Driving through Ravenswood, West Virginia

Ravenswood is a city in Jackson County, West Virginia, United States, along the Ohio River. The population was 3,876 at the 2010 census. Ravenswood is sited on land once owned by George Washington. Washington acquired the 2,448-acre (10 km2) parcel in 1770, and designated Colonel William Crawford to survey the lands in 1771. A permanent settlement was first established in 1810, and the town streets and lots were laid out in their current pattern by descendants of Washington in 1835. When Kaiser Aluminum planned a new facility with 12,000 workers, Bill Finley was hired to plan a "company town" of 25,000. He went on to become a planner with the National Capital Planning Commission, and develop the community of Columbia, Maryland, for the Rouse Company. The Kaiser facility is now owned by Constellium and Century Aluminum. In February 2010, USA Today referred to Ravenswood as "teetering on a ghost town". Mayor Lucy Harbert responded by bringing in sponsorships from several Silicon Valley-based companies like ScanCafe.com and StartUps.com. On March 26, 2010, Mike Ruben, a reporter with the State Journal newspaper, announced that Ravenswood was "transforming" the town into "Aluminum City, U.S.A." to help attract local tourism revenue: "L.A. Promoter Plans to Market 'Aluminum City'." None of these developments came to fruition.