W.H. Smith Hardware Company Building

A four-story 1899 hardware store in downtown Parkersburg that now houses the Oil & Gas Museum.

119 Third Street, Parkersburg, WV 26101 · Parkersburg, WV

About W.H. Smith Hardware Company Building

This historic commercial building in downtown Parkersburg was erected in 1899 on the footprint of an earlier structure. Its masonry walls and Romanesque Revival details reflect late nineteenth-century commercial design. The W. H. Smith Hardware Company occupied the building until the 1980s. Today it holds the Oil & Gas Museum, which traces the regional petroleum and natural gas industry across the Appalachian Basin, from early artifacts to modern operations. Exhibits also cover West Virginia statehood, the Civil War, local military history, glassmaking, and Mid-Ohio Valley industry. The museum is one of the historic sites run by the Museums of the Mid-Ohio Valley.

#oil and gas history
#Civil War
#West Virginia statehood
#industrial history
#National Register of Historic Places

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What's around here?

The closest stops to W.H. Smith Hardware Company Building, ordered by straight-line distance. A few more like it, plus some different kinds of fun so you can build a full day.

Shopping
Grand Central Mall
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Transit: reachable by public transit
2.5 mi awaySwitch it up: Shopping
Sightseeing
Blennerhassett Island Historical State Park
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Sports & Outdoors
Ohio River Islands National Wildlife Refuge Interpretative Exhibit
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Visitor center on the Ohio River with interactive exhibits on refuge wildlife, mussels, and regional history.
12 mi awaySwitch it up: Sports & Outdoors
Museums
Peoples Mortuary Museum
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A funeral-history museum behind the Marietta chapel of Cawley and Peoples Funeral Homes, showing old hearses and vehicles.
12 mi awayMore like this
Museums
Ohio River Museum
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Marietta museum on Ohio River history, currently closed while a new facility is built.
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Museums
The Castle
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A Victorian house museum in Marietta, Ohio, offering guided tours of an 1855 Gothic Revival home.
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