 A spur connected Sistersville to the county seat at Middlebourne.A disastrous flood of the Ohio River in 1913 (which crested at 51.5 feet at Wheeling upriver and 69.9 feet downriver at Cincinnati) caused considerable damage in Sistersville, Otherwise, the disasters Sistersville faced usually involved fire, long before a 1970 fire that destroyed a historic downtown block.Sistersville long had several fire brigades or pumping companies.