South Point: Ohio's Southernmost Village

South Point sits just west of the very tip of Ohio, where the state dips to its lowest latitude along the Ohio River. It was founded in the summer of seventeen ninety-eight by William Davidson, a Revolutionary War veteran who received this land as payment for his service. Davidson crossed to the north bank of the Ohio and settled directly opposite the mouth of the Big Sandy River, the same waterway that today marks the boundary between Kentucky and West Virginia.

The village was named simply for the geographic fact of where it stood. Fifty-eight residents petitioned for incorporation in eighteen eighty-seven, and a year later Jerry Davidson was elected the first mayor. For two centuries South Point has been the southernmost incorporated community in the state of Ohio.