The West Virginia and Regional History Collection is the foremost historical archives/library in West Virginia. The Collection dates back to 1930 when the University Library accepted the responsibility of preserving the papers of Senator Waitman T. Willey, a founding father of West Virginia. The papers of other key political and industrial leaders soon followed, including those of Francis H. Pierpont, governor of the Reorganized Government of Virginia (1861-1863), and capitalist titans Henry Gassaway Davis and Johnson Newlon Camden.
The West Virginia University Board of Governors formally authorized the Library's growing "Division of Documents," as the Collection was initially known, in 1933. The Collection was designated as a permissive depository for public records by an act of the state legislature the following year and thus became a center for preserving the court records of many of West Virginia's oldest counties during the WPA period. During the 1950s, the Collection's scope was expanded to include printed materials, audio-visuals and other historical information resources regardless of their format.
Today, the West Virginia and Regional History Collection maintains leading collections in many fields and formats. Its library of West Virginia books, periodicals and newspapers is unmatched, as are its holdings of early West Virginia photographs, maps, broadsides, folk music. The Collection's archives and manuscripts division continues to embrace the majority of deposited papers of West Virginia's political leaders, from the first governor, Arthur I. Boreman, to those of Governor Arch Moore, as well as outstanding archival resources regarding virtually all aspects of the state's economic, cultural, and social history.
The use of all materials in this site are subject where applicable to the Rules for the Use of Library Materials in the West Virginia and Regional History Collection.