Morgantown, city, seat of Monongalia County, northern West Virginia, on the Monongahela River; incorporated as a city 1905. It is a commercial, manufacturing, and transportation center in an agricultural, coal-mining, and limestone-quarrying area. Medical services are important to the city's economy. Major products include pharmaceuticals, glass, metal items, chemicals, and textiles. The city is the seat of West Virginia University (1867). Lakeview Resort and a conference center are here, and Cheat Lake and Cooper Rock State Forest are nearby. The first settlement on the site of present-day Morgantown was established in 1758. After raids by Delaware and Mingo peoples destroyed it, a new community was founded here in 1766-67 by Zackquill Morgan, the son of the first permanent non-Native American settler in what is now West Virginia. Population 27,605 (1980); 25,879 (1990); 26,809 (2000).
