Aurora

Preston County, West Virginia

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Aurora is an unincorporated census‑designated place in Preston County, West Virginia, United States. As of the 2010 census, its population was 201. Aurora was originally a German settlement. (Wikipedia, accessed July, 2012). Zip code: 26705.

Aurora as described in 1941 [1]

Aurora, on the summit of Cheat Mountain, attracts summer visitors because of its high altitude and clean air. They live in summer cottages or pitch tents back from the highway on the edge of broad buckwheat fields, and spend the hottest days of summer in cool comfort.

The first settlement was made in 1787 by the Reverend John Stough; in 1800 John Wheeler moved here from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and other families settled nearby from time to time. In 1840 a town was laid out and named West Union, being re-christened in 1875. In the eastern edge of town are the ruins of Rising Sun Tavern, built in 1838 by Major David Stemples, and popular in the days of the turnpike; the tavern burned about 1920; only the huge stones in the chimney mark the site.

  1. Workers of the Writers' Program of the Works Progress Administration, State of West Virginia, Federal Works Agency, West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State, 1941, American Guide Series.

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