Christmas Lighting Installation in Clarksburg, WV

Clarksburg lies at 1,007 feet where Elk Creek meets the West Fork River. The 1991 to 2020 climate normals for the Clarksburg 1 station near the city center show 23.8 inches of snow and 48.24 inches of precipitation a year.

Clarksburg WinterFest puts a Christmas parade through downtown on a Friday evening in early December, followed by a tree lighting on the lawn of the Waldomore.

The Oak Mounds, two prehistoric burial mounds, lie south of Clarksburg. The trapper John Simpson was the first European known to claim land here, in 1764, and settlement began in the early 1770s. The town was chartered in 1785, the Northwestern Turnpike reached it in the 1830s, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad followed in the mid 1850s.

Glassmaking shaped the city. The Hazel-Atlas Glass Company ran a plant here from 1902 to 1987 that became the world's largest tumbler factory, and the Akro Agate Company moved from Akron in 1914 and became a major maker of glass marbles. Glen Elk, north of the business district, was developed after 1898 and is a National Register district of brick warehouses, small shops, frame houses and the Baltimore and Ohio depot of 1903.

The Clarksburg Downtown Historic District, listed in 1982, covers 119 buildings in 16 blocks, in styles from Renaissance Revival to Italianate. Waldomore, a Neo-Classical brick mansion at West Pike and North Fourth streets, was built in 1839. The Stealey-Goff-Vance House on West Main Street dates from about 1807 and was remodeled about 1891 with Victorian trim, and the Quality Hill Historic District runs along East Main Street.