Tag: B&O Bridge (a) (Harpers Ferry WV)

Wikipedia says: Harpers Ferry, population 286 at the 2010 census, is a historic town in Jefferson County, West Virginia, United States, in the lower Shenandoah Valley. (Until 1863, it was in Virginia.) It is situated at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, where the U.S. states of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia meet. It is the easternmost town in West Virginia and during the Civil War was the northernmost point of Confederate-controlled territory. It has been called, speaking of the Civil War, “the best strategic point in the whole South”.

…The word “ferry” in the town’s name—the ferry ended in 1824, when a covered wooden road bridge, Wager’s Bridge, was built–conceals the fact that Harpers Ferry is the site of the first and for many years the only railroad bridge across the Potomac River, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad’s bridge, built in 1836–37. None of Washington D.C.’s bridges connecting it with Virginia carried more than horse traffic, until after the Civil War.