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Christopher Gist was the first European-American to visit what is now Marshall County in 1751 while exploring for the Ohio Company. The first European settlers, John Wetzel and his family, arrived around 1769 or 1770, followed by others like the Zanes. During the Revolutionary War, settlers used Fort Henry in Wheeling, built in 1774, for protection from from the British and their Indian allies.
The Western Virginian and People's Press, started in Elizabethtown in 1831, was the first of at least 26 newspapers in the area. The Moundsville Daily Echo began in 1891 as a weekly and became a daily in 1896. It was the last newspaper in Marshall County when it closed in 2024.
Before the railroad, the Ohio River was the main way to travel. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which ran from Baltimore to Wheeling, was completed on December 24, 1852, near Moundsville.
