Lost Creek, West Virginia

Lost Creek got its name from a mystery that may never be solved. Local legend holds that early settlers found a tree on a creek bank with letters carved into the bark: the words I AM LOST, followed by the initials K.D. Beside the tree lay a human skeleton. No one ever identified the person. The creek took the name, and so did the town.

By the early twentieth century, Lost Creek had become something more than a curiosity. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had built through Harrison County, and the Lost Creek depot, built in eighteen ninety-two, grew into a major cattle shipping hub. By nineteen twenty-three, it was the largest cattle shipping point east of the Mississippi River. Drovers pushed herds from across the region to this small station, where the animals were loaded onto railcars bound for eastern markets. That era faded with the mid-century decline of rail freight, but the name and the legend remain.