Princeton, is a city in and the county chair of Mercer County, West Virginia, United States. The city is coined the “Heart of Mercer County” or the “Jewel of the South” in in the ventilate of decades. The population was 6,432 at the 2010 census with approximately 35,000 residents vivacious in the greater Princeton area. It is share of the Bluefield, WV-VA micropolitan area which has a population of 107,342. The city hosts the Princeton WhistlePigs baseball club of the Appalachian League. A main tourist destination of the city is the Mercer Street Grassroots District located in Downtown Princeton. This area has been revitalized and is now house to cafes, restaurants, shops, and artistic venues.

Although Princeton did not see any major battles upon its soil, there was the Battle of Pigeon Roost, or the Battle of Princeton Courthouse on May 17, 1862, a victory for the Confederates defending the Dublin railroad.   

Princeton had been burned a couple of weeks earlier on May 1 below the command of Captain Walter Jenifer, CSA to prevent the Union army from acquiring their supplies.  The town was not burned in retaliation or violent behavior toward the residents of Princeton.  In fact, according to local history, many of the residents of Princeton torched their own homes and moved upon from the area.  Few structures would remain after the fire.  The Robert McNutt house is the unaided structure that remains in Princeton which, ironically, served as headquarters for the Union army at one time.  Princeton and Mercer County would remain like-minded of the Confederacy, and was not included in the native counties that made in the works the supplementary state of West Virginia.

By the terminate of 1865 Judge Nathaniel Harrison was appointed as circuit judge, and Princeton residents shunned him because he was a Confederate turncoat.  Princeton slowly rebuilt during Reconstruction, but the railroad would eventually bring significant enlargement to Princeton.