Creation: Appeared between 1957-60 running as it does now as an upgrade to Wyoming CRs 5 and 5/4 and Raleigh CRs 34/1, 17/2 and 17. The routing around Lester was new construction. This is the 3rd WV 54. Adjustments: None Improvements: Paved upon designation; no multilane segments Comment: An alternative to WV 16 from Mullens to the Beckley area WV 54 will be truly redundant when WV 121 is extended to the Mullens area. Curiously this could be why WV 97 was extended over a lot of WV 54 - so that WV 54 south of WV 97 could be decommssioned by the WV 121 eventuality.

WV 54 from Mullins to Beckley area 1960 Power Utilities

WV 54 from Romney to Cumberland MD 1922 Official

WV 28 replaces WV 54 1931 Official

WV 54 #2: Appeared between 1929-31 as a renumbering of WV 21 running from WV 3 Alderson north to US 60 Black Sam Church.
In 1934 (WVDOT Annual Report), WV 54 was rerouted away from Black Sam Church to instead hit US 60 at Alta. The old route used today's CR 25.
In 1938, WVDOH studied requesting replacing all of WV 54 with an unspecified US route number. It is unclear if they formally requested this or not but it obviously did not happen.
In 1945 or 1946, WV 54 was renumbered as part of an extended WV 12. Today it is still WV 12 except at its north end it used today's CR 12/7 which is cutoff by I-64 from CR 60/36.

WV 54 from Alderson to Black Sam Church 1931 Official

WV 54 from Alderson to Alta 1939 Rand McN

WV 54 replaced by WV 12 1946 Official