Bath County, Virginia

Bath County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Warm Springs
Year Organized: 1790
Square Miles: 532

Court House:

P.O. Box 309
County Courthouse
Warm Springs, VA 24484-0309

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Bath is either named for the many warm springs within its borders or for Bath, England.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Bath County formed from Augusta, Botetourt, and Greenbrier Counties. Legislative enactment in 1790. Organized in 1791. [Virginia Counties: Those Resulting from Virginia Legislation, by Morgan Poitiaux Robinson, originally published as Bulletin of the Virginia State Library, Volume 9, January, April, July 1916, reprinted 1992 by Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., Baltimore, MD.]

Bath County was given its name either for the many mineral springs found in the county or for the town of Bath in England. It was formed from Augusta, Botetourt and Greenbrier (West Virginia) Counties on December 14, 1790. Its area is 540 square miles, and the county seat is Warm Springs.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 535 square miles (1,384 km²), of which, 532 square miles (1,378 km²) of it is land and 3 square miles (7 km²) of it (0.51%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Alleghany County, VA to the south
Augusta County, VA to the east
Greenbrier County, WV to the southwest
Highland County, VA to the north
Pocahontas County, WV to the west
Rockbridge County, VA to the southeast

Cities and Towns:

Warm Springs (County Seat)

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of our country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."

Penn Foster High School

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