Hillsboro was founded in 1843 and is located in southern Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Hillsboro was named for John Hill, who was instrumental in the formation of the town. During the Civil War, Brigadier General W.W. Averell camped here in 1863 before the Battle of Droop Mountain, as well as after his raid on Salem, Virginia. Earlier settlements were made in the vicinity in the 1760s by John McNeel and the Kennisons, for which nearby Kennison Mountain—one of West Virginia's highest mountains—was named.
Hillsboro incorporated in 1886, and was the first town in Pocahontas County to do so. Hillsboro is located in the Little Levels: a broad, level plain west of the Greenbrier River. The region is among the finest limestone farming areas in West Virginia and is a popular retirement and second-home area. Many scenic farms extend outward from the town, across the levels, and into the surrounding mountains of the Monongahela National Forest.
Hillsboro attracts many tourists with its restaurants and country markets, but is probably best known as the birthplace of author Pearl S. Buck. Buck won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her novel The Good Earth in 1932, and in 1938 won the Nobel Prize for Literature after writing biographies of her parents, The Exile and The Fighting Angel.
Beartown State Park and historical Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park are located a few miles south of Hillsboro. Watoga State Park and the Greenbrier River Trail are also located near the town and help bolster its growing tourism economy.
Fans of our scenic community can now keep in touch with the Town of Hillsboro on Facebook.
Be sure to see the History of Little Levels for more background on the Hillsboro area.
