Christmas Lighting Installation in St. Clairsville, OH

Holiday on the Hilltop is St. Clairsville's annual tree lighting and parade, held in November in front of the Belmont County courthouse.

The Belmont County Courthouse stands on the highest ground in the St. Clairsville area, so it can be seen from Interstate 70. The Second Empire building went up between 1885 and 1888, faced in rusticated sandstone and topped with a clock tower and dome. A 3,800 pound steel bell that once hung in the tower now rests out front, and the stairs and landing on the grounds hold the farmers' market in summer and the public Christmas tree in winter.

A veterans memorial stands beside it, with the bicentennial bell in the southern courtyard. It replaced a brick Federal style courthouse of 1815 with a cupola, which in turn replaced a two-story log courthouse of 1805 planned along Zane's Trace.

St. Clairsville began in 1796 as Newellstown, and the town took its present name in 1802 for General Arthur St. Clair. By 1833 it had a brick courthouse and jail, five houses of worship, five taverns, three printing offices and many mechanics' shops. A fire in 1866 and a tornado in 1887 destroyed much of downtown.

Downtown is now the St. Clairsville Historic District, listed in 1994, with Victorian era buildings that include the courthouse and the Clarendon Hotel of 1890. The nickname Paradise on the Hilltop dates from the early 1920s, when it went on the logo for the first big subdivision, on the east side, now called East Lawn.

The Historic National Road, America's first federally funded multi-state highway, is the city's Main Street as U.S. Route 40, and it carries the All-American Road designation. West of town stand the Brick Tavern House, one of the oldest National Road taverns still in existence, and the Great Western Schoolhouse, a one-room building of 1870 that was used until 1952. The National Road Bikeway opened on June 26, 1998, and runs through a rail tunnel 532 feet long and 40 feet high, the only rail trail in Ohio with a tunnel.

The city opened the Newlin Falls Nature Trail in 2018, linking Memorial Park to a forested tract. Interstate 70 and State Route 9 serve the city, and Interstate 470 begins nearby.