Harpers Ferry, WV Summary

HARPERS FERRY, a ruggedly sited eighteenth-century town now restored as a national historic park, gives many visitors their first and only look at West Virginia. Clinging to steep hillsides above the rocky confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers, many of the town’s forty-odd brick and stone buildings date from the days when George Washington set up the country’s first national munitions factory here to arm the young Republic. During the mid-1800s Harpers Ferry was a thriving industrial complex, home to some five thousand workers and linked to the capital by the B&O Railroad and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. After suffering the ravages of the Civil War and a series of torrential floods, however, it was all but abandoned, the empty shells of its homes and factories slowly becoming overgrown by the dense forest that covers the surrounding hills. Almost all of Harpers Ferry has since been reconstructed as an outdoor museum, combining historical importance and natural beauty.