Peaked at 877 in 1950; 363 people lived here in 2020.
12 censuses, 1910–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Pine Grove’s Wikipedia page.
On the map
Pine Grove on the map, 1903 to 1976
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Pine Grove. Tap a year, or press play to watch the town change.
1903Littleton sheet · 1:62,500
U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (public domain), via Esri’s collection of the scans. The red ring marks the center of Pine Grove.
The story so far
Pine Grove, in brief
Wikipedia doesn’t have a history of Pine Grove yet. The photos, dates and memories neighbors add here are how it gets written.
Pine Grove is a town in Wetzel County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 363 at the 2020 census. The community was named for a grove of pine trees near the original town site. The town is one mile north of Dominion Energy's large Hastings Extraction Station, which separates natural gas into various subproducts such as butane. The Hastings plant is unique in that there are traffic signals approximately 0.75 mile away from the plant in either direction to stop traffic in case of an emergency. Pine Grove is also home to Valley High School.
Its first post office opened in 1830. Between the 2010 and 2020 censuses its population fell from 552 to 363 (-34%).
Intro from Wikipedia. Population: U.S. Census Bureau.
From the old history books
What they wrote about Pine Grove in 1900
Passages that mention Pine Grove, cut from the printed page as they were published.
All of this he has leased to his sons except 152 acres which he yet manages himself. Mr. Jolliff moved to the village of Pine Grove where he was elected supervisor in 1859, and served two years. Shortly afterwards he was elected president of the board of education which office he held for a period of
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
Pine Grove, 1830 to 1950
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
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 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.
