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Where Belmont County’s Saturday-Night Entertainment Dollars Go Now

When a Belmont County resident finishes a long workweek and finally has a free Saturday night, where does that leisure money actually go? A generation ago the answer was simple — the movies in St. Clairsville, a bingo night at the fire hall, maybe an Ohio State Buckeyes game on the tube with a pizza on the way. Today the menu of choices is longer, blurrier, and increasingly digital. Ohio's shifting attitudes toward how people spend their downtime say a lot about a bigger national tug-of-war between old-school pastimes and on-demand screens. That conversation naturally runs into the ...

Why Rising Travel Costs Keep More People Home

For years, the long Labor Day weekend meant one thing across Belmont County: loading up the car, checking the tire pressure, and pointing the family toward a lake cabin, a ballgame, or a stretch of Ohio River shoreline. Lately, though, the math has changed. Gas prices at stations along Route 7 and Interstate 70 have climbed to levels that make a road trip feel less like a treat and more like a budget decision. Airfare hasn't been kind either. So a growing number of folks are trading the crowded highway for the comfort of their own living room, and that shift is quietly reshaping how ...

“Implanted Device Brings Hope to Those With Overactive Bladder”

Dr. Stanley Zaslau joined Reynolds Memorial Hospital a little over a year ago with the mission of creating a dedicated urology department at the hospital. He had previously spent 25 years of his career at Ruby Memorial Hospital, serving as chief of urology and then founding chair of the ...

Lessons From Women-Led Ohio Valley Hospitality

Picture a Saturday morning in downtown St. Clairsville. A woman flips the sign on her café door from "Closed" to "Open," starts the espresso machine, and greets the first regulars by name before they even reach the counter. Scenes like this play out across the Ohio Valley every week, from family-run diners in Martins Ferry to boutique coffee shops near Wheeling. Behind a growing share of these counters, kitchens, and dining rooms are women who decided to bet on themselves. Their stories say a lot about how hospitality gets done right, and they echo similar ventures far beyond Belmont ...

Why Ohio Valley’s Small Businesses Aren’t Struggling More Than Big Cities

For years, the assumption has been simple: businesses in smaller regional markets face steeper odds than their counterparts in major metropolitan areas. Limited capital, thinner customer bases, and less access to venture funding supposedly stack the deck against places like the Ohio Valley. That framing gets repeated so often it rarely gets questioned. But a closer look at recent data tells a more complicated story. Ohio's small-business sector isn't just holding steady — it's expanding at a pace that outstrips many assumptions built into the "big city advantage" narrative. Growth ...