Tag: Richwood

Richwood is a city in Nicholas County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 2,477 at the 2000 census. A former coal and lumber boom town, the city’s population once flirted with 10,000 but the closure of many underground coal mines caused many of Richwood’s residents to leave the state in order to find work. The area is currently focusing on niche tourism as a means to revitalize the local economy. It calls itself the “Ramp Capital of the World” and hosts a large festival every April in honor of the pungent wild leek.
The area surrounding the forks of the Cherry River has been populated since the late 18th century CE. Local legend holds that Shawnee chief Blue Jacket was in fact a young white hunter named Marmaduke Van Swearingen who was kidnapped in the area. This theory, however, has generally fallen out of favor with most scholars.
During the 19th century, the area was a sparsely-settled semi-wilderness of homesteads and subsistence farms. This changed in 1898 when a…