Situated along the Ohio River, Benwood is a dynamic, culturally diverse city located in the heart of West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle.

Just a five-minute drive north to Wheeling and a 10-minute drive south to Moundsville, it is close to excellent schools, high-quality healthcare, and a multitude of shopping and dining options.

Benwood offers affordable real estate, low crime, and a beautiful, modern city park that features a new swimming pool with splash pad, newly renovated playground, ball field, basketball court, amphitheater and several picnic shelters.

With a high quality of life, low-cost living, and strategic location near river, rail and highways, Benwood is an ideal place for people looking to relocate or open a business and offers ample opportunities for commercial and industrial development.

Our city is a great place to live, work, and raise a family. It’s a small town with a big heart, whose residents are some of the hardest-working and friendliest people you’ll ever meet. Benwood is a welcoming, tight-knit community where no one is a stranger, neighbors become friends and “Where Everybody is Somebody.”

HISTORY

In 1771, in the British Colony of Virginia, Captain William McMechen and his wife, Sidney Johnson McMechen, came and settled upon a vast tract of land along the Ohio River where the cities of Benwood and McMechen now stand. Their son, Benjamin, eventually inherited several hundred acres of his father’s estate and it was upon this land, known as “Ben’s Woods,” that he built his homestead and farm. Benwood was chartered by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1853 and was incorporated by an Act of the West Virginia Legislature on February 22, 1895.

BENWOOD MINE DISASTER & MEMORIAL

Benwood was the location of the third worst mine disaster to occur in the state of West Virginia. At approximately 7:05 AM on Monday, April 28, 1924, the coal mine of the Wheeling Steel Corporation’s mill located in Benwood exploded, killing all 119 men who were working in the mine at the time. The majority of the miners killed were recent immigrants of Polish, Italian, Greek, Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian and Lithuanian descent. The Benwood Mine Disaster Memorial was dedicated in 2014.