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Hancock County

Hancock is the most northern and the smallest of West Virginia’s counties, encompassing only 88.2 square miles. The Ohio River marks Hancock’s northern and western borders with the state of Ohio.

Mapped Points

• New Cumberland

  New Cumberland, the county seat of Hancock County, was laid out in 1839 by John Cuppy on the site of Fort Chapman and received its charter in 1849.

• Weirton

  Weirton, located in southern Hancock and northern Brooke counties, is an industrial city once dominated by Weirton Steel Company. The company was once the largest private employer in West Virginia and the state’s first billion-dollar corporation.
  

  

• Ohio River

  The Ohio River begins at Pittsburgh, with the union of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. From there the Ohio travels 981 miles to Cairo, Illinois, where it joins the Mississippi.

• Homer Laughlin China Company

  Homer Laughlin China Company in Newell produces Fiestaware, a popular line of dinnerware.
  

  

• Chester Teapot

  The Chester Teapot is a red-and-white landmark known locally as ‘‘The World’s Largest Teapot.’’
  

  

• Tomlinson Run State Park

  Tomlinson Run State Park started with a Civilian Conservation Corps camp in the late 1930s. Visitors can still see some of the picnic shelters built of massive stone, a hallmark throughout West Virginia of the expert handiwork of the CCC crews.

• Peter Tarr Furnace

  The first iron furnace west of the Allegheny Mountains was built in present Hancock County in the early 1790s by a Mr. Grant, and acquired in 1801 by Peter Tarr and James Rankin. Known to history by Peter Tarr’s name, the furnace was located along Kings Creek, a tributary of the Ohio River, just north of Weirton.
  

  

• Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort

  Mountaineer Casino Racetrack & Resort, located in Chester, was called Waterford Park when it opened as a thoroughbred horse racing track in 1951. The complex has since grown to include a 360-room hotel, restaurants, an 18-hole golf course, a fitness center, and a 5,100-seat theater and events center, in addition to the racetrack and the casino.

• Browns Island

  Browns Island is 250 acres in area and four miles long. It has a rich prehistory and is most noted for the Browns Island Petroglyph, now permanently inundated by the Ohio River, and a small Adena mound.