Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Below: 7 old photos and papers, maps from 1910 on, and the census since 1940.
The Smithers post office opened in 1902, the earliest record of the town by name. Two smaller post offices, Harewood (1895) and Longacre (1898), opened inside today’s city and later closed.
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Smithers’s post office has been open since 1902. 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).
Every edition of the U.S. Geological Survey’s map of Smithers. 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 Smithers.
From Wikipedia’s history of Smithers.
Smithers was incorporated in 1938. The city was named for James Smithers, an early settler who resided at the mouth of Smithers Creek.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Passages that mention Smithers, cut from the printed page as they were published.
There are no incorporated towns in the district, but scattered over the district are fourteen thriving communities at which post offices have been established, as follows: Gauley Bridge, Glen Ferris, Bonear, Boomer, Longacre, Smithers, Carbondale, Cannelton, Marting, Vanetta, Gamoca, Wyndal, Romont, and Jodie. During the sixties, J. Gardiner Paxton, of Rockbridge county, Virginia, owner of large boundaries of coal lands in this district, opened the No. 2 gas coal near the present coal opening at Long-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
The main line of the Kanawha & Michigan railroad now the New York Central, extends from Gauley Bridge along the north bank of Kanawha river northwestward in Fayette, crossing the Kanawha county line near the mouth of Smithers creek, just above Cannelton. Northwestward from the latter point, the road continues along the north bank of the Kanawha via Charleston to Point Pleasant and thence with its connections across Ohio to the Great Lakes. The portion of the main line included in Fayette is about
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.
On the mapFirst mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey
Born hereGino Marchetti is born here
In the archiveBurning coke ovens
In the archiveEVENING IN THE KANAWHA VALLEY TOWN OF2 decades in the archive, from the 1930s to the 1970s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as an old one and they appear here side by side.
Find the spot, match the angle, and add your photo. It becomes the first then-and-now pair on Smithers’ page.
Retake this view · +15Between 754 and 2,232 people in every census since 1940.
9 censuses, 1940–2020.
U.S. Census Bureau decennial counts, from the census table on Smithers’ Wikipedia page.
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
Each neighbor’s History grade, on the same three inputs.
The Smithers post office opened in 1902, the earliest record of the town by name (U.S. post office records).
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 (6), the Library of Congress (6), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people, 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.
1939
1939
1939
1939
1939
2001
2001
2001
2001
2001