Cassville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Monongalia County, West Virginia, United States. It lies along Scotts Run, a tributary of the Monongahela River, roughly six miles (about 10 km) northwest of Morgantown, and is included in the Morgantown metropolitan statistical area.
Geography
Cassville is located at approximately 39°39′43″N 80°3′3″W (39.6619, −80.0509). According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of about 3.6 square miles (9.2 km²), all land. The community's elevation is given as roughly 1,001 feet (305 m) in the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System.
Name
The community was named for Lewis Cass (1782–1866), an American statesman who served as Secretary of War, Secretary of State, and Governor of the Michigan Territory. This attribution appears in Hamill Kenny's West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning (1945), a standard reference for the state's toponymy. A post office at Cassville is recorded as having opened in 1847, based on a compilation of U.S. post office data.
History
Cassville is one of roughly thirteen small unincorporated communities lying within the Scotts Run district of Monongalia County's former Cass District. The area was largely agricultural in the late nineteenth century before being transformed by the coal boom of the early twentieth century. Historians of the region describe Scotts Run as one of the most intensively developed coal-mining hollows in West Virginia, and note that many of those who settled in Cass District during that period were immigrants and African Americans drawn by mining employment.
The poverty and labor conditions of the Scotts Run communities during the Great Depression attracted national attention. Eleanor Roosevelt visited the area in 1933, and the conditions she observed contributed to the establishment of the nearby planned community of Arthurdale, a federal resettlement project.
Demographics
Population figures for Cassville vary by source and census year, and caution is warranted. The 2000 census recorded 1,586 residents in the CDP. Published counts for the 2020 census differ across sources—Wikipedia gives 1,268, while other compilations report approximately 1,042—and the American Community Survey five-year estimates for 2020–2024 report about 1,149 residents. At the 2000 census, the CDP contained 644 households and 446 families, with a median household income of $25,799; more recent survey estimates place the median household income substantially higher.
- ZIP code: 26527 (postal routes also overlap 26501 and 26541)
- Area codes: 304 and 681
- FIPS place code: 54-13756
- GNIS feature ID: 1554085
Administrative status
As a census-designated place, Cassville is a statistical entity defined by the Census Bureau; it is not a legal municipality and has no governmental functions of its own. Local services are provided by Monongalia County and other county-level authorities.
Other places named Cassville
At least one other West Virginia community bears the name Cassville, in Wayne County. Beyond the state, numerous communities in the United States and Canada share the name, including in Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and Quebec.
Sources
Information above is drawn from U.S. Census Bureau data and gazetteers, the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System, Hamill Kenny's West Virginia Place Names (1945), the West Virginia History journal, and regional historical organizations documenting the Scotts Run coal district. In light of the divergent population figures reported for the 2020 census, exact demographic totals should be verified against primary Census Bureau releases.
