Fort Gay is a town in Wayne County, West Virginia, along the Tug Fork and Big Sandy Rivers. The town adjoins Louisa, Kentucky. The population was 819 at the 2000 census. Originally chartered in 1875 as Cassville. Its name was changed to Fort Gay in 1932, at the instigation of Wardy Lovely, who was a member of the city council as well as a local educator. The story goes that he was fed up with local wags smearing mud on the initial C from city signs, changing it to "assville". Name selected because of the location prior to the Civil War of a fort (Fort Gallup) on a hill at Louisa, Kentucky, opposite the community. Fort Gay is a part of the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH, Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2000 census, the MSA had a population of 288,649. The Norfolk Southern Railway's Kenova District goes through the western edge of town.