Northern Panhandle

The Northern Panhandle is West Virginia’s narrow strip running 60 miles up the Ohio River between the Pennsylvania and Ohio borders — six counties (Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Ohio, Tyler, Wetzel) wedged into the geographic oddity that the panhandle creates. The terrain is steep hills dropping to a tight river valley, with industrial bottoms and forested ridges side by side. Wheeling anchors Ohio County as the largest city, with the Wheeling Suspension Bridge (the oldest still in vehicular service), Oglebay Resort, and the Capitol Theatre downtown. Weirton and New Cumberland fill the upper end in Hancock County, with Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort just south of the Pennsylvania line. Moundsville in Marshall County holds Grave Creek Mound — the largest conical Adena burial mound in the country — and the historic West Virginia Penitentiary tour. Sistersville on the Ohio in Tyler County preserves a small Victorian river town; New Martinsville rounds out Wetzel. Most trips here center on Wheeling — Oglebay’s Festival of Lights from November through January, the suspension bridge walks, and Heritage Port concerts in summer. Mountaineer draws the gaming traffic. The corridor reads as Pittsburgh-adjacent in feel.