West Virginia was once a part of Virginia . Although West Virginia 's first constitution provided for the assumption of a part of the Virginia debt , negotiations opened by Virginia in 1870 were fruitless , and in 1871 , Virginia funded two-thirds of the debt and arbitrarily assigned the remainder to West Virginia . The issue was finally settled in 1915 , when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that West Virginia owed Virginia $ 12,393,929.50 .