Oak Hill (West Virginia)

Oak Hill is a city of 8,100 people (as of 2019) in West Virginia. The largest city in Fayette County, it was incorporated in 1905.

Get in
Oak Hill is located on US-19 off I-77 and I-79, between Beckley and Sutton. Coming from the north, take I-79 exit 57; from the south, take I-77 exit 48.

A taxi from Yeager Airport in Charleston to Oak Hill will cost you around $120; from Beckley will cost around $50.

Get around

 * Mountain Transit Authority, 1096 Broad Street in Summersville, +1 304-872-5872 or +1-877-712-9432. Daily bus service throughout Fayette County, as well as Greenbrier, Nicholas, Pocahontas and Webster counties.

See
Main Street is the heart of downtown and the location of many area shops and restaurants. Storefronts are decorated with fodder shocks and bows during the autumn, and icicle lights and greenery at Christmas.


 * The Hank Williams Memorial is a plaque dedicated to the country music singer, who was pronounced dead in Oak Hill on January 1, 1953.
 * The small village of Minden (Minden Road, off WV-16) was a mining town in 1899, and still features examples of the company-built miners' homes. The mines themselves closed in the 1950s, and today the village - although it's only about 5 minutes outside Oak Hill - has a very different look than most small country towns. If you pay it a visit, drive slowly - the roads are narrow, with homes crowded close in, and young children are often playing in the streets. Minden has been a source of contention due to its status as a Superfund site and the community's contamination with PCBs in the 1980s, which many have claimed led to a "cancer cluster" in the area.
 * The small village of Minden (Minden Road, off WV-16) was a mining town in 1899, and still features examples of the company-built miners' homes. The mines themselves closed in the 1950s, and today the village - although it's only about 5 minutes outside Oak Hill - has a very different look than most small country towns. If you pay it a visit, drive slowly - the roads are narrow, with homes crowded close in, and young children are often playing in the streets. Minden has been a source of contention due to its status as a Superfund site and the community's contamination with PCBs in the 1980s, which many have claimed led to a "cancer cluster" in the area.
 * The small village of Minden (Minden Road, off WV-16) was a mining town in 1899, and still features examples of the company-built miners' homes. The mines themselves closed in the 1950s, and today the village - although it's only about 5 minutes outside Oak Hill - has a very different look than most small country towns. If you pay it a visit, drive slowly - the roads are narrow, with homes crowded close in, and young children are often playing in the streets. Minden has been a source of contention due to its status as a Superfund site and the community's contamination with PCBs in the 1980s, which many have claimed led to a "cancer cluster" in the area.
 * The small village of Minden (Minden Road, off WV-16) was a mining town in 1899, and still features examples of the company-built miners' homes. The mines themselves closed in the 1950s, and today the village - although it's only about 5 minutes outside Oak Hill - has a very different look than most small country towns. If you pay it a visit, drive slowly - the roads are narrow, with homes crowded close in, and young children are often playing in the streets. Minden has been a source of contention due to its status as a Superfund site and the community's contamination with PCBs in the 1980s, which many have claimed led to a "cancer cluster" in the area.

Do
Most of the whitewater rafting companies base themselves in adjacent Fayetteville, but if you don't want to go that far, there's one option in town.

Go next

 * Fayetteville is practically adjacent to Oak Hill on US-19.
 * Beckley is about 20 minutes south on US-19.
 * Summersville is about 30 minutes north on US-19.
 * Lewisburg is a little over 1 hour east on US-60 and I-64.
 * Charleston is a little over 1 hour west on I-64 and I-77.
 * Bluefield is a little over 1 hour south on I-77.