksburg police reopened.
In July 2020, Reta Mays, a former nursing assistant at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg, pleaded guilty to seven counts of second-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder in the deaths of veterans at the hospital. In May 2021, she was sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences plus 20 years.
Clarksburg is located at 39°16′50″N 80°20′40″W / 39.28056°N 80.34444°W, along the West Fork River and Elk Creek.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.715 square miles (25.16 km2), of which 9.713 square miles (25.16 km2) is land and 0.002 square miles (0.01 km2) is water.
Clarksburg is located in North Central West Virginia. It lies within the Western Allegheny Plateau ecoregion.
Clarksburg is located at the junction of U.S. Route 50 and U.S. Route 19, two miles west of the junction of U.S. Route 50 with Interstate 79. The city lies at an elevation of 1,007 feet (307 m) at the confluence of Elk Creek and the West Fork River.
NOAA's 1991–2020 climate normals for the Clarksburg 1 station near the city center show an annual mean temperature of 52.8 °F (11.6 °C), average annual precipitation of 48.24 in (1,225 mm), and average annual snowfall of 23.8 in (60 cm).
Record temperatures range from −24 °F (−31 °C) on January 19, 1994, to 102 °F (39 °C), most recently recorded on September 3 and 4, 1953.
At the 2020 census, Clarksburg had a population of 16,061. The United States Census Bureau estimated the city's population at 15,562 as of July 1, 2025.
For 2020–2024, the Census Bureau reported 6,753 households in Clarksburg, with an average of 2.28 persons per household. Median household income was $47,386, and per capita income was $27,699.
Clarksburg's industrial growth in the 19th and early 20th centuries brought successive waves of immigrants to the city, including Irish, Italians, Greeks, French, Belgians, and Spanish.
Belgian immigrants from the Charleroi area became closely associated with the window-glass industry. During the early 20th century, French was frequently spoken in the North View neighborhood, where French-speaking residents often were Walloons, or French-speaking Belgians. Adamston, now part of Clarksburg, was among the Belgian enclaves that elected Socialist mayors before World War I.
Clarksburg remains one of the centers of Italian-American population in West Virginia. The Glen Elk neighborhood was designated "Clarksburg's Little Italy" by the city in 2019. The West Virginia Italian Heritage Festival was first held in downtown Clarksburg in 1979 and is held each Labor Day weekend to celebrate the state's Italian-American culture.
Public education in Clarksburg is provided by Harrison County Schools, whose central office is located in the city. The city's public secondary schools include Robert C. Byrd High School and Liberty Middle School.
Liberty Middle School opened for the 2025–26 school year following the consolidation of Washington Irving Middle School and Mountaineer Middle School. The consolidated school occupies the former Liberty High School facility.
Notre Dame Middle and High School is a Catholic secondary school located on East Pike Street.
Pierpont Community & Technical College operates its Clarksburg campus on West Main Street. The campus includes the Gaston Caperton Center and the Veterinary Technology Building. In 2022, Pierpont announced a nearly $2 million investment to renovate the former Clarksburg Eye Center for its veterinary technology program. The facility was designed to include classrooms and hands-on training areas and to be modeled on a modern veterinary hospital.
Clarksburg operates under a council-manager form of government. The city council serves as the legislative body, while the city manager handles the day-to-day operations of the city and carries out policies adopted by the council.
The mayor presides over meetings of the city council and serves as the head of city government for ceremonial and military purposes, but has no regular administrative duties.
Law enforcement services are provided by the Clarksburg Police Department.
Fire protection is provided by the Clarksburg Fire Department, which operates from four fire stations in the city. The city maintains a Class 2 rating from the Insurance Services Office.
The Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center is located in Clarksburg and is the main campus of the VA Clarksburg Healthcare System. The system provides health care through the Clarksburg medical center and outpatient facilities serving northern and central West Virginia.
United Hospital Center was formed in 1970 through the merger of St. Mary's Hospital and Union Protestant Hospital. A new United Hospital Center opened in Bridgeport in 2010. The former United Hospital Center in Clarksburg was converted into Highland-Clarksburg Hospital, a nonprofit behavioral health hospital that began admitting patients in August 2013.
The availability of natural resources and access to railroad facilities attracted industry and manufacturing to Clarksburg. Industries included chemical plants, brickworks, potteries, foundries and machine shops, hardwood and casket companies, glass factories, and the Jackson, later Phillips, Sheet and Tin Plate Company, a forerunner of Weirton Steel. Economic development brought successive waves of immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Irish, Italians, Greeks, French, Belgians, and Spanish.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Clarksburg, West Virginia”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.