About Ritchie County
Ritchie County is in the west central part of the state located east of Parkersburg, west of Clarksburg, and about 84 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was formed in 1843 from parts of Harrison, Lewis, and Wood counties. The county is named after Thomas Ritchie (1778-1854), a prominent Virginia newspaper owner and editor who was also the state and Congressional printer and a nephew of Virginia judge Spencer Roane. Ritchie was a champion of democratic reform for Virginia in terms of representation for western counties.
It is rural with a present territory of 454 square miles and a population of 10,343. Its county seat and major town is Harrisville (pop. 1,842) located in the north central part of the county. Other towns are Auburn (pop. 103); Cairo (pop. 263); Ellenboro (pop. 373); Pennsboro (pop. 1,199); and Pullman (pop. 169). It is drained by tributaries of the Little Kanawha River primarily the Hughes River and its tributaries. Immediately north of Harrisville is a lake on the North Fork Hughes River formed by a man-made dam on its western end where there is also located the county’s only recreational area, North Bend State Park.
Manufacturing is the major source of employment with the making of plastic products as its main component. There is also some manufacturing employment in apparel, glass products, wood products, and motor vehicle body parts. Other major sources of employment are retail, construction, health care and social assistance, wholesale in durable goods, and the extraction of oil and gas. Agriculturally there is some notable production of eggs, but the major products are livestock and forage.
