Five Reasons to Love Hundred

Morgantown Magazine Staff

4 years ago

This once-bustling crossroads has an interesting namesake.

Makenna Spangler contributed to this story

Take the drive west from Morgantown on W.V. Route 7, and you’ll pass several places you’ve probably heard about: the village of Core, for example, named for the family of the WVU botanist that the Core Arboretum is named for, and Mason–Dixon Historical Park, where the storied surveying duo was forced to stop 23 miles short of their goal in 1767.

Not quite an hour into your scenic drive, you’ll cross into Wetzel County. Follow U.S. Route 250 north, and you’ll soon be in the unexpected town of Hundred. Now a quiet spot, Hundred lies at the once-busy junction of Route 7 between Morgantown and New Martinsville and Route 250 between Wheeling and Fairmont. The B&O Railroad came through, too.

You’ll find plenty to love about Hundred.

We know you’re wondering, and it’s a good story: The town was named for Englishman and adventurer Henry “Old Hundred” Church, who’d already lived a century when the B&O came through in 1852 and lived to be 109.
Baseball player Edward Lee King, who played for the Pirates, the Giants, and the Phillies in the 1910s and ’20s, was born in Hundred in 1892.
If you’re in Hundred early on a weekday, definitely stop at Lori’s Cup of Joe, a charmingly outfitted drive-through “coffee cabin” serving coffee drinks, breakfast and lunch sandwiches, and baked goods Hundreders and passers-through rave about.
The local grocery and convenience stop is 4Sisters Market—stop here for homemade prepared foods and daily specials.
On your way back to Morgantown, be sure to detour for one of the few covered bridges you can still drive through in West Virginia. Just after you rejoin Route 7, turn right on County Route 13, Rush Run Road. The ca. 1880 Fish Creek Covered Bridge uses a king post truss construction, for covered bridge aficionados, and was rebuilt in 2001.

Part of the former B&O line is now a paved rail-trail. Before you leave town, park and walk the ⅔-mile East Wetzel Rail-Trail—you’ll see it parallel much of Main Street.

It seems no other town in the United States has thought to name itself for a respected centenarian resident—Hundred, West Virginia, is the only place that goes by the name.