page_title: Huntington, West Virginia
section_title: Economy
hierarchical_section_title: Huntington, West Virginia / Economy
caption_attribution_description: English: The CSX-Huntington Division Headquarters with the statue of Collis P. Huntington by Gutzon Borglum in the foreground. Taken May 18, 2013.
context_page_description: Huntington is a city in Cabell and Wayne Counties in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is the county seat of Cabell County, and largest city in the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area, sometimes referred to as the Tri-State Area. A historic and bustling city of commerce and heavy industry, Huntington has benefited from its location on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Guyandotte River. It is home to the Port of Huntington Tri-State, the second-busiest inland port in the United States.
  Surrounded by extensive natural resources, the industrial sector is based in coal, oil, chemicals and steel, all of which support Huntington's diversified economy. The city is a vital rail-to-river transfer point for the marine transportation industry. Also, it is considered a scenic locale in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. This location was selected by Collis Potter Huntington as ideal for the western terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, the predecessor of what would become CSX Transportation which still operates CSX Transportation-Huntington Division in the city to date.
context_section_description: The growth of Huntington and its economy was originally based on steel processing, shipping, manufacturing, and transportation through the 1970s, then the city experienced deindustrialization which cost residents tens of thousands of low-skill, high-wage jobs. Huntington has since been adapting to the collapse of the region's steel industry. The primary industries have shifted to high technology, such as, the film and television industries, health care, biomedical technology, finance, tourism, and the service sector. The Amazon Customer Service Center in Huntington employs approximately 500–700 people.
  Huntington has grown its economic base in recent years to include technology, retail, finance, education, and medical care (which constitutes the largest proportion of the city's employment). The largest employers are Marshall University, Cabell Huntington Hospital, St. Mary's Medical Center, Amazon, DirecTV, and the City of Huntington.
  Area retail is anchored by the Huntington Mall, the largest mall in the state, and a healthy downtown retail sector including many boutique shops along the Old Main Corridor, Third Avenue, and Pullman Square.
  The newest area of development is Kinetic Park, a premier technology park on Sixteenth Street, 1/4 mile north of interstate 64. The flagship of the development is Amazon's new 70,000 sq ft (6,500 m²). Customer Service Center, which opened in November 2011. Other development in Kinetic Park includes a Spring Hill Suites by Marriott hotel, a Hampton Inn hotel, a Bob Evans restaurant, Goldy Chrysler, and the Huntington Pediatric Dentistry and Orthodontics clinic.
  The first large manufacturing business in Huntington was the Ensign Car Works, founded in Huntington in 1872 by Ely Ensign and William H. Barnum, who managed a car wheel manufacturing company, the Barnum and Richardson Company, in Connecticut. The company was incorporated on November 1, 1872. Financing was provided primarily by Barnum and Collis P. Huntington, who was one of the principals in the Central Pacific Railroad and founder of the City of Huntington.
  For the first ten years of production, Ensign manufactured iron parts such as railroad car wheels. The company began building wooden freight cars in the early 1880s, selling a large portion of its inventory to the Chesapeake and Ohio, Southern Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, all of which were controlled by Huntington. In 1962, the Huntington ACF plant began building a revolutionary new design that quickly became the standard of the rail car industry. The car, known as the CenterFlow covered hopper car, was developed by ACF to transport huge volumes of light-weight, high-bulk commodities, such as plastic pellets. By 1992, ACF had manufactured more than 100,000 hopper cars. The sprawling ACF Industries rail car plant once had many as 1,600 employees with an annual payroll of $30 million. Now, reports indicate only four people work there – and three of them are security guards.
   Since its founding as the western terminus of the C&O Railroad, Huntington has served as a major break of bulk point between rail traffic and the Ohio River/Mississippi River watershed. The Huntington Division is still the largest in the CSX Transportation network. A large portion of the division's revenue comes from hauling coal out of the coalfields of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Much of the coal is brought to the Port of Huntington-Tristate by train to be transported by river barges to industrial centers in other states.
  Huntington is in the company's Southern Region and is the largest of ten operating divisions on the network. The division comprises the former railroads Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O); Baltimore and Ohio (B&O); Western Maryland (WM); Louisville and Nashville (L&N); and the Clinchfield. It serves the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio. CSX's Huntington Division main office is in the historical former C&O passenger station downtown. The office is home to a regional office that is home to the divisions's top managers, a centralized yardmasters and 
caption: The former C&O Depot, now CSX-Huntington Division Headquarters, with the statue of Collis P. Huntington by Gutzon Borglum in the foreground.
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