Town file
Hensley, West Virginia
Hensley, West Virginia (McDowell County, West Virginia) is the town in one episode of Small Town Murder, the comedy true-crime podcast: episode 342, "Horror In The Hills" (3 December 2022). Hensley is a speck of a town in McDowell County in southern West Virginia, a coal county that had 99,000 people in 1950 and 19,000 by the time of this story, with 42 people left in Hensley itself.
- Town
- Hensley
- County
- McDowell County
- State
- West Virginia
- Country
- USA
- Episodes
- 342
- Approximate location
- 37.474, -81.700
Episode 342 / 3 December 2022 / 69 min / express
Horror In The Hills
"Boy, this is this is Hensley, West Virginia... the county that it's in, McDowell County." about 0:03:07
The case: Murder of Paul David Thompson (February 16, 1988). Read the case file.
The figures, as told in 2022
- Median household income
- $9,659
- Median home value
- $77,500
History, in brief
- The town had several names: first Claren, then Claron Station, then Hensley Claron, before it was simply called Hensley. about 0:06:47
- It became part of West Virginia in 1863, one of several Union-affiliated counties during the Civil War. about 0:06:56
- Newspapers described McDowell County as the free state of McDowell because it was essentially ungovernable and nobody knew what the people there wanted. about 0:07:21
- By the first half of the twentieth century the county was dominated by coal mining, and in 1950 it was the leading coal-producing county in the United States. about 0:07:40
- In 1950 16% of the county's population was employed in the coal sector. about 0:07:50
- In 1960 the coal workforce dropped from 16,000 to 7,000 people. about 0:07:59
- John F. Kennedy, while running for president, spoke in Welch and said twenty or twenty-five percent of McDowell County was out of work, some of them for years. about 0:08:09
- The collapse of coal left abandoned, dilapidated shacks on the hillsides and the county population fell from 99,000 in 1950 to 19,000. about 0:03:43
- In 2020 McDowell County was the third poorest county in the United States, out of the 3,143 counties in the country. about 0:04:12
The reviews read out
3 stars
"There is not much to do in a town of 42 people; Billy Joe died of black lung combined with scurvy, taking it to 41, then Jim Billy died of gangrene and the reviewer dropped it to two stars. Nice town, people care about each other, but the only thing to do is go outside."about 0:10:02
Nearest Small Town Murder towns
- Skygusty, West Virginia16 miles
- Lashmeet, West Virginia28 miles
- Pemberton, West Virginia31 miles
- Princeton, West Virginia34 miles
- Beckley, West Virginia36 miles
- Dingess, West Virginia38 miles
Everything here is as told in the episode, on the date it went out; figures and places may have changed since. Endings are covered: open an episode and use the spoiler switch to read them.