Jack Dempsey, world heavyweight boxing champion from 1919 to 1926, spent his boyhood in Logan, county seat of Logan County. Dempsey was born in Manassa, Colorado, but grew up in Logan, West Virginia. He began his career as a fighter at the tender age of 12 while working in the mines. Mining camp boxing bouts were set up. He lost the title to Gene Tunney in 1926. At their second fight in 1927 he lost again on the so-called "long-count" when he failed to go to a neutral corner after knocking Tunney down in the seventh round.
South of Logan is the burial site for Devil Anse Hatfield, one of the family leaders in the famous feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Logan was originally called Lawnsville when it became the county seat in 1824. It later was named Aracoma, after the eldest daughter of Chief Cornstalk when she came to live there with her white husband, Bolling Baker. In 1907, it was renamed Logan in honor of the chief of the Mingos.
Logan is the trading center for a large mining and logging area. Extensive logging of the area's poplar, cherry, and white oak timber started in 1850. Coal mining started to develop in 1904 with the advent of the railroad.
Logan County is in southwest West Virginia on the Allegheny Plateau. It is known for its bituminous coal, natural gas, timber and livestock, fruit and tobacco farms. Logan County was founded in 1824. Consisting of some 456 square miles of land area, the county was named after Logan, the most famous of the chiefs of the Mingo tribe which was an early inhabitant of the territory that became West Virginia. Logan had been extremely friendly and cooperative with whites until his own family was massacred in 1774. Then the Mingo tribe under Logan's leadership took savage vengeance against the settlers. Logan allied his tribe with the British forces after 1774.