Mannington, once called Koontown, was renamed in 1856 when it was chartered as a town by the Virginia Assembly and was incorporated under West Virginia law in 1871. By 1900, abundant natural gas had attracted diverse industry, including brick, glass, and boiler factories, machine shops, granite works, Bowers Pottery Co., among the world’s largest makers of sanitary products, and Phillips Tool Co., which served the coal, oil, and gas industries. One mile south at Flaggy Meadow is the site of the first oil well in the Mannington field, drilled on 11 Oct. 1889, where geologist I. C. White (1848–1927) scientifically verified the location using the anticlinal theory. The oil and gas boom sparked industrial growth in Mannington. Flaggy Meadow is also the site of an uncommon round barn built by Amos Hamilton in 1912 at a cost of $1,900.