Huntington, West Virginia
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40 free Huntington, West Virginia trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Huntington, West Virginia, began as a railroad baron's planned city on the banks of a great river, and it has collected good stories ever since: a college football team that rebuilt after tragedy, a century-old amusement park, a vaudeville palace and more than a few famous sons. This quiz covers how the city was founded and named, its bridges, parks and neighbourhoods, Marshall University and its athletes, and the actors, comedians and podcasters who got their start here. You will also meet the films, television series and even a video game that put the city on screen. It is written for locals, Marshall fans and anyone planning a visit or a trivia night. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you leave with a few fun facts worth repeating.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which film's lead was partly modelled on Joseph Sullivan, a patient at Huntington's Autism Services Center?
Rain Man
Rain Man star Dustin Hoffman drew on Joseph Sullivan for Raymond Babbitt, and Sullivan's mother Ruth, who founded the Huntington centre, served as a consultant on the film.
Q 02Which comedian came to Marshall University in Huntington on a baseball scholarship but never played?
Billy Crystal
Billy Crystal arrived in 1965, but Marshall suspended its baseball program during his first year and he did not come back as a sophomore.
Q 03Which actor plays coach Jack Lengyel in We Are Marshall, the film about Huntington's 1970 plane crash?
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey played Lengyel, who rebuilt Marshall football with walk-ons and athletes from other sports after the crash killed all 75 people aboard.
Q 04Which British chef set his Emmy-winning 2010 ABC series about school lunches in Huntington?
Jamie Oliver
Jamie Oliver picked Huntington for Food Revolution because it was statistically one of the unhealthiest cities in the country, then took the second season to Los Angeles.
Q 05Camden Park, West Virginia's only amusement park, was built near Huntington in 1903 to win riders for what?
Trolleys
Trolleys were the point: the Camden Interstate Railway Company opened the park as a picnic spot, hoping weekend outings would fill its cars.
Q 06Despite its name, the Huntington Mall, West Virginia's largest, actually stands in which nearby community?
Barboursville
Barboursville, a village east of Huntington, got the mall in 1981, when its only neighbours were two bars and a gas station.
Q 07Which Hall of Fame receiver starred at Huntington's Marshall University before the Vikings drafted him in 1998?
Randy Moss
Randy Moss caught four touchdown passes in the 1996 title game as Marshall went unbeaten and won the Division I-AA championship.
Q 08Which nickname do Marshall University's teams in Huntington share with a 1925 Western novel by Zane Grey?
Thundering Herd
Thundering Herd was pinned on the team by a Huntington sports editor, but it only became official in a 1965 vote that left the rival name Big Green to the fundraisers.
Q 09Which food has had its own annual West Virginia festival in Huntington since 2005, eating contest included?
Hot dogs
Hot dogs here come West Virginia style, with chili sauce, chopped onion, coleslaw and yellow mustard, and the festival also stages wiener dog races.
Q 10Which founder of Negro History Week finished high school in Huntington and later ran the school as principal?
Carter G. Woodson
Carter G. Woodson worked in West Virginia's coal mines before entering Douglass High School at twenty; he earned his diploma in under two years and returned as principal in 1900.
Q 11Huntington was founded in 1871 as the western terminus of which railway running from Richmond, Virginia?
Chesapeake and Ohio
Chesapeake and Ohio trains reached the river here in 1873, fulfilling a long-held dream of a rail link from the James River to the Ohio Valley.
Q 12Collis P. Huntington, who gave the West Virginia city his name, was one of the Big Four behind which railroad?
Central Pacific
Central Pacific made his fortune: a gold rush merchant in Sacramento, he joined Stanford, Hopkins and Crocker to build part of the first US transcontinental line.
Q 13Which river meets the Ohio at Huntington, where an older town of the same name was absorbed in 1891?
Guyandotte
Q 21Which Huntington-born NBA great was the first African American to play for a major college team in West Virginia?
Hal Greer
Hal Greer broke that barrier at Marshall in the 1950s, then played fifteen NBA seasons for the Syracuse Nationals and Philadelphia 76ers; 16th Street now carries his name.
