Editing Ronceverte, West Virginia (section)

==Culture and history==
Ronceverte might have been named "Edgar", for the high number of Edgars who lived in the town, but the name was settled by a leading [[entrepreneur]] of the area, Cecil Clay, president of the [[St. Lawrence Boom and Lumber Company|St. Lawrence Boom and Manufacturing Company]]. According to Clay, he saw the name on an old [[Jesuit]] map from [[Fort Duquesne]]. His argument was that the name "looked well in print and was [[euphonious]] in sound."<ref>"Ronceverte--Name Chosen for Our Town"--Riders of the Flood Historic Newsletter, 2000.</ref> As the owner of the town's site, Clay argued he had the right to decide on the name, but the residents could change the name to whatever they wanted once Ronceverte was fully established. That day has never happened. Since April 1, 1882, the town has been Ronceverte.

''Ronceverte'' is [[French language|French]] for "Bramble Green", which is the [[Gauls|Gallic]] equivalent for "Greenbrier".<ref>{{cite book|last=Kenny|first=Hamill|title=West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning, Including the Nomenclature of the Streams and Mountains|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015009099824;view=1up;seq=566;size=125|year=1945|publisher=The Place Name Press|location=Piedmont, WV|page=540}}</ref> Greenbriers are a common vine (''[[Smilax rotundifolia]]''), and a humorous myth has it the [[Surveying|surveyors]] were trapped in a thicket of the painful vines when they discovered the [[Greenbrier River]]. French surveyors were likely the first [[cartographer]]s for the area, although many of the details have been lost to history.

The river is still inseparable from the culture of the town itself, considered one of the earliest significant [[river port]]s in the Greenbrier River [[Drainage basin|watershed]].<ref>[http://www.greenbrierriver.org Greenbrier River Org.]</ref> Ronceverte has been significantly impacted by the Greenbrier River flooding in 1985, 1996, and 2016.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://mountainmessenger.com/flood-1985-remembered/|title=The Flood of 1985 remembered|date=2015-11-02|access-date=2018-06-28|language=en-US}}</ref>

The [[Hokes Mill Covered Bridge]] was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1981. The [[Ronceverte Historic District]] was listed in 2005.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>