The story
Read it all →How Jane Lew came to be
From Wikipedia’s history of Jane Lew.
The community was named after Jane Lew, the mother of the original owner of the town site.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
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History · Jane Lew
25% of Jane Lew’s homes were built before 1940
Below: old-book passages.
0on the National Register
25%homes built before 1940
3famous people
What stands out about Jane Lew’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
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Start Jane Lew’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Jane Lew’s history is told.
Decades since 1900 with photos
00s10s20s30s40s50s60s70s80s90s
0 of 10 decades. The empty ones are waiting for someone’s album.From the old history books
What they wrote about Jane Lew in 1920
Passages that mention Jane Lew, cut from the printed page as they were published.
A history of Lewis County, West Virginia1920 · page 23Read the page →
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nearby a burial ground where the dead had been laid to rest, from immemorial centuries. The locations which have been identified are Minor Hall's residence within the corporate limits of the town of Jane Lew, a second bottom at the mouth of Jesse's run, two locations within a short distance of each other on the farm of the late John Alkire, the original John Hacker settlement about one mile below Berlin, the old Cozad farm in the same
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A history of Lewis County, West Virginia1920Read the page →
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Jane Lew became an important shipping point for gas well supplies after active operations were begun in the vicinity. Much of the casing for the wells on Kincheloe creek, McCann's run, Hacker's creek and the surrounding regions, as well as pipe for lines through the vicinity were unloaded in the Jane Lew yards. In 1906 Jane Lew had excellent prospects of securing a glass factory. A lot sale was held to open an important tract
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.
Timeline
Jane Lew, 1830 to 1930
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
By decade
Jane Lew, decade by decade
2006
2006
2004Famous people
See all →3 famous people were born in Jane Lew
Writers, athletes, leaders and more, ranked by how widely they’re known.
Places that used to be
Lost post offices, old corners and burying grounds
Another post office, Hackersville, opened and closed inside today’s town.
Hamlets and corners on the map
Hall AdditionStraley Addition
1cemetery inside Jane Lew
Straley
US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock, CC0). Places and cemeteries from the USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021).
Questions about Jane Lew’s history
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Sources
Where this page comes from
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 (3), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.