Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Its Register listing is the Good Shepherd Church. Below: maps from 1910 on and the census since 1900.
East Bank dates its founding to 1889 (Wikipedia’s history). The census first counted it in 1900.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how East Bank’s history is told.
Peaked at 1,155 in 1980; 822 people lived here in 2020.
13 censuses, 1900–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on East Bank’s Wikipedia page.
Two other post offices opened and closed inside today’s town.
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
From Wikipedia’s history of East Bank.
East Bank was incorporated in 1889 by special charter enacted by the West Virginia Legislature. It is so named on account of the town's location on the east side of the Kanawha River.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention East Bank, cut from the printed page as they were published.
one of the first settlers and the last white man killed by the Indians in Kanawha, (so said), and she was Nancy Morris of Cabell County, in Teays Valley. He lived at East Bank, and practiced medicine, and one season along in the upper part of the county there was (about 1845), an epidemic of typhoid fever, and about one half of those that took it died. He was
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Operator, East Bank Mining Company; No complete record of the quantity of coal mine, East Bank; postofnce, East Bank. mined in Kanawha county has been kept in the We append herewith an approximate stateoffice of the Chief of the Department of Mines ment of the coal and coke shipments of Kaprior to the year 1883.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
BuiltGood Shepherd Church is built
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological SurveyEvery edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of East Bank. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of East Bank.
The country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places. Photos from Wikimedia Commons, credited on each place’s page.
Nobody well known was born in East Bank itself, so here are the best known from just nearby.
In 1889, according to Wikipedia’s history of the town. East Bank’s post office opened in 1875, and the census of 1900 counted 468 people here.
One place: the Good Shepherd Church (listed 1990).
What the archives can’t tell you, neighbors can.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (4), the National Register of Historic Places (1), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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