The Story of Tacketts Branch Road

The land beneath 756 and 758 Tacketts Branch Road holds a geological story that stretches back hundreds of millions of years. This property sits within the Appalachian Plateau Province, a vast, westward-tilting tableland of nearly horizontal sedimentary rock layers deposited during the Paleozoic Era (540–250 million years ago).

The bedrock belongs to the Kanawha Formation of the Pennsylvanian-age Pottsville Group — a thick sequence of 1,150 to 1,200 feet of sandstone (roughly 50%), shale, siltstone, and coal beds, laid down when this region was a swampy coastal plain near the equator. The strong Pottsville sandstone creates the ridges that frame the surrounding terrain, while softer shales form the valleys where streams have carved their channels over millennia.

What makes Tacketts Branch Road extraordinary is its position directly on the Teays Valley floor. The Teays River — believed to be the second-oldest river on Earth — once carved this broad valley as a massive waterway originating in present-day North Carolina, flowing northward through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to the Gulf of Mexico. Before the Pleistocene Ice Ages (more than 2.5 million years ago), the Teays was the dominant river system of eastern North America.

The modern city of Hurricane sits directly in the ancient Teays Valley, which is approximately one mile wide at this point. Tacketts Branch Road, closer to the valley center than Turkey Creek to the south, occupies some of the flattest, most fertile terrain in the region — the ancient riverbed itself.

As glaciers retreated, Lake Tight filled the Teays Valley with sediments — 180 feet of gravel and clay accumulated in the Scott Depot area alone. These deep sediment deposits created the gently rolling terrain that makes the Tacketts Branch area ideal for development. When Hurricane’s post office was constructed in 1995, builders hit a deposit of groundwater trapped in the ancient river’s gravels — the ghost of the Teays still lingers beneath the surface.

Approximately 800,000 years ago, the Ohio River system formed from redirected glacial meltwater, and the Teays Valley between present-day Nitro and Huntington was abandoned. Hurricane Creek and its tributaries, including Tacketts Branch, now drain portions of what was once this mighty river’s domain.

Tacketts Branch is a tributary of Hurricane Creek, part of the broader Hurricane Creek watershed that drains southward into the Kanawha River. Unlike the steep, narrow hollows of nearby Turkey Creek, the Tacketts Branch area benefits from the wide, gentle topography of the Teays Valley floor. Elevations here are lower and more consistent, ranging from roughly 600 to 700 feet — a landscape shaped more by ancient river deposition than by the erosive carving that defines the surrounding ridges.

The road’s name tells its own story. The Tackett family was among the earliest and most prominent pioneer families in the Virginia frontier that became West Virginia. Lewis Tackett, a Scots-Irish settler, arrived in the upper Big Sandy River area in the late 1700s, and the family spread across southwestern Virginia and what is now West Virginia over the following decades.

Tacketts were among the families who took up land grants in Putnam County after the Treaty of Camp Charlotte opened the Kanawha Valley to settlement. The branch (creek) that bears their name was likely the site of an early Tackett homestead — a common naming pattern in Appalachian topography where waterways were identified by the families who settled along them.

Around 1815, a settlement formed near present-day eastern Hurricane called Hurricane Creek Bridge, serving as a stop on the James River & Kanawha Turnpike — the main overland route connecting the Shenandoah Valley to the Ohio River, originally proposed by George Washington and completed in 1832. This turnpike, following modern US Route 60, passed closer to the Tacketts Branch area than to the more remote hollows to the south.

Putnam County was established on March 11, 1848, carved from portions of Kanawha, Mason, and Cabell counties. Named for General Israel Putnam, who commanded Continental forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill, the 1850 census recorded 5,336 residents — including 632 enslaved people, reflecting the county’s position in the border region.

Unlike western territories surveyed under the Township-Range-Section system, West Virginia is a “state land state” — property was described using metes and bounds (natural landmarks, compass bearings, and measured distances). Property histories along Tacketts Branch must be traced through the Putnam County Courthouse and the West Virginia State Archives.

The Civil War divided Putnam County — roughly 400 soldiers served on each side. The most notable engagement was the Battle of Scary Creek on July 17, 1861 — the first Confederate victory in the Kanawha Valley. About 1,300 Union troops under Brigadier General Jacob D. Cox clashed with 900 Confederates under Brigadier General Henry A. Wise. Confederate Captain Albert Jenkins led his side to victory after Colonel George S. Patton — grandfather of the WWII general — was wounded.

The construction of Interstate 64 in the 1960s was the defining event for the Tacketts Branch area. The interstate was built directly through the Teays Valley, passing within a mile of the properties at 756 and 758 Tacketts Branch Road. This wasn’t coincidence — highway engineers followed the same flat terrain that the Teays River, the C&O Railway, and the James River & Kanawha Turnpike had all followed before.

I-64 transformed Hurricane from a quiet railroad town into a bedroom community for Charleston and Huntington, both 30 minutes away. The Tacketts Branch area, with its proximity to interstate exits and the gently rolling Teays Valley topography, became prime residential development territory.

The transformation was rapid:

• 1957The Winfield Bridge connected the northern and southern halves of Putnam County, which the Kanawha River had divided for over a century.
• 1960sInterstate 64 was constructed through the Teays Valley, placing Hurricane directly on the corridor between Charleston and Huntington.
• 1970sHurricane achieved city status when its population surpassed 3,000 residents.
• 1990sToyota established a major manufacturing facility in the county, becoming one of the largest employers.

Between 2010 and 2020, Hurricane was the second-fastest-growing community in West Virginia. Putnam County has been one of the fastest-growing counties in the state — remarkable in a state where most counties have been losing population for decades.