Q 22In which sport did unseeded Marshall University of Huntington stun Indiana in overtime to win an NCAA title?
Men's soccer
Men's soccer delivered the title on a golden goal, after Marshall had already knocked out top seed Clemson and defending champions Georgetown.
Q 23The 1970 plane crash near Huntington killed a Marshall football team flying home from a loss to which school?
East Carolina
Guyandotte the town dates from 1799, seven decades before Huntington existed, and it survives as one of the city's neighbourhoods at the river mouth.
Q 14At the 2020 census, which was the only city in West Virginia with more residents than Huntington?
Charleston
Charleston, the state capital, counted 48,864 people to Huntington's 46,842; Huntington had been far bigger in 1950, when it peaked at 86,353.
Q 15Which Kentucky city joins Huntington in the name of the tri-state metropolitan area that locals call Kyova?
Ashland
Ashland anchors the Kentucky side of a metro area that crosses two state lines; the local nickname blends Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
Q 16Huntington is the seat of which West Virginia county, named for an early governor of Virginia?
Cabell
Cabell County, organized in 1809, honours William H. Cabell, though the Westmoreland neighbourhood at Huntington's western edge spills into Wayne County.
Q 17Which long-serving senator gives his name to the bridge from downtown Huntington across to Ohio?
Robert C. Byrd
Robert C. Byrd won the funding for the 1994 span, which replaced a Gothic-style bridge of 1926 whose two-ton spires were saved for display.
Q 18Huntington's Memorial Arch, West Virginia's only triumphal arch, honours service in which conflict?
World War I
World War I service is what the county's memorial association set out to mark, building the arch of gray Indiana limestone between 1924 and 1929.
Q 19What did Huntington build along the Ohio River after the river's record 1937 crest swamped much of the city?
A floodwall
A floodwall was begun in 1938 and finished in 1943; the work was allowed to carry on through World War II because so many of the city's plants were vital to defense.
Q 20Which 1928 Huntington vaudeville palace, designed by Thomas W. Lamb, hosted the premiere of We Are Marshall?
Keith-Albee Theatre
Keith-Albee Theatre was thought to be the second largest theater in the United States when it opened, and its restored sign went back up over Fourth Avenue in 2012.
East Carolina had won 17–14 in Greenville, North Carolina, that afternoon; the chartered jet hit a hill just short of the runway on its approach.
Q 24Which Marshall University landmark in Huntington is shut off every November 14 until spring?
The memorial fountain
The memorial fountain, a 13-foot sculpture designed by Harry Bertoia, carries a plaque naming all 75 people killed in the 1970 plane crash.
Q 25Which Huntington-born actor went from an Oscar nomination for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to voicing Chucky?
Brad Dourif
Brad Dourif started out with the Huntington Community Players while attending Marshall University; his grandfather had co-founded the Standard Ultramarine and Color Company in the city.
Q 26Which pie-in-the-face TV comic graduated from Huntington High School and Marshall University?
Soupy Sales
Soupy Sales began as a scriptwriter and disc jockey at Huntington radio station WHTN, and claimed he and his guests were hit by more than 20,000 pies.
Q 27Which Dungeons & Dragons podcast do Huntington's McElroy brothers play with their father, Clint?
The Adventure Zone
The Adventure Zone began in 2014 with a starter set, and its first graphic novel topped a New York Times best-seller list; the brothers also filmed a TV series in Huntington.
Q 28Which future NBA guard led Huntington High School to its third straight state basketball title in 2007?
O. J. Mayo
O. J. Mayo spent a single season at Huntington High, ending it with a 103–61 rout in the state final, and went third overall in the 2008 NBA draft.
Q 29Which quarterback of Huntington's unbeaten 1999 Marshall team became a first-round pick of the Jets?
Chad Pennington
Chad Pennington finished fifth in the 1999 Heisman voting after a 13–0 season, and in 2000 he was the first quarterback taken in the NFL draft.
Q 30Huntington's East End Bridge was renamed in 2006 for which Marshall alumnus, a Hall of Fame center for the Browns?
Frank Gatski
Frank Gatski, nicknamed Gunner, was Marshall's first member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and the school retired his number 72 in 2005.